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Reassurance   /rˌiəʃˈʊrəns/   Listen
Reassurance

noun
1.
The act of reassuring; restoring someone's confidence.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Reassurance" Quotes from Famous Books



... moved in the white light and silence along the road, aimless and sorrowing. Suddenly I heard the voice of my poor husband in exclamations of astonishment, with that of my son in reassurance and dissuasion; and there by the shadow of a group of trees they stood—near, so near! Their faces were toward me, the eyes of the elder man fixed upon mine. He saw me—at last, at last, he saw me! In the consciousness of that, my terror fled as a cruel dream. The death-spell ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce

... that Miss Fanny Glen felt at this particular moment gave her a temporary reassurance as to some questions which had agitated her—how much she cared, after all, for Lieutenant Rhett Sempland, and did she like him better than Major Harry Lacy? Both questions were instantly decided in the negative—for the time being. She hated Rhett Sempland; ...
— A Little Traitor to the South - A War Time Comedy With a Tragic Interlude • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... lazy, for healthy-minded and despairing, exactly the same religious incentives are required? Or are different functions in the organism of humanity allotted to different types of man, so that some may really be the better for a religion of consolation and reassurance, whilst others are better for one of terror and reproof? It might conceivably be so; and we shall, I think, more and more suspect it to be so as we go on. And if it be so, how can any possible judge or critic help being biased in favor ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James

... Eben, and forthwith Jerome had followed him out of the woods into the road, and down it until they reached his sister's, Miss Camilla Merritt's, house, not far from Doctor Prescott's. There Squire Eben was about to part with Jerome, with more words of reassurance, when suddenly he remembered that his sister needed such a boy to weed her flower-beds, and had spoken to him about procuring one for her. So he had bidden Jerome follow him; and the boy, who would at that moment have ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... of her after seventy-four years of time's attrition—had a way of speaking which made it easy enough to believe that she had, in her day, been a beautiful singer. As her message to the world was usually one of promise and reassurance, she had the gift of dwelling with songlike sweetness on those words in which the music lay. She was altogether lovable and quaint. On fine days she would still go forth alone, bearing her mother-of-pearl card-case, and she would leave ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart

... that, for the moment, she became as serious as he. She lifted her hand from his shoulder and then set it back more firmly, so that he should feel the reassurance ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington

... despair rang in her voice. Her hands suddenly gripped each other in agonized misgiving. But on the instant his gripped closer, holding them crushed against his breast in fierce reassurance. His eyes shone full into hers, and for one moment of fiery rapture which both were to remember all their lives their souls mingled, became fused in one, forgetful of ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell

... and she raised a hand of reassurance. "Nothing has happened—perhaps that is just the worst of it. You always hated, you know," she added incoherently, "to have things happen: ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton

... impossible for a plumber to murder anyone she panted now from a sense of reassurance and security. She could see too that he was a decent looking young fellow in overalls, off ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King

... rippled a succession of leers, grins, and grimaces, which had the effect of making Master Vallance feel thoroughly uncomfortable. Nor did the stranger's speech, when speech came, carry much of reassurance. ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... call been one of reassurance? To Garry, miserably intent upon the ordeal ahead, the big Irishman, whistling softly in his chair, had sent a message through the dark to ease the tension. Already the daredevil light danced wantonly in ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple

... shoulder of Bull Hunter and snorted his defiance at all other men in the world! And down his neck the big, gentle hand was running, soothing his quivering body, and the steady voice was bringing infinite messages of reassurance to the troubled brain. That hand was loosening now the rope which was burning into his neck—loosening it, drawing it off. And now the bridle followed; and Diablo's mouth was free from the cruel taint of the steel. The head of the stallion turned—great, soft eyes looked into the face of Bull Hunter ...
— Bull Hunter • Max Brand

... utmost need came reassurance and something like ease of mind. He heard a sound of voices at the front of the house, and sprang to his balconied window to listen. Captain Stewart and O'Hara were walking upon the brick-paved terrace ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman

... face, with very small, deep-set eyes, high cheek bones, a tiny nose, and a very wide mouth, and it looked as if some one had sat on it hard and pushed it in. The idea made him smile, and the smile completed the woman's reassurance. She poured a stream of chatter quite unlike the clicks and barkings of the Bow-legs. Then she crept closer to Grom's feet, and proceeded to give her little one the breast. It was twisting uneasily with the pain of its dreadful wound, ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts

