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More "Benignity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... by Neglect and Contempt: But tis only Persons far above the common Level who are thus affected with either of these Extreams; as in a Thermometer, tis only the purest and most sublimated Spirit that is either contracted or dilated by the Benignity or Inclemency of ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... South, against whom Mr. Sumner is pleased to inveigh, propose to make no such changes of freemen into slaves, much less to wage war for any such purpose, we may dismiss his gross perversion of the text in question. He may apply the condemnation of the apostle to us now, if it so please the benignity of his Christian charity, but it will not, we assure him, enter into our consciences, until we shall not only become "slave-traders," but also, with a view to the gain of such odious traffic, ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... pleasing and being pleased, the life of the company, was apt to think how delightful he must always be,—and so he was; but these times of bright talk were like angels' visits; and he smiled with peculiar benignity on his retiring guest, as if blessing him not the less for leaving him to himself. I question if there ever lived a man so much in the midst of men, and in the midst of his own children,[20] in whom the silences, as Mr. Carlyle ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... spectacles beamed upon him with an expression of the utmost benignity as the firelight played on the lenses, but her eyes peering over them seemed endowed in some sort with independence of outlook. It was as if from behind some bland mask a critical observation was poised for unbiased judgment. He felt in some degree under surveillance. But when a light ...
— The Phantoms Of The Foot-Bridge - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... said advisedly, one string in his lyre. Objective reticence is certainly not the virtue of the terrible indictment of 'Napoleon the Little'. On the other hand, the greatest qualities of Parnassian poetry were exemplified in many splendid pieces of the other two works, together with a large benignity which their austere Stoicism rarely permits, and I shall take as illustration of the finest achievement of poetry in this whole first phase the closing stanzas of his famous Boaz Endormi in the Legende, whose beauty even translation cannot ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... not be allowed to exclude kindliness to communities who stand nearer to us in nature. For the future of the freed slaves we may well be concerned; but the future of the whole country, involving the future of the blacks, urges a paramount claim upon our anxiety. Effective benignity, like the Nile, is not narrow in its bounty, and true policy is always broad. To be sure, it is vain to seek to glide, with moulded words, over the difficulties of the situation. And for them who are neither partisans, ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville
... news?" asks Mrs. Hopkins, fashionable busybody, running in for an informal call on Mrs. O'Meara, who is warm-hearted and sensible, and who listens to the babblings of Mrs. Hopkins, with a patience and benignity worthy ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... my generosity may prove prejudicial to thy future fortunes. Many, many are the women amongst the faithful who would feel proud to accept the offers which thou seemest to treat with unbecoming disregard. But trifle not with the benignity of my disposition; for Caneri, though an outcast, and a sovereign only of wild mountains and deserted villages, has yet power enough to enforce his commands, and inflict a summary vengeance upon those who dare thwart his ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... moment believed her to be (the goddess) Sri herself. Next he regarded her to be the embodiment of the rays emanating from Surya. In splendour of her person she resembled a flame of fire, though in benignity and loveliness she resembled a spotless digit of the moon. And standing on the mountain- breast, the black-eyed maiden appeared like a bright statue of gold. The mountain itself with its creepers and plants, because of the beauty and attire ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... the law requires we should proceed to this trial. The form of proceeding at their arraignment has discovered that the spirit of the law upon such occasions is conformable to humanity, to common sense and feeling; that it is all benignity and candor. And the trial commences with the prayer of the court, expressed by the clerk, to the Supreme Judge of judges, empires, and worlds, "God ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... turned to the protection and government of matter, to which it allies itself, and by appulsion benefits and communicates of its perfection to inferior things, through the likeness which it has to the Divine, which in its benignity communicates itself or produces infinitely, i.e. imparts existence to the universal infinite and to the innumerable worlds in it, or, finitely, produces this universe alone, subject to our eyes and our common reason. Thus then in the one sole essence of the soul are found ...
— The Heroic Enthusiast, Part II (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... successor of the apostles might have inculcated with decent firmness the guilt of blood, and the necessity of repentance; he is content to celebrate the deliverance of the people and the fall of the oppressor; to rejoice that the piety and benignity of Phocas have been raised by Providence to the Imperial throne; to pray that his hands may be strengthened against all his enemies; and to express a wish, perhaps a prophecy, that, after a long and triumphant reign, he may be transferred from a temporal to an everlasting ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... N. benevolence, Christian charity; God's love, God's grace; good will; philanthropy &c. 910; unselfishness &c. 942. good nature, good feeling, good wishes; kindness, kindliness &c. adj.; loving-kindness, benignity, brotherly love, charity, humanity, fellow- feeling, sympathy: goodness of heart, warmth of heart; bonhomie; kind- heartedness; amiability, milk of human kindness, tenderness; love &c. 897; friendship &c. 888. toleration, consideration, generosity; mercy &c. (pity) 914. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... of self-seeking in His motives; sensuality shrinks abashed from His celestial purity; falsehood can leave no stain on Him who is incarnate truth; injustice is forgotten beside His errorless equity; the very possibility of avarice is swallowed up in His benignity and love; the very idea of ambition is lost in His divine wisdom and ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... at her as they had always done. She looked up and saw a host of them, clear and distant, shining in a sky so blue and vast that to see it was like flight. They were secure in their high places, and with the smiling benignity of gods they assured her of her littleness, and gladly she accepted that assurance, for she shared her littleness with Zebedee, and now she understood that her happiness was made of small great things, of the hope of caring for him, of keeping that shining house in order, ...
— Moor Fires • E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young
... their conceptions of divine perfection; to realise the expression of that character of mind which they imputed to the deities whose temples they were to adorn: It was grace, or strength, or majesty, or the benignity of divine power, which they were to represent by the figures of Venus, of Hercules, of Jupiter, or of Apollo. Their artists accordingly were led to aim at the expression of general character; to exclude passion, or emotion, ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... went its way. The sweet lingering tang filled the arch of his palate with a soft mellow cheer. His gaze fell upon us as his head tilted gently backward. We wish there had been a painter there—someone like F. Walter Taylor—to rush onto canvas the gorgeous benignity of his aspect. It would have been a portrait of the rich Flemish school. Dove's eyes were full of a tender emotion, mingled with a charmed and wistful surprise. It was as though the poet was saying he had not realized there was anything so good left on earth. His bearing ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... imprudence were fatal to her preserver. On the third day my mother sickened; her fever was accompanied by the most alarming symptoms, and the looks of her medical attendants prognosticated the worst event. On her deathbed the fortitude and benignity of this best of women did not desert her. She joined the hands of Elizabeth and myself. "My children," she said, "my firmest hopes of future happiness were placed on the prospect of your union. This expectation will now be the consolation of your father. ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley
... benevolent Mr. Wilkinson fell flat on his face in the road, but continued to laugh softly, and turned towards his flying companion a face of peculiar peace and benignity. Evan's mind went through a crisis of instantaneous casuistry, in which it may be that he decided wrongly; but about how he decided his biographer can profess no doubt. Two minutes afterwards he had overtaken Turnbull and told ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... coming and going, I never heard him speak harshly or express the least displeasure. An extreme, rather heavy, benignity—the benignity of one sure to be obeyed—marked his demeanour; so that I was at times reminded of Samuel Richardson in his circle of admiring women. The wives spoke up and seemed to volunteer opinions, like our wives at home—or, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to him what the man's distinguishing quality was. It was his open look, an expression almost of benignity, absolutely foreign to the Indian character. Indians may give their eyes freely to one another, but a white man never sees beneath ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... other stars have now joined the American constellation; they circle around their centre, and the heavens beam with a new light. Beneath this illumination, let us walk the course of life, and at its close devoutly commend our beloved country, the common parent of us all, to the Divine Benignity." ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... Persecution is not an original feature in any religion; but it is alway the strongly-marked feature of all law-religions, or religions established by law. Take away the law-establishment, and every religion re-assumes its original benignity. In America, a catholic priest is a good citizen, a good character, and a good neighbour; an episcopalian minister is of the same description: and this proceeds independently of the men, from there being no ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... picture accurately resembled him in the minute traits of his person. His features, however, were so marked by prominent characteristics, which appear in all likenesses of him, that a stranger could not be mistaken in the man; he was remarkably dignified in his manners, and had an air of benignity over his features which his visitant did not expect, being rather prepared for sternness of countenance.... his smile was extraordinarily attractive. It was observed to me that there was an expression in Washington's ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... only worth adorning and transmitting which was unmarred by outward manifestations of hard and haughty feeling. According to their ideal, beauty must be the expression of attractive qualities within—such as cheerfulness, benignity, contentment, and love. ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... overwhelmingly complacent Cornucopia. With the hope of rendering himself more youthful for this belated adventure with the babbling widow he had been treated by a hair specialist. The result was, as usual, farcically pathetic. His nice white hair which had given him a charming benignity and cleanness had been turned into a dead and musty black which made him look unearthly and unreal. His smart and carefully cherished moustache which once had laid upon his upper lip like cotton wool had been treated with the same ink-colored mixture. His clothes, once so perfectly ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... have conjectured before, but by no means including all the wealthy, who wear their purple and fine linen both gracefully and graciously, fare not more sumptuously than temperately every day, and do a great deal, not only directly by their ready beneficence, but indirectly by their sunny benignity, to light up the gloomy world of Lazarus." And though I was but a budding theorist in human nature, and often made mistakes before and afterwards, I never found ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... duties or perform his daily occupations, if his father or his mother or his sister or his brother or his wife or his son or his daughter might not be finally forgiven for the frailties of an imperfect nature which he had inherited? The Catholic Church, in its benignity,—at what time I do not know,—opened the future of hope amid the speculations of despair. She saved the Middle Ages from universal gloom. If speculation or logic or tradition or scripture pointed to a hell of reprobation, there must be ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord
