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More "Self-command" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Netherglen had already taken place. Hugo was not sorry that she was gone. Her gentle words and ways were a restraint upon him: he felt obliged to command himself in her presence. And self-command was becoming more and more a difficult task. What he wanted to say or to do presented itself to him with overmastering force: it seemed foolishly weak to give up, for the sake of a mere scruple of conscience, any design on which he had set his heart. And above ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... dreams and the companionship of Bluebell, who gave no further offence, now that she had learnt self-command and the necessity of keeping her feelings to herself, the spring advanced apace, and the first bluebird, alighting on the garden rails, was descried with a ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... chair and waited. She waited impatiently, for she knew that she had almost reached the limits of her self-command, and needed the presence of others to keep her from breaking down. But her native courage came to her aid, and in half an hour she heard the steps of her father and his guests in the passage. She noticed that her father looked anxiously toward her ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason
... Passionately fond of the few books he could obtain, he was called Beauclerc, or the fine scholar; and whilst as little restrained by real principle as his brothers, he was able to preserve a decorum and self-command that kept him in ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... much puzzled, her helper perceived that she still had a dread of him which was sufficient to hinder her complete recovery of self-command. She spoke in a quick and nervous way to the shopkeeper, asking him to ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... liberty of American girls occasionally leads to improprieties. But, except in certain great cities, such instances are rare. The safeguards of virtue are knowledge and self-command, not duennas and jalousies. Let mothers properly instruct their daughters, and they need have no apprehension ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... after the departure of those charming princesses arrived, and had I but retained so much self-command as I ought to have had, I should have been this day the happiest of all mankind, whereas now I am the most unfortunate. But through my weakness, which I shall ever repent, and the temptations of an evil spirit, I opened that fatal door! But before I had moved my foot ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Anonymous
... the education of a gentleman (I do not mean a person born to wealth or station, but any man who has trained himself in morals or religion, in letters, and in the world) disciplines the impulses, and leaves the good manner to grow naturally out of habits of self-command and consequent ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... the promise fulfilled in her experience, "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee." She felt deeply the stroke which had made her a widow; but, possessing an uncommon degree of self-command, it was a comfort to her children to observe her great calmness of spirit, and to hear the expressions of her confidence in God. Her natural fortitude was sustained by divine grace, and her whole carriage under this bereavement afforded an edifying instance of the manner in which a Christian ...
— The Baptist Magazine, Vol. 27, January, 1835 • Various
... lived in an enchanted world, where to utter a certain fatal word would be to break the spell; and whatever momentary impulse or passionate longing, engendered by a look, a smile, the light touch of a hand, the mere sense of proximity, might move him to speak of his love, he had sufficient self-command to keep the fatal words unspoken. He meant to wait till the last hour of his visit. Only when separation was imminent would he plead his cause again. Thus at the worst he would have lost no happy hours of her company. And, in the mean time, since ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... boldness of his falsity. She saw the face of Grant Herman, nobly instinct with truth in every line, and, as he turned at her husband's word, everything blurred before her vision. She believed she was going to faint, and she rallied all her self-command to hold herself steady. The lights danced, and the sound of voices faded as into the distance. Then, with a supreme effort of will, she rallied, and the voices rolled back upon her ear with a noise like the roar of ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... visits during the few hours which each day the husband and wife spent together. In the presence of the two beings whom Joam so dearly loved his heart nearly failed him. But the husband—the father—retained his self-command. It was he who comforted the two poor women and inspired them with a little of the hope of which so little now remained to him. They had come with the intention of cheering the prisoner. Alas! far more than he they themselves were in want of cheering! But ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne
... me—to me, your lover, who had never a thought that was false to you!—to me, your mate of many years!—to me, your almost husband!" cried the youth, losing all self-command in the sharpness of his pain, and bursting into a tempest of grief and rage, and launching fierce reproaches ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... the poor should be taught to read, and is very clear that everyone should be made to know his station; but still he talks with sense and moderation, and even gets so far as to suggest the necessity of reformatories. He is not very romantic, and displays an amount of self-command in judicially settling the claims of the various ladies who are anxious to marry him, which is almost comic; he is perfectly ready to marry the Italian lady, if she can surmount her religious scruples, though he is in love with Miss Byron; and his mind is evidently in a pleasing state of ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... as he opened the north-parlor door. Dorothy Fair sat with her embroidery-work at the mahogany table, whereon a whole branch of candles burned in silver sticks. She was working a muslin collar for her own adornment, and she set a fine stitch in a sprig before she rose up, either to prove her self-command to herself or to Burr Gordon. She had also held herself quiet during ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... excuse for compliments; I warn you, you will repent it if you do," he said warmly; and then, after a little hesitation which might well have been mistaken for an effort at self-command in a moment of emotion, he added ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... dare not speak of my feelings to you now, lest I should lose the strength and self-command I need ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... he had recovered his self-command a little in the presence of the agglomeration, comforted himself by calling the bric-a-brac Jamescracks, as if ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... &c. adj.; gravity, sobriety, Quakerism[obs3]; philosophy, equanimity, stoicism, command of temper; self-possession, self-control, self-command, self-restraint, ice water in one's veins; presence of mind. submission &c. 725; resignation; sufferance, supportance[obs3], endurance, longsufferance[obs3], forbearance; longanimity[obs3]; fortitude; patience of Job, patience "on a monument" [Twelfth Night], patience ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... woman can be debased, for you hope you can then jump over me easier. But you have suffered unspeakably yourself from everything you just said to me. I see it in you. Already you are near the end of your self-command. Go! For your innocent fiancee's sake, leave me alone! One minute more, your mood will change around and you'll make a scene with me of another kind, that you can't answer ...
— Erdgeist (Earth-Spirit) - A Tragedy in Four Acts • Frank Wedekind
... earned.[39] The friend who seems most to have affected him in the deepest things was Anstice, whom he describes to his father (June 4, 1830) as 'a very clever man, and more than a clever man, a man of excellent principle and of perfect self-command, and of great industry. If any circumstances could confer upon me the inestimable blessing of fixed habits and unremitting industry, these [the example of such a man] will be they.' The diary tells how, in August (1830), Mr. Gladstone conversed ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... that the Prince was very much disappointed indeed. The vision had not prepared him for Edna's pince-nez, among other matters, and altogether he felt that his Godmother had exaggerated the Princess's personal attractions to a most unscrupulous degree. But this he had sufficient self-command to conceal. In fact, he rather overdid it, though it was only to himself that his courtly greeting sounded ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... itself, or from an unusual gift of Divine grace poured into our hearts, but so it is; let our temptation be to sloth, or irresolution, or worldly anxiety, or pride, or to other more base and miserable sins, we may suddenly find ourselves possessed of a power of self-command which we had not before. Or again, we may have a resolution grow on us to serve God more strictly in His house and in private than heretofore. This is a call to higher things; let us beware lest we receive the grace ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... caprice, but himself; everyone saw that in reality she doted on him; but Eugene alone suspected the sincerity of her affection. For some time he bore this coquetry with secret impatience and distrust; but his feelings grew sore and irritable, and overcame his self-command. A slight misunderstanding took place; a quarrel ensued. Annette, unaccustomed to be thwarted and contradicted, and full of the insolence of youthful beauty, assumed an air of disdain. She refused all explanations to her lover, and they ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... my own ears, yet could scarce credit my shocked senses to hear her; and I had sat there, now hot with anger, now in cold amazement; not touching food save with an effort that cost me all my self-command. ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... distinctly heard, and he coloured as much as it is in the power of man to do. The lady happily observed how much he was annoyed, and changed the conversation. Hazlehurst was not in a mood to pay a long visit: he soon rose to take leave. Elinor, in the mean time, made a great effort for self-command. She knew that she was the injured party, and yet she felt superior to all the littleness of resentment—she acquitted Harry and Jane of all intentional trifling with her feelings. The gentle, quiet dignity of her manner gradually expressed what was ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... water. Lisbeth took off her cap, unfastened her black hair, and plunged her head into the basin her new friend held for her. She dipped her forehead into it several times, and checked the incipient inflammation. After this douche she completely recovered her self-command. ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... Self-approbation. Love of Praise and of Praiseworthiness. Influence and authority of Conscience. Self-partiality; corrected by the use of General Rules. Connexion of Utility with Moral Approbation. Influence of Custom on the Moral Sentiments. Character of Virtue. Self-command. Opinion regarding the theory of the ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... clear candor of his voice reassured her. "Don't be afraid. I mean what I said. You need have no fear that I—that my offence will be repeated;" then, with intent to demonstrate his self-command, he abruptly changed the subject. "The Congdons sent their love to you, and Miss Franklin commissioned me to tell you that she will give you all her time next summer—if you wish ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... recovered, remained gazing in speechless agony at March, who, having made several fruitless efforts to seize hold of the sunken rock, was evidently growing weaker. Bounce also remained to gaze, as if he had lost all his wonted self-command. ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... intelligence. There he sat, as above the common passions of humanity, surveying its doings with a mind unobscured by prejudice, as wide in its grasp as it was masculine it capability. His clearness of apprehension, his perspicuity of statement, his perfect self-command, his vast knowledge of every kind, were amongst the least of his qualifications for his high station. More preeminently than all was his heroic and almost chivalric devotion to the judicial office; his stern and unflinching love of justice, as ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... superstition, not because the first were in themselves good or the second evil, but because they were respectively helpers or hinderers of pleasure. He is the master and possessor of pleasure not who abstains from it, but who uses it and keeps his self-command in the using. Moderate indulgence—this ...
— A Short History of Greek Philosophy • John Marshall
... undisturbed tranquillity; when her agitated feelings become calmed; when there seems speaking to her, through the hushed air of midnight, the voice of a merciful providence-her soul quickens, and she counsels her self-command, which has not yet deserted her. Woman's nature is indeed strung in delicate threads, but her power of endurance not unfrequently puts the sterner sex to the blush. "Slander has truly left my heart diseased, but I am innocent, and to-morrow, perhaps, ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... no selfish emotion, Philip," said the Constable, resuming self-command. "I grieve less that she has left me, than that she has misjudged me—that she has treated me as the pawnbroker does his wretched creditor, who arrests the pledge as the very moment elapses within which it might have been relieved. Did she then think ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... sympathy, and she longed for the power of helping her, marvelling how a being so nervously restless and devoid of self-command could pass through a scene likely to be so trying. The bell sounded, and the loud hearty tones of a manly voice were heard. Albinia looked to see whether her help were needed, but Miss Meadows's whole face was brightened, and moving across the room with unusually even steps, she leant ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... itself rightful possession of the ground which it held. There was nothing effeminate about it, as there was nothing fanatical; there was nothing extreme or foolish about it; it was a manly school, distrustful of high-wrought feelings and professions, cultivating self-command and shy of display, and setting up as its mark, in contrast to what seemed to it sentimental weakness, a reasonable and serious idea of duty. The divinity which it propounded, though it rested on learning, was rather that ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... with me to-night?' Well, do you know, his face got quite white again; and he said—I remember the very words, all as cold as ice—'Madam,' says he, 'I am glad to find that your hurried trip to Scotland has impaired neither your good looks nor your self-command.' Wasn't it cruel of him?—but then, poor fellow! he had been badly used, I admit that. Poor young fellow! he never did marry; and I don't believe he ever forgot me to his dying day. Many a time I'd like to have told him all about it, and how there was no use in my marrying ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... unhappy life. His wants were few, and his half-pay more than adequate to supply them. A happy contemplative indolence, arising from a well-cultivated mind, feeding rather upon its previous acquirements than adding to its store—an equanimity of disposition, and a habit of rigid self-command—were the characteristics of Edward Forster; whom I shall now awaken, that we ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... Francesco a sensuous man or a libertine like his father. His devotionally-affected mother, Eleanora de Toledo, had trained him in moral ways, and had called forth in him regard for religion and sympathy for charitable objects. Possessed of great self-command and reticence, he never betrayed himself in any way; passionate he was beyond the ordinary, but never revengeful. He loved one woman, and only one, and to her he proved himself faithful until death took them away together; but she was not Giovanna, his political wife, she was Bianca, the ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley
... at him, and the frown roused him to brave her. He lost his self-command, already shaken by her strange behavior. "You know that I love you, Miss Lindsay," he said. "It may not be a perfect love, but, humanly speaking, it is a true one. I almost told you so that day when we were in the billiard room together; and I did a very dishonorable thing the same ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... happened to come close up to the artist, and he was struck by the earnest gaze which the old man fixed on him. Some strange magnetic influence was in the glance, for it thrilled him from head to foot. He was seized with an unaccountable desire to hear the old man speak, but all his natural self-command forsook him. He could not find the courage to utter a word. Those dark, earnest eyes seemed to have taken away ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... breath, as if trying to retain her self-command. Her grey eyes flashed ominously, ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... him with microscopic power, and, with all his self-command, she saw him wince and change color, and give other signs that this shaft had ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... distinct, only forms and visages were distorted and voices piercing. He drew himself up, calm, grave, for the moment master of himself, but very drunk. He knew he was drunk, and was as guarded and alert, as keenly suspicious of himself as he would have been of a thief at his elbow. His self-command enabled Clifford to hold his head safely under some running water, and repair to the street considerably the worse for wear, but never suspecting that his companion was drunk. For a time he kept his self-command. His face was only a bit paler, a bit tighter than usual; ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... says Froude, "I never walked with him without his recurring to a subject which was never absent from his mind." Doubtless his remorse was exaggerated. His letters, and his wife's, show that he was a most affectionate husband when nothing had occurred to deprive him of his self-command. But he had at times been cruelly inconsiderate, and he wished to do penance for his misdeeds. A practical Christian would have asked God to pardon him, and made amends by active kindness to his surviving fellow- creatures. Carlyle took another course. In 1871, five years after ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... to throw the dinner out the window, when her master at last appeared, followed by his guests. They had not exchanged a word after they left the mayor's. Aside from the fatigues of the evening, they wished to reflect, and to resume their self-command. Mme. Petit found it useless to question their faces —they told her nothing. But she did not agree with Baptiste about M. Lecoq: she thought him good-humored, and rather silly. Though the party was less silent at the dinner-table, all avoided, as if by tacit consent, any allusion to the ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... in his face, losing her self-command the while, as Heston led her from the room, and closed the door, while as she heard it locked on the inside and the sound of the rings passing over the rod, she sank down sobbing on the lion-skin rug, burying her face in her hands, ...
— The Dark House - A Knot Unravelled • George Manville Fenn
... boys taught by myself. They were the noisy element of the school, ranging from ten to fifteen years of age —too large to show the docility of the little lads, but not old enough to have attained the self-command and self-respect that come later in life. Though he was much older than any of them, and heavier than his teacher, this class suited Jack. The white boys all liked him, and he liked me. We had grand times with that class. The only way to keep them in order was to keep them very busy. ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... by. Richard did not present himself. Sir Austin's pitch of self-command was to await the youth without signs ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... She would have given worlds to have possessed at the moment sufficient self-command to have enabled her to express in her tone and manner unqualified satisfaction at the tidings. But she had not such self-command, and was painfully aware of ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... which any sudden impression was liable to produce when she was in her half-hysteric state of mind and body. She turned to the new-comer, who found himself unexpectedly submitted to a test which he would never have risked of his own will. He must go through it, cruel as it was, with the easy self-command which belongs to a gentleman in the most trying social exigencies. He addressed her, therefore, in the usual terms of courtesy, and then turned and greeted Mr. Bradshaw, whom he had never met since their coming together ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... interest and affections. I was much surprised to see in the half-light of the alcove the reclining figure of the count leaning upon his elbow and observing me with profound attention. I was so little prepared for this examination that I stood rather dispossessed of self-command. ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... crack of a cabin door. Awful thought. And that door was in that part of the saloon remaining in the shadow of the other half of the curtain. I pointed at it and I suppose that old man inside saw me pointing. The captain had a wonderful self-command. You couldn't have guessed anything from his face. Well, it was perhaps more thoughtful than usual. And indeed this was something to think about. But I couldn't think steadily. My brain would give a sort of jerk and then go dead again. I had lost all notion of ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... circumstances, the pleasures of this hour fill them with vanity, the devotion of the next with enthusiasm, or perhaps terror. Charmed by worldly follies because they are ignorant or idle, and without resistance to vice because they have never learned self-command, they seek to extirpate all the natural emotions and desires which they do not know how to regulate, and so give up the world. But they deceive themselves; their moral defects are not lessened; they have only changed their objects. The frivolity which formerly made trifles absorb ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... the