... looked at her, needing the reassurance of her human eyes; and they met his with their remote gentleness. For a long moment ...
— Amabel Channice • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... loving looks and words and caresses of those that are left to him are a mere torture to him, then he has used love wrongly, just as a selfish and agreeable delight; but if he finds strength and comfort in the yearning sympathy of friend and beloved, reassurance in the strength of the love that is left him, and confidence in the indestructibility of affection, then he has used love wisely and purely, loving it for itself, for its beauty and holiness, and not only for the warmth and comfort it has ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson

... do not pity them. I envy them, rather, because theirs is a great work for liberty 5 accomplished and we are in the midst of a work unfinished, testing our strength where their strength already has been tested. There is a touch of sorrow, but there is a touch of reassurance also in a day like this, because we know how the men of America have responded to the call of the 10 cause of liberty, and it fills our minds with a perfect assurance that that response will come again in equal measure, with equal majesty, and with a result ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell

... straightening up in the hammock, and staring at him with cold gray eyes. The bulky young man halted, tried to find some reassurance in the no less chilling faces of Sattie Felton and Grace Sinclair, and then said, "How do you do!" in a voice ...
— The Motormaniacs • Lloyd Osbourne

... it is—an oversight," Hayes said with unconvincing reassurance; then, at the hurt look on the supervisor's face, added, "Beyond our control here, of course. Something it would take at least a scientist to spot, something we couldn't be expected ... What I mean is, we shouldn't get alarmed until we know, for ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton

... his being in the conspiracy to ruin him. The attack of Buchanan had a most disastrous effect on his mind. It was the first time that Rossetti had experienced the brutalities of criticism, and his sensitiveness was excessive. No reassurance had any effect; he had heard, he declared, the voices of those who had combined to ruin his reputation discussing the measures they were going to take, and it was evident that it had become a mania closely resembling insanity. ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman

... of reassurance and sorrow, and then the two men seated themselves, the doctor returning to his paper, while Ivan sank into an arm-chair, and stared at the fire that burned in the tiny grate. Vittoria, thoroughly Italian in her habits, had withdrawn ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter

... of electrical storms," explained Jack, patting the wet heap anywhere, in a well-meant attempt at reassurance. ...
— Patty's Butterfly Days • Carolyn Wells

... much given to religious allusions except as a matter of emphasis, but he told himself that that far-off cry of reassurance sounded ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart

... interested in her project the lank mountain-woman who presided at the counter, she lost fear of the result. Together they made careful study of the fashion-papers which the woman had preserved and which the girl had, the night before, remembered with such vividness. Through discussion and reiterated reassurance from her friend, she finally arrived at the decision that with what she had at hand at home and what she could buy here, she could prepare herself to meet the elegant lowlanders with ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey

... then,' roars the indomitable mate, the moment his dripping {127} yardarm comes from under, 'turn to, there—d' y' think we 're going to hang on here the whole damn' day?' Whereupon the men turn to again with twice the confidence and hearty goodwill that any other form of reassurance ...
— All Afloat - A Chronicle of Craft and Waterways • William Wood

... wistful; avid of reassurance. Before he could answer she continued: "That night in the rain when I first saw you, under the flash, as I see you now—Ban, dear, how little you've changed, how wonderfully little, to the eye!—the instant I saw ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... come to him, and I would not without some return of my visits, but we never ceased to be friends, and good friends, so far as I know. I joked him once as to how I was going to come out in his autobiography, and he gave me some sort of joking reassurance. There was one incident, however, that brought us very frequently and actively together. He came one Sunday afternoon to have me call with him on Maxim Gorky, who was staying at a hotel a few streets above mine. We were both interested in Gorky, Clemens rather more as a revolutionist ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... attempt to express what this prospect meant to her was beyond her girlish rapture, but her parted lips and shining eyes told the story to Gale. "And Poleon must go, too. We can't go anywhere without him." The old man smiled down upon her in reassurance. "I wonder what he'll say when he finds the soldiers have come. I ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach

... improved for his whole life by a single kind word at that moment; but the haughty cavalier would not bow to the will of any one, much less to the boy he already hated. A word of encouragement, explanation, pity for his childish ignorance, of reassurance that his mother's roof was to be his home, might have made him ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick

... The flute-player, almost fainting from the heat and weariness, strove bravely to conceal this from his daughter, and, with pitiful assumption of fine strength, smiled down at her, through the thick gloom, from time to time, with reassurance, attempting to instill in her a courage which he, himself, she plainly ...
— The Old Flute-Player - A Romance of To-day • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey

... inquisitively observed his nephew with the keenness of a scientist bent on taking notes. In short kindly sentences he inquired about his life, his habits, and the peaceful happiness he enjoyed at Les Artaud. And at each satisfactory reply he murmured, as if to himself in a tone of reassurance: 'Come, so much the better; that's just as ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola

... into mine with a reassurance that was like balm. Worth rose and found her a hand-glass on the mantel, passing it to her, and with this to reverse the scrawlings, she read and I wrote down in my memorandum book two complete words, two broken words and five single ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan

... sympathy for the dog's fright. He tottered across to the couch, mumbling little phrases of reassurance to the abject Nap. He sat down beside him, and put a kindly ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson

... would dare do anything. And that thought brought reassurance. She would dare, and being what she was she almost surely would seek vengeance on the mullah ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy

... torchlight, demanding to see the Queen, and refusing to depart until Darnley had shown himself and assured them that all was well with the Queen and with himself. And what time Darnley gave them this reassurance from a window of her room, Mary herself stood pale and taut amid the brutal horde that on this alarm had violated the privacy of her chamber, while the ruffianly Red Douglas flashed his dagger before her eyes, swearing that if she made a sound ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini

... elevation of Cordelia's mind, not so much superior as invulnerable to mortal ills; we see this dignity and lovely pride cast down by pity and love, and then in answer to Lear's troubled and anxious look we hear in measured and steadfast tones the reassurance of perfect peace. ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various

... glance came back to rest upon herself, for a second her heart surged. But something in his eyes—she couldn't define exactly what it was save that it was neither censorious nor quizzical—subtly gave her reassurance. It was as if he had told her in so many words that everything was all right, for her not to worry the least little bit. All of a sudden she felt blissfully at peace. She smiled at him for no reason at all, and ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin

... in the last week of January, 1865. Three weeks later he again wrote in reassurance against American rumours that Europe was still planning some form of intervention to save the South: "All parties and classes here are resolved on a strict neutrality[1262]...." This was a correct estimate. In spite of a temporary pause ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams

... dog gazed at the thing in the grass. He rose slowly and very delicately advanced a few steps: for an instant some fear seemed to strike his heart for he stopped suddenly and gazed into his master's face for reassurance. What he saw there comforted him. Again he wagged his tail placidly and half closed ...
— The Prelude to Adventure • Hugh Walpole

... another confidence, clearly calling for an understanding listener, for sympathetic reassurance? Nothing of the sort came to Cally; nothing of any sort. The brief pause, sharpened as it was by Mr. V.V.'s oddly formal bearing, was rather like a cold douche. And now it seemed that she must have been counting ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... But Aunt Julia's kind of used to it. And anyhow you needn't worry about him 'long as I'm on your side. He won't do anything much to you if I say not to. Hardly anything at all." And then, with almost a tenderness, as she marked the visibly insufficient reassurance of her companion, she said handsomely: "He won't say a word. I'll ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington

... there was a very natural impatience here and there to have the Exchange reopened, while now and then a tendency became manifested to publish certain news of the day which, while interesting to the public, tended to handicap the efforts of those bent only on reassurance and calm counsel. At times it became somewhat difficult to prevent the publication of some of these matters, particularly of the prices made in the so called "gutter" market which sprang up in ...
— The New York Stock Exchange in the Crisis of 1914 • Henry George Stebbins Noble

... lowered the glasses, and met his friend's eye with a kind of shamefaced hesitation. But apparently he gathered reassurance from the quiet steadiness with which the other's gaze met him. He handed the glasses to Healy. When the latter lowered them his face was grave. "There's a man and a fire and a cow and a calf. When these four things meet up ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine

... bills, one somehow never ran them up with Gessler Brothers. It would not have seemed becoming to go in there and stretch out one's foot to that blue iron- spectacled glance, owing him for more than—say—two pairs, just the comfortable reassurance that ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)