... Wood first," said Cousin Dick, with royal benignity. "You get away outside at the western end, and keep a look-out ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... fingers knitted away and the gold spectacles were fixed on us with bland benignity. Aunt Louisa writing a song scena and ordering a chorus, just like Mr. GEORGE EDWARDES, was not the least of the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 18, 1914 • Various
... benignity," cried the captain, as they led him away, "I congratulate myself that insignificant as I am the king yet deigns to notice my existence even to ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... athletic, yet miraculously graceful, messenger of the gods with the winged sandals, the tiny child clinging to his shoulder with one little arm stretched out in an enchanting gesture of desire. Still the child nestled against Hermes, and still Hermes contemplated the child, with a celestial benignity, a half-smiling calmness of other ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... more it is my wish that the true Plays of Shakespear may prove to you in older years—enrichers of the fancy, strengtheners of virtue, a withdrawing from all selfish and mercenary thoughts, a lesson of all sweet and honourable thoughts and actions, to teach you courtesy, benignity, generosity, humanity: for of examples, teaching these virtues, ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... the objects of philanthropy and Christian benevolence with which her life had been identified. After the meeting, and at her own desire, several members of the committee, and other friends, assembled at her house. They were welcomed by her with the greatest benignity and kindness, and in her intercourse with them, strong were the indications of the heavenly teaching through which her subdued and sanctified spirit had been called to pass. Her affectionate salutation in parting, unconsciously closed, in regard to most of ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman
... to extinguish our feelings, but to correct and refine them. My visits to the hermitage were frequently renewed at first, because they afforded me the relief of variety, whilst his intimate knowledge of men and things—his remarkable sagacity and good sense—his air of mingled piety and benignity,—cheated me into forgetfulness of my situation. As these gradually yielded to the lenitive power of time, I sought his conversation for the positive pleasure it afforded, and at last it became the ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... mind so lavishly poured out at this time in his happiest moods. Although he looked much older than he was, his hair being silvered all over, and his person tending to corpulency, there was about him no trace of bodily sickness or mental decay, but rather an air of voluptuous repose. His benignity of manner placed his auditors entirely at their ease; and inclined them to listen delighted to the sweet low tone in which he began to discourse on some high theme. At first his tones were conversational: ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... from me, Fanny," she replied, with her wonted sweetness and benignity, "to ask any one to tamper with duty; but, my child, our faults, our pride frequently mislead us. You shall go to-night, if you please; but I wish, for my sake, you could stay at least till to-morrow morning. I have not ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... during the following night in order to recommend his family to the protection of the Blessed Virgin, he saw on the altar, by means of a splendid light, our Saviour Jesus Christ, His holy Mother, and a multitude of angels, who cast upon him looks of great benignity. He adored, and recited these words: "O most holy Lord, King of Heaven, Redeemer of the world, sweet Love! and thou, O Queen of Angels! by what excess of goodness do you come down from heaven into this small and poor chapel?" He immediately heard this reply: "I am come with my Mother to ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... together. It was full of the perfume of roses, of the wavering shadow of leaves on the floor and walls and ceiling. It looked bright and pretty, and madame, with suave benignity, explained: "I told Mr. Musgrave that it was better to wait here, and not play hide-and-seek; Bessie was ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... redeem at a lower price than any other people can. It occurred to me, that their agency might be engaged for our prisoners at Algiers. I have had interviews with them, and the last night, a long one with the General of the order. They offer their services with all the benignity and cordiality possible. The General told me, he could not expect to redeem our prisoners as cheap as their own, but that he would use all the means in his power to do it on the best terms possible, which will be the better, as there shall be the less ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... that each of the reverend brethren should be daily supplied with a service of boiled almonds, rice and milk, pease, or the like, to be called the King's mess, and that without the ordinary service of their table being either disturbed in quantity or quality. But this was not the only mark of the benignity of good King Robert towards the monks of Melrose, since, by a charter of the dale 29th May, 1326, he conferred on the Abbot of Melrose the sum of two thousand pounds sterling, for rebuilding: the church of St. Mary's, ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... the happiness to know him intimately was noble and memorable, and he won his way less by commanding abilities than by weight of character. His large benignity repressed the expression of any small or mean thought in his presence; and his arrival was sufficient without his saying a word to elevate the tone and manner of any discussion in which he was expected to participate. He was incapable ...
— Great Testimony - against scientific cruelty • Stephen Coleridge
... looking up at her some other consciousness inside him murmured; 'Hawwa—Eve—Mother!' She stood compassionate over him. Without touching him she seemed to be yearning over him like a mother. Her compassion, her benignity, seemed so different from his little Helena. This woman, tall and pale, drooping with the strength of her compassion, seemed stable, immortal, not a fragile human being, but a personification of the great motherhood ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... want a slate and a piece of slate-pencil." Emma looked up with a sweet smile at the tall shopman, who looked down upon her with grave benignity, as he ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... madame, I do not come to trespass so far upon your benignity," he answered, as he bent before her. "I come to express, rather, my regret that you should ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... enormously fat gentleman, one half of whose head was bound up with a dirty white handkerchief, over which a torn piece of hat was stuck, very much to one side. He had a most roguish eye, and a smile of inviting benignity on his dirty countenance. In one hand he held and tingled a guitar, while he most ingeniously swept in the copper with the other. By his side sat two wretched-looking women, with long matted hair, their ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... his senior year James entered another phase of his development. He offered to the college a new, or at least an enlarged, interpretation of himself. Some of his smiling good-fellowship had been sloughed to make way for the benignity of a budding statesman. He still held a tolerant attitude to the antics of his friends, but it was easy to see that he had put away childish things. To his many young women admirers he talked confidentially of his aims and aspirations. The future ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... French to a greater degree than before. For the settlement of this there have now for a good while been dealings here with the King's Ambassador, and his Treaty is now almost brought to a conclusion. Moreover, the singular benignity and moderation of your Eminence, always manifest hitherto in the most important transactions of the Kingdom relating to the French Protestants, causes me to hope much from your ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... "disconnect the authority to command service from the power of animating it by reward;" and to impose on the Regent "all the invidious duties of the kingly station, without the means of softening them to the public by any one act of grace, favour, or benignity." ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... loftily with a smile of benignity upon his face. "It is a clever plan," said he, "and you are a good fellow, Dickory, but your scheme, though well intentioned, is unsound. I have too much regard for you to trust you in any vessel sailing from Belize to Kingston, ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton
... me with shame, strive rather to gain the affections of those who govern me. The Baron esteems you. My Aunt, to others ever harsh proud and contemptuous, remembers that you rescued her from the hands of Murderers, and wears with you alone the appearance of kindness and benignity. Try then your influence over my Guardians. If they consent to our union my hand is yours: From your account of my Brother, I cannot doubt your obtaining his approbation: And when they find the impossibility of executing ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... times Hinton was accustomed to compare the marriage law to the law of the Sabbath as broken by Jesus. We find exactly the same comparison in Milton. The Sabbath, he believes, was made for God. "Yet when the good of man comes into the scales, we have that voice of infinite goodness and benignity, that 'Sabbath was made for man and not man for Sabbath.' What thing ever was made more for man alone, and less for God, than marriage?" (op. cit., Bk. i, Ch. XI). "If man be lord of the Sabbath, can he be ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... their gentleness, suffered them to scrutinise him, and won them by his benignity. The natives were equally objects of curiosity to the Spaniards. They were naked, painted all over with a variety of colours and designs. Their complexion was tawny, and they were destitute of beards; their ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith
... major, still with great benignity, he said — "And do you really mean, sir, not to give me up ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... hardships which fill the destiny of our unfortunate race. And, secondly, because his own keen acquaintance with mental anguish helps us to understand the zeal with which he attempts to reconcile the blind cruelty and pain and torture endured by mortals with the benignity and wisdom of the immortal. 'After all,' he used to say, 'there are only two real evils—remorse and disease.' This is true enough for an apophthegm, but as a matter of fact it never for an instant dulled his sensibility to far less supreme ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 4: Joseph de Maistre • John Morley
... a mother. It was not the image of a new sweetly-budding life that came as a vision of deliverance from the monotony of distaste: it was an image of another sort. In the irritable, fluctuating stages of despair, gleams of hope came in the form of some possible accident. To dwell on the benignity of accident was ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... wife, until further experience should discover to me the extent of this my unheard of calamity. Altering my countenance, therefore, in a moment, from its bepuffed and distorted appearance, to an expression of arch and coquettish benignity, I gave my lady a pat on the one cheek, and a kiss on the other, and without saying one syllable (Furies! I could not), left her astonished at my drollery, as I pirouetted out of the room in ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... was to come. The talk was that strange, slight talk which governs the British Empire, which governs it in secret, and yet would scarcely enlighten an ordinary Englishman even if he could overhear it. Cabinet ministers on both sides were alluded to by their Christian names with a sort of bored benignity. The Radical Chancellor of the Exchequer, whom the whole Tory party was supposed to be cursing for his extortions, was praised for his minor poetry, or his saddle in the hunting field. The Tory leader, whom all Liberals were supposed ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... chief of the district. The chief, an excessively tall man, quite six and a half feet and big all over, but not fat, like many natives, was very dark and slightly grizzled. He had a singular solemnity of address, a benignity and detachment which were the externals of a thoughtful, simple, generous nature, no longer interested deeply in trifles. His house was toward the farther end of the main street, and set upon a spacious lawn ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... with an indulgent eye on errors to which himself was liable, and who was accustomed to prefer the study of love-verses to that of the law. The learned lawyer, his countryman Panciroli, probably in resentment, as Panizzi says, of this preference, accused him of an excess of benignity, and of being fitter for writing poems than punishing ill deeds; and in truth, as the same critic observes, "he must have been considered crazy by the whole tribe of lawyers of that age," if it be true that he anticipated ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... is of power the source, And all her magic to thy eyes is given; We own their empire, while we feel their force, Beaming with the benignity of heaven. ...
— The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius - with some other poems • James Beattie
... the words for his own encouragement, with a heart less brave than he could have wished. But the information was pleasantly echoed about, as the ranks of the Servi parted and an old man, with a face full of benignity, came forward, holding the hand of a boy with blue eyes and light hair, who walked timidly with him to the pulpit on the left, where the older man encouraged the shrinking ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... philanthropy, and a successful career. He had, despite natural disadvantages, upheld on high the great name of Peel. So that he entered the town on that fine morning with a certain conquering jauntiness. And citizens saluted him with respect and he responded with benignity. ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... something like togas, but cut short at the knee, leaving the lower part of the leg bare and disclosing the sandaled feet. The hair was long and flowed about the shoulders. But what struck Jim most forcibly was the look of utter gentleness and benignity upon these faces. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various
... first case, let us summon from the shades my venerable friend Archdeacon Meadow, as he was in the body. You see him now—tall, straight, and meagre, but with a grim dignity in his air which warms into benignity as he inspects a pretty little clean Elzevir, or a tall portly Stephens, concluding his inward estimate of the prize with a peculiar grunting chuckle, known by the initiated to be an important announcement. This is no doubt one of the ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... how fairly he had been tried, etc., broke in upon the court by exclaiming that 'he did'nt care if the court had convicted him, he wasn't guilty any how.' 'That will be a consolation to you,' rejoined the judge, with unusual benignity, and with a voice full of sympathy and compassion, 'That will be a consolation to you, in the hour of your confinement, for we read in the good Book that it is better to suffer wrong, than do wrong.' In the irrepressible burst of ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... prelate drawn by Du Maurier. He was over six feet, and carried himself in a soldierly fashion, as became a leader of the Church Militant. His legs were all that could be desired to fill out episcopalian gaiters; and his bland, clean-shaven face beamed with smiles and benignity. But Bishop Pendle was not the mere figure-head Mrs Pansey's malice declared him to be; he had great administrative powers, great organising capabilities, and controlled his diocese in a way which did equal credit to his heart and head. As he chatted with his guests ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... practical matters consists not in knowledge but in an action which is the end. Hence nothing pertaining to practical knowledge is numbered among the fruits, but only such things as pertain to action, in which practical knowledge is the guide. Among these we find "goodness" and "benignity" which correspond ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... children born out of wedlock to something like the status of the mediaeval serf. Robespierre's compositions at this time do not rise above the ordinary level of declaiming mediocrity, but they promised a manhood of benignity and enlightenment. To compose prize essays on political reforms was better than to ignore or to oppose political reform. But the course of events afterwards owed their least desirable bias to the fact that such compositions were the nearest ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley
... repaired to the house of the bookseller; the bookseller was in his shop. "Ah," said he, as soon as I entered, "I am glad to see you." There was an unwonted heartiness in the bookseller's tones, an unwonted benignity in his face. "So," said he, after a pause, "you have taken my advice, written a book of adventure; nothing like taking the advice, young man, of your superiors in age. Well, I think your book will do, and so does my wife, for whose judgment I have a great ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... sometimes dazzling expression of his eye could not be overlooked. It was not, however, a permanent lustre, for it was only remarkable when he was excited by some point of particular interest. It is impossible to imagine an expression of more entire mildness, I may almost call it of benignity and kindliness, than that which played over his features during the whole interview. If, therefore, he was at this time out of health and in low spirits, his power of self-command must have been even more extraordinary than is generally supposed; for his whole deportment, his conversation, ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... in Harriet's power to relieve him from it? I dare not think it arises from her want of filial regard; I do not know anything so likely to abate the ardour of my attachment as a knowledge of that; but it is an ungenerous suggestion, unworthy the benignity and ...
— The Politician Out-Witted • Samuel Low
... the prisoners had been soothed with flattering tales of the benignity of the Governor of Virginia, Sir Thomas Dale; of his love of the French, and his respect for the memory of Henry the Fourth, to whom, they were told, he was much beholden for countenance and favor. On their landing at Jamestown, this ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... smiled again, with a more intolerable benignity than before. "There is no such thing as dying," he said; "the 'transition state' is a creation of your fancy and an evidence of imperfect reason. One is at any time either alive or dead. The one condition cannot shade off into the other. There is no gradation ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... shall pray For thee when I am far away: For never saw I mien, or face, In which more plainly I could trace Benignity and home-bred sense Ripening in perfect innocence. Here scattered, like a random seed, Remote from men, Thou dost not need The embarrassed look of shy distress, And maidenly shamefacedness: Thou wear'st upon thy forehead ...
— The Hundred Best English Poems • Various
... better than Precept." Thus Charles Lamb praises the Plays of Shakespeare as "enrichers of the fancy, strengtheners of virtue, a withdrawing from all selfish and mercenary thoughts, a lesson of all sweet and honourable thoughts and actions, to teach courtesy, benignity, generosity, humanity: for," say he, "of examples, teaching those virtues, his ...
— Poetry • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... madness and folly was, setting up the doctrine that injustice had been done the monikin race, by causing the safety-valve of the world to be opened within their region. Although we were manifestly indebted to this very circumstance for the benignity of our climate, the value of our possessions, the general healthfulness of our families-nay, for our separate existence itself, as an independent species, yet did these excited and ill-judging wretches absolutely ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Dr. Middleton, having now returned to the usual benignity of his manner—"the reason why I desired that none of you should go to that building," pointing out of the window, "was this:—I had been informed that a gang of gipsies had slept there the night before I spoke to you, one of whom was dangerously ill of a putrid fever. ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... yet, in some cases, have, to the eye of reason, an unequal operation, just as, in the same imperfect view, some inequalities may appear in the operations of heaven's law; nevertheless, to one who has a right confidence, final benignity is, in every instance, as sure with the one law as the other. I expound the point at some length, because these are the considerations, my poor fellow, which, weighed as they merit, will enable you to ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... head-librarian himself? A.A. BARBIER has perhaps not long "turned the corner" of his fiftieth year. Peradventure he may be fifty three.[114] In stature, he is above the middle height, but not very tall. In form, he is robust; and his countenance expressive of great conciliatoriness and benignity. There is a dash of the "old school" about the attire of M. Barbier, which I am Goth enough to admire: while his ardour of conversation, and rapidity of utterance, relieved by frequent and expressive smiles, ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... Such strange lingering echoes of the old demon-worship might perhaps even now be caught by the diligent listener among the grey-haired peasantry; for the rude mind with difficulty associates the ideas of power and benignity. A shadowy conception of power that by much persuasion can be induced to refrain from inflicting harm, is the shape most easily taken by the sense of the Invisible in the minds of men who have always been pressed close by ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... he read. It may be that he, too, had been a shouter in his lustier manhood, and had held a larger audience together by the power of his belief; but now he was helpless to attract any but the children. Whether it was the pathos of his white hairs, his garb of shreds and patches, or the mild benignity of his eye that moved me, I know not, but among all the Sunday shouters in Hyde Park it seemed to me that that quavering voice of the past spoke with the ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... words, and by a look full of kindness and benignity, I abandoned myself without reserve to all the inspirations of my heart and soul. The picture which I drew of the sufferings and hopes of the nation, which I presented to the Emperor, was so touching and so animated, that he ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... be blotted out."[12] The same Apostle writes: "The Lord beareth patiently for your sake, not willing that any should perish, but that all should return to penance."[13] St. Paul, in like manner. "God commandeth all men, everywhere, to do penance."[14] And again: "The benignity of God ...
— Confession and Absolution • Thomas John Capel
... simple mission furniture. In a great chair that almost swallowed her sat Alice, gazing dreamily into the embers. Family portraits hung upon the wall, and one of these, stiff and haughty in the regimentals of a soldado de cuero, seemed to look down upon the domestic picture with a certain austere benignity. This was the painting of Francisco Garvez of hidalgo lineage, who had stood beside Ortega, the Pathfinder, when that honored scout of Portola had found the bay of San Francisco ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... table, the society of youthful persons of both sexes. And if everything around Mrs. Downey was on a liberal scale, so was Mrs. Downey herself. She was expansive in her person, prodigal in sympathy, exuberant in dress. If she had one eye to the main chance, the other smiled at you in pure benignity. On her round face was a festal flush, flooding and effacing the little care-worn lines and wrinkles which appeared on it by day. It wore the colour of the hour which, evening after evening, renewed for her the great drama ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... person I have ever met. When there were people about he stayed silent, and seemed to suffer until they were gone. But he was lovely, nevertheless; for the sweetness and benignity of the immortal Remus looked out from his eyes, and the graces and sincerities of his character shone ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... lordship's countenance (I am a very free speaker) has that benignity in it, that complacency, which I have had the pleasure to see ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson
... usefully in the field of battle, whilst the concurrent limitation of the expenses in this direction prevented any proportionate increase of their numbers, they were so much the less disposable in aid of the public luxury. His fatherly care of all classes, and the universal benignity with which he attempted to raise the abject estimate and condition of even the lowest Pariars in his vast empire, appears in another little anecdote, relating to a class of men equally with the gladiators given up to the service of luxury in a haughty and cruel populace. ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... his duty to the uttermost. He drove down the Lungh' Arno, and through the Piazza, and past the Duomo. There was no further need to keep the blinds closed, and as he drove on he looked out upon the inhabitants of Florence with a grand benignity of expression to which no language can do justice. Many things conspired to fill his breast with the serenest satisfaction and self-complacency. First, he had saved himself from being humbugged. Secondly, he had been the victor in two very respectable ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... point to colleagues 'affecting his personal honour'—to such degrees of heat can the quicksilver mount even in a cabinet thermometer. If such quarrels of the great are painful, there is some compensation in the firmness, patience, and benignity with which a man like Lord Aberdeen strove to appease them. Some of his colleagues actually thought that Lord John would make this paltry affair a plea for resigning, while others suspected that he might find a better excuse in the ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... Revolt was crushed in the summer of 1525. Before this end was accomplished, the Good Elector passed away—a wise, kindly, tolerant man who had exercised an immense moderating influence by simple benignity, shrewdness, and force of character. A little earlier, the ambitious schemes of Francis I. had been shattered by the disaster of Pavia. In effect, the whole European situation was changed completely since the death of Leo X. in 1521. His successor Adrian was a man of good intentions ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... is what I call uncommon jolly," said Captain Bunting, sitting down on his saddle before the cheerful blaze, rubbing his hands, and gazing round, with a smile of the utmost benignity on ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne
... aside with a gesture of calm benignity. "I should hope," she said magnificently, "that I could do without food as well as any of you." And she seated herself on the stool beside Mrs. Spicer with an air ...
— Miss Pat at Artemis Lodge • Pemberton Ginther
... patrimony down to the present generation. One cannot help regretting that the estate is to be cut up now into five shares or more. Eleven thousand acres of fertile hill and dale, sinking and swelling gently, so as to attract all the benignity of sun or breeze—not more densely wooded than is common on our own western shores, and watered to an ornamental perfection—truly on any civilized land, such is a ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... and who, some said, was his daughter, and others his niece. Venerable seer! Who could behold that flowing beard, and the thin grey hairs of that lofty and wrinkled brow, without being filled with sensations of awe and affection? A smile of bland benignity played upon his passionless and reverend countenance. Fortunate the monarch who is blessed with such a counsellor! Who could have supposed that all this time Tiresias was concocting an ...