... and ostensible remedy for such a state of mind is immediate retreat to the reassuring hum of cities: the more difficult but real remedy is the reassurance of one's own identity. Many people take the first course without admitting it; alleging the lack of intercourse or convenience in country life, whereas the real truth is that contact with the steadfast indifference of Nature has proved wounding to their ...
— The Quest of the Simple Life • William J. Dawson

... the door. Everything was in wretched condition. Buttons and hooks were lacking; a heap of darning lay untouched; Lena's veil, with which she attempted to hide the ruin of her hat, was crumpled into the semblance of a rain-soaked cobweb; and her shoes had gone long without the reassurance of a good blacking. ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie

... made him uneasy, despite his belief in my strength. And he was groping for confirmation or reassurance. "But," thought I, "if he thinks I may be going up the spout, why isn't he more upset? He probably hates me because I've befriended him, but no matter how much he hated me, wouldn't his fear of being cut off from supplies drive him almost crazy?" I studied him ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips

... and ran quickly, quickly into the saloon, and—came out again? No, indeed! not with all the soul she had to save, and all the other sins on her conscience. She shook her head resolutely, and was not seen in her chair on deck again until the captain not only reassured her, but guaranteed his reassurance. And after that, whenever the boat was about to make a landing, the mate would first glance up to the guards, and if the little convent girl was sitting there he would change his invective to sarcasm, and politely request the colored gentlemen not to hurry themselves—on ...
— Balcony Stories • Grace E. King

... Comfortable reassurance that one was still his client Dumb grief which has never learned to moan Gilt-edged orthodoxy Glib assurances that naive souls make so easily to others He have all the pleasure, I have all the work He was asleep, for he knew not remorse In work alone man rests ...
— Quotations from the Works of John Galsworthy • David Widger

... earnest longing for you and for freedom seized me; I yearned for my dear old fatherland, and was about to shake off the dust of travel, when I was suddenly called back to life by the promise and reassurance of your recovery. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... despairingly, at Leonard; but the brow was still open and unclouded, the eye glanced back reassurance ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge

... once called "Gargoyle," listened. The youth stood there, his foot resting upon the fork but not driving it into the ground. He caught her note of anxiety, laughing in light, spontaneous reassurance, taking her point ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... point, the well being of Mistress Lucy, he could give me no reassurance. 'Twas Wednesday: she came of age tomorrow; even if Vetch was not aware of this, but believed that Friday, the day of her birthday celebrations, was the actual birthday, it gave us terribly little time to concert any movements on her behalf. ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang

... believe in what you have. When your child is ill or your wife dying, and you happen to be very fond of them, or even when, if you are not fond of them, you are human enough to forget every personal grudge before the spectacle of a fellow creature in pain or peril, what you want is comfort, reassurance, something to clutch at, were it but a straw. This the doctor brings you. You have a wildly urgent feeling that something must be done; and the doctor does something. Sometimes what he does kills the patient; but you do not know that; and the doctor assures you that ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma: Preface on Doctors • George Bernard Shaw

... dares to doubt this consummate test of the power and willingness of divine Mind to hold man forever 494:1 intact in his perfect state, and to govern man's entire action? Jesus said: "Destroy this temple [body], and 494:3 in three days I [Mind] will raise it up;" and he did this for tired humanity's reassurance. ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy

... glimmered. He dropped down on the sofa and hid his face. The room was profoundly silent, the whole house was still: nothing about him gave a hint of what was going on, darkly and dumbly, in the room he had flown from, and with the covering of his eyes oblivion and reassurance seemed to fall on him. But they fell for a moment only; then his lids opened again to the monstrous vision. There it was, stamped on his pupils, a part of him forever, an indelible horror burnt into his body and brain. But why into his—just ...
— The Triumph Of Night - 1916 • Edith Wharton

... now, and fastening the rope, I came and stood by Groves, as he knelt on the beach beside Aleck. I could scarcely believe it was not death when I looked at the colourless face and closed eyes, and needed all Groves' reassurance to convince me that he had not been mistaken when he said my cousin ...
— The Story of the White-Rock Cove • Anonymous