— The Infernal Marriage • Benjamin Disraeli
... breakfast being ready, in came the empress of my heart, irradiating all around her, as with a glory—a benignity and graciousness in her aspect, that, though natural to it, had ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... received as truth, without producing such a modification of the entire system of divine revelation, as would impress on it a new and completely different character. Christianity, in its unadulterated simplicity, is distinguished by the consolatory views it imparts of the benignity and grace of God, and by the direct and cogent motives it suggests for holiness and righteousness of life. But the first article of the Calvinistic creed throws a veil of awful and suspicious mystery over the divine goodness, and represents it "as the sun shorn of his beams." ...
— On Calvinism • William Hull
... the shrewd ears of Tayoga the presence of two or three hundred warriors. Robert knew, too, that a large force was now before them. How long could the thirty hold back the Indian hosts? Yet he had the word of Tayoga that Tododaho looked down upon them with benignity and that all the omens and presages were favorable. There was a flash at his elbow and a rifle sang its deadly song in his ear. Then Tayoga uttered ...
— The Rulers of the Lakes - A Story of George and Champlain • Joseph A. Altsheler
... archbishopric; and having been found faithful in a little, had authority given him over much. But, as Cicero says, "Nature had made nothing entirely perfect;" when he came into power, not laying aside that sweet innate benignity which he had always shewn when a private man, sustaining his people with his staff rather than chastising them with rods, feeding them as it were with the milk of a mother, and not making use of the scourges of the father, he incurred public scandal for his remissness. So great ...
— The Itinerary of Archibishop Baldwin through Wales • Giraldus Cambrensis
... peasant that he is, and there is fully as much virtue in him, using the word in its true sense, as in the white peasant; indeed, much more than in the poor whites who grew up by his side; while there is often a benignity and a depth of human experience and sympathy about some of these dark faces that comes home to one like the best one sees in ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... austerity; nor does he condemn or scold, even when his own humanity is most affronted, but he tries to induce every one to make the best of his relations with other men during the fugitive and frail duration of their common existence. If he hated anything—in his universal benignity—Vauvenargues hated a rigid puritanism. In one place he says, "We believe no longer in witches, and yet there are people who still believe ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse
... circulation of grain throughout the whole Roman world had in depressing the agriculture of Italy, Gaul, and Greece. They were unable to withstand the competition of Egypt, Lybia, and Sicily—the storehouses of the world; where the benignity of the climate, and the riches of the soil, rewarded seventy or an hundred fold the labours of the husbandman. Gaul, where the increase was only seven-fold—Italy, where it seldom exceeded twelve—Spain, where ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... sideways, his eyes half closed, with the musician's look of mingled voluptuous rapture and cold, grave, listening intellect, he had a certain majesty. The mother, too, all devout concentration, was an artist of the right sort; the girls had the gentle benignity that comes of sincere self-dedication. They pleased Mrs. Forrester greatly and, as she listened, her severity towards Gregory shaped itself anew and more forcibly. Narrow, blind, bigoted young man. And it was amusing to think, as a comment on his fierce consciousness of ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... portrait above mentioned. And this is the more extraordinary, because the heads of Lawrence, like those of ancient statuary, are always smaller than life, to give them an aristocratic, high-bred air, and the bodies are larger. The expression of countenance, too, was benignity itself,—just such as Titian would have been delighted with,—calm, clear, passionless, without a prevailing characteristic of any strength. "Felix trembled," they say. Whatever Felix may have done, I do ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... of living had been fulfilled. These suns, as they rose slowly and steadily, amidst clouds and storms, in their ascendant, so they have not rushed from their meridian to sink suddenly in the west. Like the mildness, the serenity, the continuing benignity of a summer's day, they have gone down with slow-descending, grateful, long-lingering light; and now that they are beyond the visible margin of the world, good omens cheer us from "the bright track ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... injustice on our part. Beautiful development of maternity,' I apostrophized, as I looked at the cow in the light of this new revelation. 'Thy instincts are those that sweeten the world, and remind us of the benignity that planned the universe. I will bring thy calf to thee. I will show thee that I am not devoid of the spirit of equity; that I am ready to go shares and play fair, as it were. Thy calf shall take one ...
— The Busted Ex-Texan and Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... into full effect the principle of representation or of delegated power; and the world was to see whether society could, by the strength of this principle, maintain its own peace and good government, carry forward its own great interests, and conduct itself to political renown and glory. By the benignity of Providence, this experiment, so full of interest to us and to our posterity forever, so full of interest, indeed, to the world in its present generation and in all its generations to come, was suffered to commence under the guidance of Washington. Destined for ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various
... middle height, spare, but vigorous and graceful. His face was cast, I thought, in a foreign mould. His forehead receded beyond the usual degree in visages which I had seen. His eyes large and prominent, but imparting no marks of benignity and habitual joy. The rest of his face forcibly suggested the idea of a convex edge. His whole figure impressed me with emotions of veneration and awe. A gravity that almost amounted to sadness invariably attended him ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... is your cousin?" said my companion. Another of those penetrative glances fell on me. They were peculiar; they flashed upon me, or through me, as keen and clear as the flash of a sabre in the sun; and out of eyes in which a sunlight of merriment or benignity was even then glowing. Both glowed upon me just at this moment, so I did not mind the keen investigation. Indeed, I never minded it. I learned to know it as one of Mr. Thorold's peculiarities. Now, Dr. Sandford had ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... cousin?" said my companion. Another of those penetrative glances fell on me. They were peculiar; they flashed upon me, or through me, as keen and clear as the flash of a sabre in the sun; and out of eyes in which a sunlight of merriment or benignity was even then glowing. Both glowed upon me just at this moment, so I did not mind the keen investigation. Indeed, I never minded it. I learned to know it as one of Mr. Thorold's peculiarities. Now, Dr. Sandford had a good eye for reading people, but it never ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... punishment upon Joan, but filled only with the pious desire of leading her into the way of truth and salvation. 'Seeing that,' he continued, 'she was not sufficiently versed in such weighty matters as those they had now to deal with, they in their pitifulness and benignity, would allow her to choose among the learned doctors present, one or more to aid her ...
— Joan of Arc • Ronald Sutherland Gower
... my coming and going, I never heard him speak harshly or express the least displeasure. An extreme, rather heavy, benignity—the benignity of one sure to be obeyed—marked his demeanour; so that I was at times reminded of Samual Richardson in his circle of admiring women. The wives spoke up and seemed to volunteer opinions, like our wives at home—or, say, like doting but respectable ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... only observe, that it has made an impression on my mind never to be effaced! If these worthy and pious people have abandoned the world for the solitude and austerities of La Trappe, they have not forgotten, in their own self-denial, the benevolence and benignity due to strangers. May their ...
— A Visit to the Monastery of La Trappe in 1817 • W.D. Fellowes
... expression of reverence and love, all eyes were directed on one point. I cannot describe to you my feelings, which of course were those of everybody, to see him, the aged King; in his weak hand the hat; in those grand eyes such a fatherly benignity of look over the vast crowd that encircled his Carriage, and rolled tide-like, accompanying it. Looking round when he was past, I saw in various eyes a tear trembling. ["Alas, we ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... too often, ungrateful people, she was full of tender pity—the yearning of the single-hearted missionary, for the welfare of his flock. They were steeped in darkness, but she carried the light—nay, she was the light! and with a benignity, often evinced by self-sacrifice—she poured it graciously over ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... seemed to wait upon her happiness, but the stars laughed at her as they had always done. She looked up and saw a host of them, clear and distant, shining in a sky so blue and vast that to see it was like flight. They were secure in their high places, and with the smiling benignity of gods they assured her of her littleness, and gladly she accepted that assurance, for she shared her littleness with Zebedee, and now she understood that her happiness was made of small great things, of the hope of caring for him, of keeping that ...
— Moor Fires • E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young
... laughed aloud and heartily, and thinking it was now part of the game, I held out both my arms, and protruded my whole body toward the stranger. He would not receive me from my father's neck, but he asked me with benignity and solicitude if I was hungry; at which I laughed again, and more than ever; for it was early in the morning, soon after the first meal, and my father had nourished me most carefully and plentifully in all the days of the famine. ...
— The Glory of English Prose - Letters to My Grandson • Stephen Coleridge
... feeling I shall pray For thee when I am far away; For never saw I mien or face In which more plainly I could trace Benignity and home-bred sense Ripening in perfect innocence. Here scatter'd like a random seed, Remote from men, Thou dost not need The embarrass'd look of shy distress, And maidenly shamefacedness: Thou wear'st upon thy forehead clear The freedom ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... seemed as though Mrs. Dering could not speak for the many emotions that oppressed her, but after one or two glances at her face, which caused the old gentleman to scout at the idea of her refusing, he exclaimed with a fatherly benignity which sat ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... others: regard is the same countenance in active contemplation of those others whom he loves or pities. The placid aspect expresses, therefore, the divine rest; the meek regard expresses the divine benignity: the one is the self-absorption of the total Godhead, the other the eternal emanation ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... Armagnac, who unjustly detained it. This spirited lady one day made her appearance at the Castle of Orthez, with her little girl of three years old in her hand, and demanded protection of Gaston Phoebus. She was received with great honour and respect, and Gaston listened with great benignity to her complaint. ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... it from me, Fanny," she replied, with her wonted sweetness and benignity, "to ask any one to tamper with duty; but, my child, our faults, our pride frequently mislead us. You shall go to-night, if you please; but I wish, for my sake, you could stay at least till to-morrow morning. I have ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... man, with long white beard, a robe of light gray, ancient sandals, and a golden key hanging by a cord from his waist. In the serene beauty of his noble features I saw justice and mercy had met and were reconciled. I cannot describe the majesty of his bearing or the benignity of his appearance. It is needless to say that I stood before St. Peter, who ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... said Sam, waving his palm-leaf with benignity, "I give yer my blessin'; go to bed now, ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... I had never seen upon the countenance of a green Martian warrior. It bespoke an inward and mighty battle with self, with heredity, with age-old custom, and as he opened his mouth to speak, a look almost of benignity, of kindliness, momentarily lighted up his ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... a famous Dowager, whom we see. Nothing more of notable about the one or the other.] She was never very beautiful; but had a world of grace and witty intelligence; and knew a Voltaire when she saw him. Was the soul of courtesy and benignity, though proud enough, and carrying her head at its due height; and was always very charming, in her lofty gracious way, to mankind. Interesting to all, were it only as a living fragment of the Grand Epoch,—kind of French Fulness of Time, when the world was at length blessed ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle
... tis depressed by Neglect and Contempt: But tis only Persons far above the common Level who are thus affected with either of these Extreams; as in a Thermometer, tis only the purest and most sublimated Spirit that is either contracted or dilated by the Benignity or ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... duty and of stoical reflection; in my constant intercourse with this man—an extraordinary man to those who knew him well—I felt vast depths beneath his toil, beneath his acts of politeness, his mask of benignity, his assumption of resignation, which so closely resembled calmness that it is easy to mistake it. Just as when walking through forest-lands certain soils give forth under our feet a sound which enables us to guess whether they are dense masses of stone ...
— Honorine • Honore de Balzac
... companion; he spoke the provincial vernacular, but his manners were polished and pleasing. He was somewhat under the middle height, but was well formed and slightly athletic, and his fresh-coloured complexion beamed a generous benignity. ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... Tayoga the presence of two or three hundred warriors. Robert knew, too, that a large force was now before them. How long could the thirty hold back the Indian hosts? Yet he had the word of Tayoga that Tododaho looked down upon them with benignity and that all the omens and presages were favorable. There was a flash at his elbow and a rifle sang its deadly song in his ear. Then Tayoga uttered a ...
— The Rulers of the Lakes - A Story of George and Champlain • Joseph A. Altsheler
... consciousness of having done all you could to preserve the dear angel you have lost, and to soften the last painful days of her mortal existence. Mrs. Canning wrote to me that she was in a resigned and happy frame of mind: she is assuredly among the blest; and I feel and I think she looks down with benignity at my feeble efforts to soothe that anguish I participate. Let me then conjure you, my dear brother, to suffer me to endeavor to be of use to you. Could I have done it, I should have been with you from the time of your arrival at Bristol. The impossibility of my going has made me miserable, and injured ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... informed by a created power.[2] The matter of which they consist was created; the informing power in these stars which go round about them was created. The ray and the motion of the holy lights draw out from its potential elements[3] the soul of every brute and of the plants; but the Supreme Benignity inspires your life without intermediary, and enamors it of Itself so that ever after it desires It. And hence[4] thou canst argue further your resurrection, if thou refleetest bow the human flesh was made when the first parents were ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 3, Paradise [Paradiso] • Dante Alighieri
... but vigorous and graceful. His face was cast, I thought, in a foreign mould. His forehead receded beyond the usual degree in visages which I had seen. His eyes large and prominent, but imparting no marks of benignity and habitual joy. The rest of his face forcibly suggested the idea of a convex edge. His whole figure impressed me with emotions of veneration and awe. A gravity that almost amounted to sadness invariably attended him when ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... appeared on the platform, a striking presence in his D.C.L. robes, and looking very leonine with his silvery gray hair sweeping back in one long wave from his forehead, and the rugged squareness of his features tempered by the benignity of an old age which has seen much and overcome much. He read the lecture from a printed copy, not venturing, as he would have liked, upon the severe task of speaking it from memory, considering its length and the importance of preserving the exact wording. He ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... the cause of his own misery. Bravery is increased by daring and fear by hesitation. You can more easily discover fortune than cling to it. The wrath of the just is to be dreaded. A man dies every time that he is bereft of his kin. Man is loaned, not given to life. The best strife is rivalry in benignity. Nothing is pleasing unless renewed by variety. Bad is the plan which cannot be altered. Less often would you err if you knew how much you don't know. He who shows clemency always comes out victorious. He who respects his oath succeeds in everything. Where old age is at fault youth ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler
... what the man's distinguishing quality was. It was his open look, an expression almost of benignity, absolutely foreign to the Indian character. Indians may give their eyes freely to one another, but a white man never sees beneath the ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... both at home and abroad as will best seem consonant with the purpose of his royal majesty, you may control the fleet and troops of the Spanish army. Especially too that the most brilliant light of faith may beam upon the populous races that dwell in that region of the world. Through the benignity of God most holy and supreme, and your preaching, there is hope that those benighted barbarians may cast aside the errors and more than Cimmerian darkness of idolatry for the splendor of the gospel; and that they ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803, Volume II, 1521-1569 • Emma Helen Blair
... shouter in his lustier manhood, and had held a larger audience together by the power of his belief; but now he was helpless to attract any but the children. Whether it was the pathos of his white hairs, his garb of shreds and patches, or the mild benignity of his eye that moved me, I know not, but among all the Sunday shouters in Hyde Park it seemed to me that that quavering voice of the past ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... fatigued with the labours of the day—I was on the point of leaving him—he of retiring to rest, when Francois announced a stranger. An old man appeared. He was short, and very thin; his cheeks were pale—his hair hoary. Benignity beamed in his countenance, on which traces of suffering lingered, not wholly effaced by piety and resignation. There was an air of sweetness and repose about the venerable stranger, that at the first sight gained ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... his cruelty and his avarice under a mask of benignity. He was fat, jolly and sympathetic, and his smile was the smile of a warm-hearted humanitarian. The milk of human kindness oozed from his every pore. In fact, he was always grumbling about the amount of work he had to do for nothing. He was a genial, generous ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... said, waving them back with more benignity than he thought he had in him. "Master Dick is safe enough. I know all about it. Where is Dr. Grimstone? In the library, eh? Very well, I ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... forehead which has thrust back the hair from the top of his commanding head, although it is thick at the sides over the ears, and repeats in its soft gray the color of his kindly eyes. Before taking in these physical facts one receives an impression of benignity and amenity not often conveyed, even by the most distinguished. And, taking advantage of this amiability, I asked if certain words just used should be followed by a dash, and even boldly added: "Are you not famous, Mr. James, for ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... same author, referring to Plato's travels in search of knowledge, says, "He laboured, so must we," we do not find the comparison humiliating either to Plato or ourselves. For "without a way there is no going," and every man of superior mould says to us with more or less of benignity, "I am the way: follow me." Such means or ways of attainment have been followed by all whose success is known to us, and are followed now by all "finely touched and gifted men." I might quote in illustration of these assertions the whole ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... passage on Woodville's endowment by fortune, for example, is much more concise and effective than that in S-R fr. Also Mary curbed somewhat the extravagance of her praise of Woodville, omitting such hyperboles as "When he appeared a new sun seemed to rise on the day & he had all the benignity of the dispensor of light," and "he seemed to come as ...
— Mathilda • Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
... sixty. But his own mother, who he knew had become reconciled to the life of Ephesus, could never have arrived at sixty with the imperious disregard for convention that was so perfectly Mrs. Norris's. Upon her face at present, as she looked down at her knitting, was a smiling benignity that would have recommended itself to the Virgin at Chartres; and at the same time her hair—what modest growth there was left—was uncurling itself from behind and threatening to pull down the whole structure after it. It was perfect, Tom told himself, and were he a sculptor commissioned ...
— Tutors' Lane • Wilmarth Lewis
... against the still more horrid cruelty which reduced unfortunate children born out of wedlock to something like the status of the mediaeval serf. Robespierre's compositions at this time do not rise above the ordinary level of declaiming mediocrity, but they promised a manhood of benignity and enlightenment. To compose prize essays on political reforms was better than to ignore or to oppose political reform. But the course of events afterwards owed their least desirable bias to the fact that such compositions were the nearest approach to political training that so many of the ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley
... little that night; but when he came to breakfast, all noticed an unusual gentleness and benignity of manner, and Mary, she knew not why, saw tears rising in his eyes when he looked ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... bereft of speech, and O'Rook stood there, the picture of benignity, in a corner. What the former would have said it is impossible to tell, for at that moment there came an impatient rapping ...
— Philosopher Jack • R.M. Ballantyne
... which he impartially bedewed the clothes of the whole company. As soon as I saw them I could not help smiling to myself to remember the anxiety with which I had approached. They received me and my hastily-concocted story, that I had been walking from Peebles and had lost my way, with incoherent benignity; jostled me among them into the room where they had been sitting, a plain hedgerow alehouse parlour with a roaring fire in the chimney and a prodigious number of empty bottles on the floor; and informed me that I was made, by this ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... down with a little triumphant flutter of her girlish heart at the sense that she is loved by the person of chief consequence in her small world, you may see in her hazel eyes an ever-present sunny benignity, in which the momentary harmless flashes of personal vanity are quite lost; and if she is happy in thinking of her lover, it is because the thought of him mingles readily with all the gentle affections and good-natured offices ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... polished and scoured, so groomed and tailored, so bedecked, so high-heeled and loftily coiffed. His mean little countenance with its grotesquely waxed mustache and imperial wore an expression of gracious benignity that assured his guests they need ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... circumstance disappeared from my mind at once. I was looking at his face. It had completely lost its benignant expression; was pale, and bore marks of great fatigue. Something of the old clerical benignity came to the eyes as he greeted me cordially; but sitting down in the nearest chair, as though completely wearied out, he became ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... surprised and a good deal gratified, Fleda saw, by her coming, and played the hostess with great benignity. The quilting-frame was stretched in an upper room, not in the long kitchen, to Fleda's joy; most of the company were already seated at it, and she had to go through a long string of introductions before she was permitted to take her place. First of all, Earl Douglass's wife, who rose up, and taking ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... to the door of the house and knocked. The old gentleman whom Watson had seen soon stood before them. The lamp which he held above him shone upon a face full of benignity and peacefulness. His features were handsome; his eyes twinkled genially, as if he ...