... him to our collection, eh, sir?" Daughtry observed, sparing a moment to pat reassurance on the big puppy's head and being rewarded with a caressing lick on his hand from ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London

... two days of the battle of Noisseville. Doubtless that recollection had something to do with his choice of the village. For in his martyrdom of shame he had fallen to wonder whether after all he had not deserved it, and any reassurance such as the gaping house-walls of Vaudere would bring to him, was eagerly welcomed. There was another reason, however, in the position of ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason

... little Natalie," the cordial note of invitation began, and concluded with a reassurance that the Countess expected her on the ...
— High Noon - A New Sequel to 'Three Weeks' by Elinor Glyn • Anonymous

... by dint of reassurance and persuasion, Aunt Tillie prevailed upon the girl to lie back upon her pillows and after a while ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs

... descended the stairs she met Doctor Harris, gallant and gay, with a rose in his buttonhole, followed by the nurse and child, on a visit of reassurance ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various

... as she neared the chancel and Nan saw that a smile passed between them as he took his place beside her. A feeling of reassurance crept over her, quieting the sense of almost breathless panic which had for a moment overwhelmed her when she had pictured herself in Penny's place. There was dear old Ralph, looking quite ordinary and matter-of-fact, only rather sprucer than ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler

... day at a uniform rate, road or no road, of ten miles an hour. But this was the least of the trouble. Bands of hostile Indians were a constant source of watchfulness and trouble, against which even a most liberal stock of rifles and revolvers were not always a reassurance. Whirlwinds of dust often overwhelmed the travellers so completely that they could hardly tell day from night, whilst blasts of icy chill, sweeping down from the snowy peaks of the Rocky Mountains, often made them imagine themselves in the midst of the horrors ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne

... been terribly puzzling to him. He was a man of good education, well versed in psychology; in the first rush of consciousness he tried, as best he could, to weigh himself up in the balance of aberration. And it was this very fact that gave him his reassurance; for it told him that he could think, could reason, could count on ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint

... best when simply worded and contain some such phrase as "Without obligation on my part, you may send me." It gives reassurance that there is no catch and inspires the confidence that is the basis ...
— Business Correspondence • Anonymous

... never glanced her way, he must have been aware of her agitation, for when he spoke again there was some measure of reassurance in his voice, emotionless though ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell

... being of blue and white, too; and the high colour in her cheeks was far from interfering with the general harmony of things—George saw with dismay that she was prettier than ever, and naturally he missed the reassurance he might have felt had he been able to guess that Lucy, on her part, was finding him better looking than ever. For, however unusual the scope of George's pride, vanity of beauty was not included; he did not think about ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington

... shaken with doubt and fear by the spectacle presented to her by the world and the Church of Christ. The letters tell us how these, her sorrows and temptations, were not separated from the life of faith, but a true portion of it: how she carried them into the Divine Presence, and what high reassurance awaited her there. Ordinary mortals are inclined to think that supernatural experience removes the saints to a perplexing distance. In Catherine's case, however, we become aware as we study the record that it brings her ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa

... but Hil'ry," observed Isham Beaton, half in reproach, half in reassurance. The pervasive light without dissipated in some degree the gloom within the grotto; a sort of gray visibility was on the appurtenances and the figures about the still, not strong enough to suggest color, but giving contour. His fright had ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)

... sky and back at Tom, and perhaps he found a kind of reassurance in that stolid face. "All right, Tommy," said he, "what ...
— Tom Slade Motorcycle Dispatch Bearer • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... of them, who strove to find relief in his careless reassurance, tried desperately to believe him, to deceive that intuition which seldom ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers

... this last remark, which directed itself, with such show of candour, against a suspicion precisely the opposite of that likely to be entertained by the listener, succeeded in disarming Warricombe; he looked up with a smile of reassurance, and spoke encouragingly. ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing

... night, as if she still expected to hear Morris Townsend ring at the door. On the morrow this expectation was less unreasonable; but it was not gratified by the reappearance of the young man. Neither had he written; there was not a word of explanation or reassurance. Fortunately for Catherine she could take refuge from her excitement, which had now become intense, in her determination that her father should see nothing of it. How well she deceived her father we shall have occasion to learn; but her innocent arts were of little avail before ...
— Washington Square • Henry James