— Chasing an Iron Horse - Or, A Boy's Adventures in the Civil War • Edward Robins
... of the peculiar favor of the gods, and considered that beauty only worth adorning and transmitting which was unmarred by outward manifestations of hard and haughty feeling. According to their ideal, beauty must be the expression of attractive qualities within—such as cheerfulness, benignity, contentment, and love. ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... Grecian statues were designed to excite the devotion of a cultivated people; to embody their conceptions of divine perfection; to realise the expression of that character of mind which they imputed to the deities whose temples they were to adorn: It was grace, or strength, or majesty, or the benignity of divine power, which they were to represent by the figures of Venus, of Hercules, of Jupiter, or of Apollo. Their artists accordingly were led to aim at the expression of general character; to exclude passion, or emotion, or suffering, from their design, and represent the ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... you are perfectly wrong in the disagreement. However, as your present situation must be very disagreeable, I will certainly take an early opportunity of removing you, provided your conduct to your present captain be such that another may not refuse to receive you." The gentleness and benignity of his disposition never made him forget what was due to discipline. Being on one occasion applied to, to save a young officer from a court-martial, which he had provoked by his misconduct, his reply was, "That he would do everything in his power ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... of Love, Wherewith, as with the shell of Orpheus, Things high and humble, the enthroned gods, And tenants of the far unvisited huts Of wildernesses, she alike subdues Unto the awe of perfect harmony? What else but sweetness tempered all one way, And looks of sociable benignity? Which when she chooseth to be all herself, She doth put on, and in the act thereof, Such thousand graces lacquey her about, And in her smile such plenitude of joy— The extreme perfection of the divine gods— Shines affable, as, to partake thereof, Hath oftentimes set Heaven in uproar. By these, ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... that a pardon was granted to Ferguson by James. Some have been so absurd as to cite this imaginary pardon, which, if it were real would prove only that Ferguson was a court spy, in proof of the magnanimity and benignity of the prince who beheaded Alice Lisle and burned Elizabeth Gaunt. Ferguson was not only not specially pardoned, but was excluded by name from the general pardon published in the following spring. (London ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... neither produces the odd nor is indivisible. And Homer seems to place the nature of the one in the sphere of the good, and the nature of the dual in the opposite many times. Often he declares a good man to be [Greek omitted] "kind" and the adjective from it is "benignity"; as ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... when I had the happiness to know him intimately was noble and memorable, and he won his way less by commanding abilities than by weight of character. His large benignity repressed the expression of any small or mean thought in his presence; and his arrival was sufficient without his saying a word to elevate the tone and manner of any discussion in which he was expected to participate. ...
— Great Testimony - against scientific cruelty • Stephen Coleridge
... of forty, her ample form, her wide bosom, the falling folds of her black dress, her loosely girdled waist, suggesting, with the cloistral analogies, the mournful benignity of a bereaved Madonna. Seen as she stood there, leaning her head to watch her son's approach, she was an almost intimidating presence, black, still, and stately. But when the door opened and the young man came in, when, ...
— Amabel Channice • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... which gradually drew Mr. Brown out of the coalition began with the death of Sir Etienne P. Tache on July 30th, 1865. By his age, his long experience, and a certain mild benignity of disposition, Tache was admirably fitted to be the dean of the coalition and the arbiter between its elements. He had served in Reform and Conservative governments, but without incurring the reproach of overweening love of office. With his departure that ...
— George Brown • John Lewis
... thought, that, before the tribunal to which he so long ago passed, the mercy we all shall need, which comprehends all motives and allows for all infirmities, has been extended to him, in its infinite wisdom and benignity. ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... with as much benignity thrown into his countenance as it could contain; and the barber observed, as he re-entered his shop, that, "that man was a better fellow than ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... well developed, without being corpulent, had a firm elastic step, and motions indicating vigor and health. His eye was bright, but mild, his features regular and unusually handsome, and his countenance was habitually lighted up by an intelligence and benignity which gave it a peculiar charm, and inspired even strangers with a confidence that such a face could not belong to any but a good and upright man. Mr. Charless was an exceedingly pleasant companion, and, without being either brilliant or witty in conversation, his society was courted and ...
— A Biographical Sketch of the Life and Character of Joseph Charless - In a Series of Letters to his Grandchildren • Charlotte Taylor Blow Charless
... rest on the sofa, while she wrote a note to her mother. She was a long time about it, and when she returned, he was stretched out with both arms under his head, sound asleep, while Aunt March had pulled down the curtains and sat doing nothing in an unusual fit of benignity. ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... these words, and by a look full of kindness and benignity, I abandoned myself without reserve to all the inspirations of my heart and soul. The picture which I drew of the sufferings and hopes of the nation, which I presented to the Emperor, was so touching and so animated, that he was astonished. "You are a noble young fellow," ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... fantasy—the stalest and most vulgarised forms of speech gaining brilliancy and illuminating power from some hitherto undreamt-of application—and all the while an atmosphere of goodwill diffusing itself from the speaker, a glow of eager benignity and affectionate laughter emanating from his presence, till every one about him seemed to catch something of his own gift and inspiration. This sympathetic power of inspiring others was the special and distinguishing note of Stevenson's conversation. He would keep a houseful ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of his deceased friend Garrick. With the very same breath in which we read the paragraph we declared it to be a falsehood. Mr. Fox had too much judgment to institute the comparison—Mr. Fox had too much benignity to utter such a malicious ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold
... benevolence, Christian charity; God's love, God's grace; good will; philanthropy &c 910; unselfishness &c 942. good nature, good feeling, good wishes; kindness, kindliness &c adj.; loving-kindness, benignity, brotherly love, charity, humanity, fellow-feeling, sympathy; goodness of heart, warmth of heart; bonhomie; kind-heartedness; amiability, milk of human kindness, tenderness; love &c 897; friendship &c 888. toleration, consideration, generosity; mercy &c (pity) 914. charitableness ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... thither lad,* *took And, sooth to say, of victual great plenty, They have her giv'n, and clothes eke she had And forth she sailed in the salte sea: O my Constance, full of benignity, O emperores younge daughter dear, He that is lord of fortune be thy steer*! ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... the Quarry Wood first," said Cousin Dick, with royal benignity. "You get away outside at the western end, and ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... the perfume of the cedar wood employed as a specific against the ravages of the moth and bookworm, seemed to the young man redolent of midnight learning; and the superb front of the presiding god, calm in the grandeur of its ineffable benignity, who appeared to his excited fancy to smile serene protection on the pursuits of the blameless consul, inspired him with a sense of awful veneration, that did not easily or quickly ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... rendering himself more youthful for this belated adventure with the babbling widow he had been treated by a hair specialist. The result was, as usual, farcically pathetic. His nice white hair which had given him a charming benignity and cleanness had been turned into a dead and musty black which made him look unearthly and unreal. His smart and carefully cherished moustache which once had laid upon his upper lip like cotton wool had been treated with the same ink-colored mixture. His ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... Henchard, in rough benignity. "This is only a cottage—it costs me next to nothing. And as to taking up my time"—here his red and black visage kindled with satisfaction—"I've a splendid fellow to superintend my business now—a man whose like I've never been able to lay hands on before. ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... gentle smile flits o'er his lip, He eyes me with benignity; He yearns to offer goodly tip, Yet fears ...
— Fringilla: Some Tales In Verse • Richard Doddridge Blackmore
... art, we behold the golden lakes of joy, the mountain of gems, the floating female angels with their marvellous drapery and lovely faces, the gentle benignity of the goddesses of mercy, the rays of light and the glory streaming from face and head of the holy ones, the splendors of costume, the varied beauties of the lotus, the hosts of ministering intelligences, the luxuriant symbolism, the purple clouds, the wheel of the law, the swastika[29] ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... features, however, were so marked by prominent characteristics, which appear in all likenesses of him, that a stranger could not be mistaken in the man. He was remarkably dignified in his manners, and had an air of benignity over his features which his visitant did not expect, being rather prepared for sternness ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... Shakespeare may prove to them in older years enrichers of the fancy, strengtheners of virtue, a withdrawing from all selfish and mercenary thoughts, a lesson of all sweet and honourable thoughts and actions, to teach courtesy, benignity, generosity, humanity: for of examples, teaching these virtues, his ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... lady who was drawing, appears to be upwards of fifty, tall, rather plump, and extremely majestic, an air of dignity distinguishes her person, and every virtue is engraven in indelible characters on her countenance. There is a benignity in every look, which renders the decline of life, if possible, more amiable than the bloom of youth. One would almost think nature had formed her for a common parent, such universal and tender benevolence beams from every ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott
... battle; but they had hitherto given no memorable example of gentleness, or humanity, or civil virtue; and Marcellus seems first to have shown to the Greeks, that his countrymen were most illustrious for their justice. For such was his moderation to all with whom he had anything to do, and such his benignity also to many cities and private men, that, if anything hard or severe was decreed concerning the people of Enna, Megara, or Syracuse, the blame was thought to belong rather to those upon whom the storm fell, than to those who brought it upon them. One example ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... hundred. The Saharan veteran made no observation in particular. He replied to my questions about Saharan travelling:—"Don't fear, the Touaricks will do you no harm. You can go to Timbuctoo in safety." I was making ghusub water, and asked him to drink of it. "No," he said, smiling with benignity, "you must drink ghusub water with me, not I with you. This is the fashion of us Touaricks." Ghusub water, is water poured on ghusub grain after the grain has been par-boiled or otherwise prepared. A milky substance oozes from the grain, and makes a very cooling pleasant beverage. ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... to see whether society could, by the strength of this principle, maintain its own peace and good government, carry forward its own great interests, and conduct itself to political renown and glory. By the benignity of Providence, this experiment, so full of interest to us and to our posterity forever, so full of interest, indeed, to the world in its present generation and in all its generations to come, was suffered to commence under the guidance of Washington. Destined for this ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various
... price upon his head as a rebel No man could reveal secrets which he did not know Of high rank but of lamentably low capacity Pope excommunicated him as a heretic Preventing wrong, or violence, even towards an enemy They could not invent or imagine toleration Uunmeaning phrases of barren benignity ...
— Quotations From John Lothrop Motley • David Widger
... of the French to a greater degree than before. For the settlement of this there have now for a good while been dealings here with the King's Ambassador, and his Treaty is now almost brought to a conclusion. Moreover, the singular benignity and moderation of your Eminence, always manifest hitherto in the most important transactions of the Kingdom relating to the French Protestants, causes me to hope much from your own prudence ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... if the weather were bad we generally made our promenade up and down the broad terrace in front of the windows. Sullen and malign at times she used to look, and as suddenly she would pat me on the shoulder caressingly, and smile with a grotesque benignity, asking tenderly, 'Are you fatigue, ma chere?' or ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... which full plainly I can trace Benignity, and home-bred sense, Ripening in perfect innocence. Here scattered, like a random seed, Remote from men, thou dost not need The embarrassed look of shy distress And maidenly shamefacedness. Thou wear'st upon thy forehead clear ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... knitted away and the gold spectacles were fixed on us with bland benignity. Aunt Louisa writing a song scena and ordering a chorus, just like Mr. GEORGE EDWARDES, was not the least of the miracles produced by ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 18, 1914 • Various
... and took up a tin measure. He served the little maid with a benignity quite charming to witness, made an entry on a slate of.08, ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... abundant material for judging what his features were, and how they flashed beneath the storm of inspiration.[1] Fra Bartolommeo, one of his followers, painted a profile of him in the character of S. Peter Martyr. This shows all the benignity and grace of expression which his stern lineaments could assume. It is a picture of the sweet and gentle nature latent within the fiery arraigner of his nation at the bar of God. In contemporary medals the face appears hard, keen, uncompromising, ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... character; and they may be added to by still another account, written by Mrs. Annie Downs, also an American, in 1879, and describing a visit to George Eliot two years before her death. "Tall, slender, with a grace most un-English, her face, instead of beauty, possessed a sweet benignity, and at times flashed into absolute brilliancy. She was older than I had imagined, for her hair, once fair, was gray, and unmistakable lines of care and thought were on the low, broad brow. But although ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... not come to trespass so far upon your benignity," he answered, as he bent before her. "I come to express, rather, my regret that you should have made one ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... spread its desolation on mankind; But a pure regnant holiness and love, Directing impulse with most queenly sway To ends of tenderness and charity; A nature purified by fellowship With angels and bright ministers of Heaven, That wander thither from their homes above On missions of benignity and grace. And in this pleasaunce, as by holy need, There reigneth deep communion of soul, That frameth as it were one atmosphere Of joy, and hope, and blessedness for all; No selfish pleasures fluttering before To woo satanic ...