... little man's spirits were so exhausted, that the reassurance on this head absolutely brought the much-dreaded tears into his eyes; and he could only be carried up gently to his bed, and left to be undressed by his aunt, so great an aggravation to the troubles of this small fragment of independence, that it had almost overset his courtesy and self-command. ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge

... our three friends were seated in the balcony of a French restaurant, much gayer and more intimate than any that exists in New York to-day. This old restaurant was built by a lover of pleasure, who knew that to dine gayly human beings must have the reassurance of certain limitations of space and of a certain definite style; that the walls must be near enough to suggest shelter, the ceiling high enough to give the chandeliers a setting. The place was crowded with the kind of people who dine late and well, and Dr. Archie, as he watched the animated ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather

... himself and brought her a glass of wine, talking to her with a soothing reassurance as she drank it. He reproached himself for having been too hurried, too rash, but pleaded the earnestness of his hopes as an excuse. When she had taken the wine she wanted to go, but he entreated her so humbly not to punish him too deeply for his fault that when ...
— A Manifest Destiny • Julia Magruder

... about that contemplative figure lying upon the grass that gave me confidence and reassurance, and I found myself regarding it as an old friend and talking to it, and when the big tree-stump was filled with ink I used to sit and write from it for hours. There always seemed to be encouragement and inquiry in the laughing face that looked ...
— The Tale of Lal - A Fantasy • Raymond Paton

... at the end in a different voice, and his hand for an instant on my shoulder as I passed out, were my only consolation for his truly terrifying behaviour, my only comfort and reassurance of any kind, until we really were off by the night mail ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung

... worn—I crept out from our tent in time to see the upper edge of the sun's disc (like a golden dagger of the Moorish shape) flash out its assurance across the sea, and gild with sudden bravery the trucks and spars and frayed rigging of the barque Livorno. Life has no other reassurance to offer which is quite so emphatic as that of the new risen sun; and it is youth, rather than culture, which yields the finest appreciation of this. In its glad light I ran and laughed, half naked, where a few hours earlier, in the murk of coming night, the sense of my own helpless ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson

... of Aguinaldo taking service under the Stars and Stripes. Such a tribute, like the services of Generals Smuts and Botha to Great Britain, compensates for the friction and noise with which democracy works and is the kind of triumph which carries reassurance of its ...
— The Path of Empire - A Chronicle of the United States as a World Power, Volume - 46 in The Chronicles of America Series • Carl Russell Fish

... keep close watch upon their demeanor, and noted with prodigious relief that his wild scheme was succeeding better than he had dared to hope. Without any break in the entertainment he communicated his reassurance to Miss Dwyer by singing, to the tune of "My Country, 'tis of Thee," the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various

... nodded the young man with a charming smile of reassurance. "This contraption is a—er—I—I think Dick calls it an hydro-aeroplane. It has pontoons and things growing all over it for duck stunts and if the water wasn't so infernally still, I'd be floating and smoking and likely in time I'd make shore. That's a delightful pastime for you ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple

... there floats From the chapel above, the loved hymns of healing— Hymns of comfort, of courage, welling up from grateful hearts And bringing reassurance of God's power To one who listens below in silent prayer and praise. Great peace of God, be with us all! Great peace of God encompass us! Speak to the waves tonight, Father, that they stand. Stretch forth Thy hand and stay ...
— A Little Window • Jean M. Snyder

... intimately than the verse. She cried within herself: "Why have I never heard of Richard Crashaw? Why did Tom never tell me?" She became upon the instant a devotee of this Saint Teresa. She thought inconsequently, with a pang that was also a reassurance: "George Cannon would never have understood this. But everyone here understands it." And with hands enfevered, she turned the pages again, and, after several ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett

... joy or anger, calm or passionate, gentle and pitiable, or stern, splendid, and forbidding. It is not quite a natural twilight in which we behold these things; rather the awesome shadowiness of a partial eclipse; but gleams of the healthiest sunshine withal mingle in the prevailing tint, bringing reassurance, and receiving again a rarer value from the contrast. There are but few among the stories of this series afterward brought together by the author which are open to the charge of morbidness. In "The White Old Maid" ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop

... Hilton. You remember that little ivory portrait of myself at seventeen, which I thought so much of after I lost my looks? Well, this portrait I had enlarged from that. I have always believed that it was very like, but you don't know what a reassurance it is to me to have you recognize ...
— Miss Ludington's Sister • Edward Bellamy

... him to reassurance. "Of course not," he responded, quickly summoning new possibilities of delight. "Imagine it, you haven't even seen my pictures yet." They had left them, rolled, at Miss Mason's. "And I want to paint you—really paint you—not just silly little sketches and heads, but a big thing ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale

... lives!" a chorus within sang, and at that reassurance Tamino was quite wild with happiness. Then he became full of uncertainty and sadness again, for he remembered that he did not know where to find her, and he sat down to play upon his magic flute. As he played, wild animals came out ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon

... stood by the bedside, gazing down on the little sufferer, closing and unclosing his shriveled hands as if he were grasping at straws of hope, dragging the depths of his soul for reassurance even as he dragged his rake in the black waters of ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day

... — N. hope, hopes; desire &c 865; fervent hope, sanguine expectation, trust, confidence, reliance; faith &c (belief) 484; affiance, assurance; secureness, security; reassurance. good omen, good auspices; promise, well grounded hopes; good prospect, bright prospect; clear sky. assumption, presumption; anticipation &c (expectation) 507. hopefulness, buoyancy, optimism, enthusiasm, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... my way alongside the banks of a canal. Darkness fell; the outskirts of the jungle village were alive with winking fireflies and the howls of near-by jackals. The moonlight was too faint to supply any reassurance; I stumbled on for ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda

... it cost to let her go. "You seem so tremendously eager," she said to the child, "that I hope you're at least clear about Sir Claude's relation to you. It doesn't appear to occur to him to give you the necessary reassurance." ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James

... break in the cliff wall which was climbable, and he coaxed the wolverines after him. When they stood on the heights from which the falls tumbled, Taggi and Togi rubbed against him, cried for his attention. They, too, appeared to need the reassurance they got from contact with him, for they were also fugitives on this alien world, the ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton

... candle restored my courage. Yet I was careful to take my revolver from its case—a large, powerful weapon—and place it beside my bed. That precaution completed my reassurance. I laid down and, as usual, took a book from my night-table to read myself to sleep. Then I received a great surprise. Instead of the paper-knife with which I had marked my place on the preceding, I found an envelope, closed with five seals of red wax. I seized it eagerly. It was addressed ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc

... President gave at once the best possible reassurance as to his general course by retaining all the members of Lincoln's Cabinet. They remained, not as a temporary formality, but for a considerable time in full harmony with the President. Chase having left the Cabinet for the chief-justiceship, by far the two strongest secretaries ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam

... word it's a raving-mad mistake! And I don't believe she ever meant me, to begin with—" he protested; but Susy, her common-sense returning with her reassurance, promptly cut short ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton

... stricken, like herself, with the disease that feeds on youth, her strength ebbing away quite painlessly, she often entered upon the pathless little track of introspection, a pathetic, illogical summing up of the conduct of her life, which always led so quickly to the same broad end of reassurance, followed by unreasoned condemnation—the conventional judgement on her very inability to discover where she had so gravely sinned, how and when she had earned the extreme penalty of reprobation ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore

... inch of the old mill," she said, as though by way of reassurance. "You've just got to look out where you step, and you're ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith

... yourself?"—"I believe that my mother invited me to her. Now something occurs to me: The moonlight awoke me as my father woke me when he struck a light as he was going out. Then it was time to go into bed with my mother, for the father was gone, which always gave me a feeling of reassurance."—"Yes, when he was gone he could do nothing more to the mother. And then you could take his place ...
— Sleep Walking and Moon Walking - A Medico-Literary Study • Isidor Isaak Sadger

... one another with fear in their eyes and some of the ladies raised their voices in querulous beseeching for reassurance. They had their answer even as they asked. The Albanian Giacomo, who was now virtually the provost of the Castle, appeared suddenly at the gates with half a score of men. He raised a warning hand, which compelled ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini

... deeply—"I hope the tin-plates—" and her companion gathered together her satchel and cloak in readiness for departure at the next station, nodding a cheerful reassurance. ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey

... into the open road, and Johnny was off again before Bob could finish, and his question, meant to inspirit Sydney, had sounded to her only like a desire for his own reassurance, and had ...
— A Tar-Heel Baron • Mabell Shippie Clarke Pelton