— Eidolon - The Course of a Soul and Other Poems • Walter R. Cassels
... Court from the State;" to "disconnect the authority to command service from the power of animating it by reward;" and to impose on the Regent "all the invidious duties of the kingly station, without the means of softening them to the public by any one act of grace, favour, or benignity." ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... She held by the hand a curly-haired little girl of singularly calm and innocent expression. The woman's dark hair waved gracefully on her high forehead, and caught his attention. Her eyes were subtly sweet, her mouth full of pathos. She pressed forward to speak to him; the Dean, all benignity, bent his head ...
— The Woman Who Did • Grant Allen
... The benignity faded from the king's manner; his countenance, which "at no time would have made a man's fortune," became rancorous, caustic; the corners of his mouth appeared almost updrawn to his nostrils. He had little reason to care for the duke, and this interruption, so flagrant, menacing almost, did not ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... known to possess inheritable elements are generosity, piousness, independence, industry, will-power, faithfulness, fairness, sociability, reliability, self-reliance, tendency to work hard, perseverance, carefulness, impulsiveness, temperance, high-spiritedness, joviality, benignity, quietness, cheerfulness, hospitality, sympathy, humorousness, love of fun, neighborliness, love of frontier life, love of travel and of adventure. The same may be said of immoral traits, such as criminality, pauperism, ...
— How to Live - Rules for Healthful Living Based on Modern Science • Irving Fisher and Eugene Fisk
... his palate demanded wine, and with wine he solaced it. When he went forth again into the roaring highway things glowed before him in a mellow light: the sounds of Fleet Street made music to his ears; he looked with joyous benignity into the faces of men and women, and nowhere discovered a countenance inharmonious with ...
— Eve's Ransom • George Gissing
... forth around his head; hyacinthine locks clustered on his shoulders, his eyes sparkled with supernatural radiance; a quiver depended at his back; an unstrung bow occupied his hand; the majesty and benignity of his presence alike seemed augmented tenfold. Eubulides and the crowd sank simultaneously on their ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... observes in his Irenicum: "The unity and peace that was then among Christians made religion amiable in the judgment of impartial heathens: Christians were then known by the benignity and sweetness of their dispositions, by the candour and ingenuity of their spirits, by their mutual love, forbearance, and condescension to one another. But either this is not the practice of Christianity (viz., a duty ...
— An Exhortation to Peace and Unity • Attributed (incorrectly) to John Bunyan
... had been all spoken by the pensionary, the Emperor, whose cue was now to appear struggling with mingled emotions of reasonable wrath and of natural benignity, performed his part with much dramatic effect. "He held himself coyly for a little time," says the eye-witness, "without saying a word; deporting himself as though he were considering whether or not he would grant the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... negro, with a smile of expansive benignity; "I's not 'fraid ob dat. I's bin a slabe once, got used to lickin's. Don't care nuffin' at all ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... to come. The talk was that strange, slight talk which governs the British Empire, which governs it in secret, and yet would scarcely enlighten an ordinary Englishman even if he could overhear it. Cabinet ministers on both sides were alluded to by their Christian names with a sort of bored benignity. The Radical Chancellor of the Exchequer, whom the whole Tory party was supposed to be cursing for his extortions, was praised for his minor poetry, or his saddle in the hunting field. The Tory leader, whom all Liberals were supposed to hate as a tyrant, was discussed and, on the whole, ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... have buried your little daughter this morning. It requires a good deal of that new attribute of yours, faith, which judges all things by a rule of contraries, and can never see anything but kindness in the worst afflictions which malignity could devise, to discover benignity and mercy in the torturing calamity which has just punished you and your wife for nothing! But I fancy that it will be harder still when I tell you what I more than suspect—ha, ha. It would ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 4 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... nodded her head several times, and Cuthbert fancied that a greater benignity of expression crossed her ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... this question would occur with a cruel sharpness after some brief chance interview with Dr. John. He had still such kind looks, such a warm hand; his voice still kept so pleasant a tone for my name; I never liked "Lucy" so well as when he uttered it. But I learned in time that this benignity, this cordiality, this music, belonged in no shape to me: it was a part of himself; it was the honey of his temper; it was the balm of his mellow mood; he imparted it, as the ripe fruit rewards with sweetness the rifling ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... Carlo Alberto—a woman with three edges. Did she not visit you in prison two weeks ago? I speak to you, Count Ammiani. She applied to the Archduke and the Marshal for permission to visit you. It was accorded. To the devil with our days of benignity! She was from Turin. The shuffle has made her my hostess for the nonce. I will go to her. You, sir," the count turned to Wilfrid—"you will stay below. Are you in ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... hands were white and well shaped. On the left he wore a fine diamond ring, but it shone rather than sparkled. He spoke of commonplace things in a voice that lent dignity even to the weather. His face, which was clean-shaven, radiated benignity tempered ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... far more to me than worldly success." He kissed her hand with reverence, and lifted his head slowly, facing the audience with rapt gaze; his wonderful smile—that ineffable smile of abnegation and benignity—just beginning to dawn. ...
— Harlequin and Columbine • Booth Tarkington
... a smile of benignity upon his face. "It is a clever plan," said he, "and you are a good fellow, Dickory, but your scheme, though well intentioned, is unsound. I have too much regard for you to trust you in any vessel sailing from Belize to Kingston, where there are often naval vessels. Going from this ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton
... Maurier. He was over six feet, and carried himself in a soldierly fashion, as became a leader of the Church Militant. His legs were all that could be desired to fill out episcopalian gaiters; and his bland, clean-shaven face beamed with smiles and benignity. But Bishop Pendle was not the mere figure-head Mrs Pansey's malice declared him to be; he had great administrative powers, great organising capabilities, and controlled his diocese in a way which did equal credit to his heart and head. As he chatted with his guests ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... kind-heartedness, munificence, beneficence, generosity, kindliness, philanthropy, benignity, good-will, kindness, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... than I had ever before felt before a work of art took possession of me. Such wisdom, benignity, genius! What a soul belonged to this man! I looked about to see if we were watched by guards. As we were alone I put up my hands to caress this face, moved by some unknown impulse. Touching the silken surface of the bronze my whole imaginative ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... little as she knew and deeply as she would have resented it. Dr Rider's brows cleared up at sight of Nettie's landlady. He expected some little private anecdotes of her and her ways, such as no one else could give him. He gave Mrs Smith a chair with a benignity to which she had no personal claim. Her arrival made Dr Rider's beefsteak palatable, though the cookery and condition of the same were, to say the least, far from perfect. Mrs Smith evidently was a little embarrassed with the gracious reception she received. ...
— The Doctor's Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... easily by the professor; and when Hermione left him, before lunch, it is probable that in the solitude of the conservatory the man of science rubbed his gigantic hands together, and beamed upon the orchids with unusual benignity. ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... of mind, Mr. Rawlinson one day placed both of his palms on Stas' shoulders and, looking him straight in the eyes, said with an angelic benignity: ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... was not that of imperious command, but of quiet self-possession and assurance of the right, blended with benignity. Romola, vibrating to the sound, looked round at the figure on the opposite side of the bed. His face was hardly discernible under the shadow of the cowl, and her eyes fell at once on his hands, which were folded across his breast and lay in relief on the ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... official immobility. His slow yet seeing vision dwelt on the painted girl with a gaze as penetrating as that of Omnipotence in its profound knowledge of evil. He strolled towards her with a kind of indifferent benignity with which Providence has also been credited. He raised a hand, omnipotent with the authority of the law. "Better get away from here," Charles heard him warn her, and she disappeared from view ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... court to civil despots from the commencement of the famous 1260 years, let the following instance serve for a sample. Addressing the monster Phocas, Pope Gregory, as the mouth of the clergy and laity,[4] uses this language: "We rejoice that the benignity of your piety(!) has reached the pinnacle of imperial power. Let the heavens he glad and the earth rejoice."—Now let us hear the character of Phocas from the pen of an infidel:—"Ignorant of letters, of laws, ...
— Notes On The Apocalypse • David Steele
... its nourishment. She naturally resents this injustice on our part. Beautiful development of maternity,' I apostrophized, as I looked at the cow in the light of this new revelation. 'Thy instincts are those that sweeten the world, and remind us of the benignity that planned the universe. I will bring thy calf to thee. I will show thee that I am not devoid of the spirit of equity; that I am ready to go shares and play fair, as it were. Thy calf shall take one side of thee. I will take the other, and ...