... no more for us than shed that auroral dew. They cannot reassure us of our normal humanity, since they needed reassurance themselves. ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett

... it and ran over the account of the accident, and came at her trouble with an instant intelligence that was in itself a sort of reassurance. "But had you any reason to suppose your father was ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells

... voice moved her to put her hand on his arm in caressing reassurance. "Please don't blame yourself about that," she said. "I don't mind. It's only for the night, anyway. ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland

... moment he might have been amused by the conflict his words aroused—the boy's eager clasp, to reassure him on these points, the dread on his face of what that reassurance would bring forth; but he could only feel grateful ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... sit on its head. Every time he lunches out on Sunday—at dinner parties and tea parties—there will be this same shock—horror—discomfort—then pleasure, for he draws into him at every step as he walks by the river such steady certainty, such reassurance from all sides, the trees bowing, the grey spires soft in the blue, voices blowing and seeming suspended in the air, the springy air of May, the elastic air with its particles—chestnut bloom, pollen, whatever it is that gives the May air its potency, ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf

... smile at this account of a mother's apprehension, but it is only a natural attribute of devoted love, ineffably sweet and beautiful. While the precious child is exposed to possible dangers, she cannot help feeling thus. She talks to the father about it, wanting the comfort of his reassurance; and she lies awake that night imagining things and counting the hours that must separate her from ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)

... momentarily disposed of by Van Degen's offer she looked at Ralph more kindly—she even felt a return of her first impersonal affection for him. Everybody could see that Clare Van Degen was "gone" on him, and Undine always liked to know that what belonged to her was coveted by others. Her reassurance had been fortified by the news she had heard at the Elling dinner—the published fact of Harmon B. Driscoll's unexpected victory. The Ararat investigation had been mysteriously stopped—quashed, in the language of the law—and Elmer Moffatt "turned down," as Van Degen (who ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton

... or more inspiring since the long away centuries when the chivalry of the Middle Ages, in nodding plume and lance in rest, battled for the Holy Sepulchre, it brings to the Negro of America a message of cheer and reassurance. A sign, couched in flaming characters for all men to see, appealing to the spiritualized divination of the age, proclaiming that God is NOT DEAD! That a NEW day is dawning; HAS dawned for the Negro in America. A NEW liberty; ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney

... appeared at the threshold with him, and she and Glendenning had time to exchange a glance of anxiety and of smiling reassurance, before she put out her hand in greeting to me, a very glad and cordial greeting, apparently. The doctor and I shook hands, and he got himself away with what I afterwards remembered as undue quickness, and ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells

... acutely ill, the doctor is business-like and gravely kind; you want him in a way, are even anxious to see him for the relief he may bring, or the reassurance. But when you begin to feel as if you were a creature reborn, when you are safe and keenly enjoying the return of health, then it is that the morning visit is so delightful. You look for his coming and count on the daily chat. Should he chance to be what many of my medical brothers ...
— Doctor and Patient • S. Weir Mitchell

... beginning to hold forth again, shaking his fist at Abdul Ali and making the roof echo to his mighty bellowing. I tugged at the skirt of his cloak, and after a minute he sat down to discover what I wanted. He seemed to think I needed reassurance. He began to flood me with promises of protection. It was about a minute before I could get a word in ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy

... the dark—glancing now at the friendly stars, for such reassurance, perhaps, as he needed, and had had all ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan

... reassurance, I allowed the full light of the lantern to fall directly on her face. She was afraid. There was no other explanation possible for her wild staring eyes and blue quivering lips. For the instant I hardly knew her; then her glance rose to mine ...
— The Millionaire Baby • Anna Katharine Green

... about any chances there might be with the mill," ventured Ellen timidly, as she stood in the lighted room; then she looked at Mike for reassurance. "We're very bad off, you see," she went on. "Yes, sir, I got them potaties, but I had to bake a little of them for supper and more again the day, for our breakfast. I don't know whatever we'll do whin they're ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett

... said, and the word seemed to bring worlds of reassurance to the rifleman, who sighed with relief, but forgot to move his rifle until ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons



Words linked to "Reassurance" :   support, worrisome, unreassuring, reassure, reassuring



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