— The Busted Ex-Texan and Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... appear to be in any way down-hearted on the contrary, they seemed imbued with the philosophic jollity of the jolly servant of Martin Chuzzlewit. Were it not for their chains, it would have been difficult to discover master from slave; the physiognomic traits were alike—the mild benignity with which we were regarded was equally visible on all faces. The chains were ponderous—they might have held elephants captive; but as the slaves carried nothing but themselves, their weight could not ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... is one of the most prominent and efficient of the philanthropists of modern days. An air of benignity and easy good nature veils and conceals in him the most unflinching perseverance and energy of purpose. He has for many years been a zealous advocate of the antislavery cause in England, taking up efficiently the work begun by Clarkson and Wilberforce. He, ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... matters and accustomed to rise at dawn to attend to her household affairs, not permitting her art to interfere with the more homely duties of her life. One writer says that "her devoted filial affection, her feminine grace, and the artless benignity of her manners rounded out a character regarded as an ideal of perfection by ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... pale, gentle and simple. At the end farthest from the street one figure stood erect—a short, round, rubicund little man, wearing a gown of rusty black, one thumb stuck into his vest, and a rosy benignity in the glance with which he scanned the table. He threw back his head, cleared his tight throat sonorously, and began, in tones perhaps best described as treacly, to address the seated company, with an intention also towards the larger ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... goodness, thy magnificence, Thy virtue, and thy great humility, Surpass all science and all utterance; For sometimes, Lady! ere men pray to thee 25 Thou goest before in thy benignity, The light to us vouchsafing of thy prayer, To be our guide unto ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... come in again to-day," said Lady Cranstone, whose features still successfully failed to give to the stranger any indication of the benignity that, it ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, October 13, 1920 • Various
... the present generation. One cannot help regretting that the estate is to be cut up now into five shares or more. Eleven thousand acres of fertile hill and dale, sinking and swelling gently, so as to attract all the benignity of sun or breeze—not more densely wooded than is common on our own western shores, and watered to an ornamental perfection—truly on any civilized land, ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... most industrious artists," says Vasari, "were labouring by the light of Giotto and his followers to give the world examples of such power as the benignity of their stars and the varied character of their fantasies enabled them to command, and while desirous of imitating the perfection of Nature by the excellence of Art, they were struggling to attain that high comprehension which many call intelligence, ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies
... objects of philanthropy and Christian benevolence with which her life had been identified. After the meeting, and at her own desire, several members of the committee, and other friends, assembled at her house. They were welcomed by her with the greatest benignity and kindness, and in her intercourse with them, strong were the indications of the heavenly teaching through which her subdued and sanctified spirit had been called to pass. Her affectionate salutation in parting, unconsciously closed, ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman
... the citizens of Reims that same wise benignity he had shown to the citizens of Troyes, promised them full ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... of the Jesuit, nor even of the ecclesiastic, about the Abbe Carlos Herrera. His hands were large, he was thick-set and broad-chested, evidently he possessed the strength of a Hercules; his terrific expression was softened by benignity assumed at will; but a complexion of impenetrable bronze inspired feelings of repulsion rather than attachment for ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... indifferent, to take pleasure in the good of another, and a disposition contrariwise to take distaste at the good of another, which is that properly which we call good-nature, or ill-nature, benignity or malignity.' Is not this a field for science, then, with such differences as these lying on the surface of it,—does not it begin to open up with a somewhat inviting aspect? This so remarkable product of nature, with such extraordinary 'differences' in him as these, is he the only thing ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... Domenichino without being thrilled with emotion, and touched with awe. The story is told with the most admirable skill, and with the most exquisite truth and simplicity: the interest is one and the same; it all centres in the person of the expiring saint; and the calm benignity of the officiating priest is finely contrasted with the countenances of the group who support the dying form of St. Jerome: anxious tenderness, grief, hope, and fear, are expressed with such deep pathos and reality, that the spectator forgets admiration ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... Providence to learn, Receive my sayings with a steadfast ear— Know then, the Sovereign Spirit of the world, Though, self-collected from eternal time, Within his own deep essence he beheld The bounds of true felicity complete, 310 Yet by immense benignity inclined To spread around him that primeval joy Which fill'd himself, he raised his plastic arm, And sounded through the hollow depths of space The strong, creative mandate. Straight arose These heavenly orbs, the glad abodes of ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... could not be seen without being praised by the Greeks and feared and adored by the barbarians. And therefore if a poor man of this earth so commanded by edict concerning his image, how much more reason have the ecclesiastical or secular princes to take care to order that no one shall paint the benignity and meekness of our Redeemer or the purity of Our Lady and the Saints but the most illustrious painters to be found in their domains and provinces? And this would be a very famous and much praised work in any lord. And even in the Old Testament God the Father wished that those ...
— Michael Angelo Buonarroti • Charles Holroyd
... discretion knows and is cognisant, like God the Father, Creator, of all offences committed against you, and who may be appeased by tears and by weeping as He permits Himself to be softened by contrition, entreaties, etc., and resumes His natural benignity by forgetting things past [etc.].... Alas, what kindness did He use toward Adam, His first offender, upon whom through his son Seth He poured the oil of pity in five thousand future years, and then to Cain the first born ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... difficult and dangerous exigencies produced in our foreign relations by the war with Great Britain. Tact, sagacity, courage—the ability to command respect and to advocate truth and maintain right—dignity of manner, benignity of temper—devotion to his country—all the requisites seemed to combine in the character of Jay, on the one hand to enforce just claims, and, on the other, to propitiate good will. To raise a loan and secure an alliance in Spain seemed a hopeless task: Jay undertook it, much ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... reverend brethren should be daily supplied with a service of boiled almonds, rice and milk, pease, or the like, to be called the King's mess, and that without the ordinary service of their table being either disturbed in quantity or quality. But this was not the only mark of the benignity of good King Robert towards the monks of Melrose, since, by a charter of the dale 29th May, 1326, he conferred on the Abbot of Melrose the sum of two thousand pounds sterling, for rebuilding: the church of St. Mary's, ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... conscious and sensible of our own obnoxiousness to the like slips or falls, and do consider that we also may be tempted, and being tempted, may be overborne. This they cannot perceive or be persuaded of, except we temper our speech with benignity and mildness. Such speech prudence also dictateth, as most useful and hopeful for producing the good ends honest reprehension doth aim at; it mollifieth and it melteth a stubborn heart, it subdueth and winneth a perverse ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... necessarily both numerous and magnificent. He is usually represented as a man of noble and imposing mien, his countenance expressing all the lofty majesty of the omnipotent ruler of the universe, combined with the gracious, yet serious, benignity of the father and friend of mankind. He may be recognized by his rich flowing beard, and the thick masses of hair, which rise straight from the high and intellectual forehead and fall to his shoulders in clustering locks. ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... often attended our suffrage meetings. He was already an old man, nearing the end of his life; and I recall him as singularly tall and thin, almost gaunt, bending forward as he talked, and wearing an expression of great serenity and benignity. I once told Susan B. Anthony that if I needed help in a crowd of strangers that included her, I would immediately turn to her, knowing from her face that, whatever I had done, she would understand and assist me. I could have offered the same tribute to Whittier. At our meetings he was like a vesper-bell ...
— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw
... heroes, the purity of angels, the generosity of God, is no more than I need. Only show virtue unmixed at the heart of this system, and you open my destiny in that. If there be but the least spark of pure benignity, it is a fire will spread through all and fill the breast; for Good makes good, and what it is I must become. Man is heir not to any possession or commodity, though it were a homestead in all heavens, but to the moral power which we ache to exercise. To-day I am a poor starveling of Nature, sucking ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... refreshing breeze that comes without warning, or the taste of the waters of an unexpected fountain. These, and similar suggestions, must have given, formerly, to the language of the senseless stone a voice enforced and endeared by the benignity of that Nature with which it was in unison.—We, in modern times, have lost much of these advantages; and they are but in a small degree counterbalanced to the inhabitants of large towns and cities, by the custom of depositing the dead within, or contiguous to, their places ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... appearance, all the captains then and there collected, had looked upon me with anything but flattering regards; some turned up their noses, some grinned, all appeared astonished, and all disgusted. At the conclusion of this speech, I was surprised at the benignity which beamed upon me from under their variously shaped and coloured eyebrows. There was magic in the words "for his father's sake," and ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... soliloquy of a blackbird hidden in the flame-flowered chestnut. Hazel felt that she would like to go on picking currants for ever, growing more and more like Mrs. Marston every day, and at least becoming (possibly through sheer benignity) a grandmother. There seemed no place in her life for Reddin, no time for Hunter's Spinney. She thought, 'I wunna go. I'll stay along of Ed'ard, and no harm'll come to me.' But a peremptory voice said that ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... in that hour, Prayer, too impatient, lost its power; From thy benignity a ray, I caught, ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... to worldly matters, he united the deepest learning to the most elevated piety, while the thoroughly practical character of his religion, carried, as it was, into all the minor details of everyday life, imparted a gentleness and benignity to his manner which seemed to elevate him above the level of ordinary mortals. If he had a fault (I suppose, merely for the sake of proving him human, I must allow him one), it was a want of moral courage, which made it so disagreeable to him ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... countenance of Christ when passive to the gaze of others; REGARD is the same countenance in active contemplation of those others whom he loves or pities. The PLACID ASPECT expresses, therefore, the divine rest; the MEEK REGARD expresses the divine benignity; the one is the self-absorption of the total Godhead, the other the external emanation of ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... words to do justice to his benignity, I wonder if Master Mahasaya, and others among the deep-visioned saints whose paths crossed mine, knew that years later, in a Western land, I would be writing about their lives as divine devotees. Their foreknowledge would not surprise me nor, I hope, my readers, ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... it worth His while to weep, and bleed, and die, to deceive thee into a false esteem of Him and His love. But if it be the greatest madness imaginable to entertain any such thought but that His tears were sincere and unartificial, the natural, genuine expression of undissembled benignity and pity, thou art then to consider what love and compassion thou art now sinning against; what bowels thou spurnest; and that if thou perishest, 'tis under such guilt as the devils themselves are not liable to, who never had a Redeemer bleeding for them, ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Vol. 2 (of 10) • Grenville Kleiser
... sweetly-budding life that came as a vision of deliverance from the monotony of distaste: it was an image of another sort. In the irritable, fluctuating stages of despair, gleams of hope came in the form of some possible accident. To dwell on the benignity of accident was a refuge ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... difficulty that the missionary experiences in his attempts to instil religious principles into the Indian mind, is to get him to entertain the theory that the human race sprang originally from one pair. The pagan believes in the existence of a Supreme Being, though, his idea of that Being's benignity and consideration relates solely to an earthly oversight of him, and a concern for his daily wants. His conception of future bliss is almost wholly sensual, and wrapped up with the notion of an unrestrained indulgence of animal appetite, and a ...
— A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians • James Bovell Mackenzie
... for what they are, than from regard Glanced on their promises in restless pride. Such was she—not from faculties more strong Than others have, but from the times, perhaps, And spot in which she lived, and through a grace 290 Of modest meekness, simple-mindedness, A heart that found benignity and hope, Being itself benign. My drift I fear Is scarcely obvious; but, that common sense May try this modern system by its fruits, 295 Leave let me take to place before her sight A specimen pourtrayed with faithful hand. Full early trained ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
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