little circle, then at the Duke of Crowborough, who had gravely given her his hand. The suppressed excitement already in the room clearly communicated itself to her. She did not lose her self-command for an instant, but her ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... girl met Oliver with no incoherence, but with brave quiet. All her self-command had returned. She asked him in, and showed a tender forethought for Marylyn by sending her out into the sunshine and the garden before she listened to what he had to tell. When he was done, she began her story with ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... instance of self-command had a wonderful and inspiriting effect on the rest; and as he replaced the pale and palsied prisoner in his former position, giving him a vindictive shake and vicious kick with his royal boots as he did so, everybody began to feel themselves ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... doctrinal morality of Pythagoras is admirable; but it is vitiated by the ceremonial quackery connected with it. Humanity to all things—gentleness—friendship—love—and, above all the rest, SELF-COMMAND—form the principal recommendations of his mild and patriarchal ethics. But, perhaps, from his desire to establish a political fraternity—perhaps from his doubt of the capacity of mankind to embrace Truth unadorned, enamoured only of her ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... given Mr. Hardy a piece of its mind to fight with. One curious result of this divergence in the two types of sceptic is this: that when these two brilliant novelists break down or blow up or otherwise lose for a moment their artistic self-command, they are both equally wild, but wild in opposite directions. Meredith shows an extravagance in comedy which, if it were not so complicated, every one would call broad farce. But Mr. Hardy has the honour ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... integrity, his private virtues, his abilities, and patriotism. These exalted traits were no more doubted than the same in Washington. But if he had more brain-power than Washington he had not that great leader's prudence, nor good sense, nor patience, nor self-command, nor unerring instinct in judging men and power ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord
... address to Bonaparte, announcing the votes of the troops under him respecting the consulate for life and the elevation to the Imperial throne, contain such mean and abject flattery that, for a true soldier, it must have required more self-command and more courage to pronounce them than to brave the fire of a hundred cannons; but these very addresses, contemptible as their contents are, procured him the Field-marshal's staff. Mortier well knew his man, and that ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... female, that anything they find in the library may be used to light a fire with. One chilly day Gumbo lighted the fire with the newly purchased Indian birch scroll. My father, when he heard of this performance, lost all self-command. In his ordinary temper the most humane of men, he simply raged at Gumbo. He would teach him, he said, to destroy his papers. And it appeared, from what we could piece together (for old Tom was very reticent and my father very incoherent), ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang
... up his hand with one of his fatalistic Latin gestures, drawing the attention of the passers-by to the man and woman talking so earnestly. For this reason, and because she was losing her self-command, she hastened ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... entrance, under an excitement of thought and feeling which in one of his powerfully organised nature must end and that soon in an outburst of mysterious passion which would carry everything before it. But he did not mean that it should happen here. He was too accustomed to self-command to forget himself in this presence. He would hold these rampant dogs in leash till the hour of solitude; then—a glittering smile twisted his lips as he continued to gaze, first at the girl who had just entered his life, ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... of the sort of people with whom he had principally to deal was perfect. His quickness of perception and self-command were also remarkable. These qualifications gave him an extraordinary power in the examinations just ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge
... the audience, they perceived this inroad before the latter and, as by a signal, ceased playing. The startled dancer, for all her aristocratic self-command, stopped immediately for explanation, and, riveting her glances on the female head of the intruders, whom she recognized—that was ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... Bradley, as I have said, was very fond of betting. Moreover, he prided himself not a little upon his self-command, and as he had not any mistress to be jealous of, as soon as the gentleman had finished his story he came at once ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... the heart too well to refuse a favor in which the poor old man's mind was comforting itself. He had the self-command to abstain from any extraordinary expressions of gratitude, but took it kindly, ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... wondrous self-command which for long years she had exercised with such amazing success:—then vanished from her mind all the strong motives which had induced her to undertake so terrible a martyrdom as that of simulating the loss of two faculties most dear and most valuable ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... the second regiment to step forward, upon which an elderly man, armed with a heavy dragoon sabre, stepped out of the ranks. When he discovered by our dress that we were English, this redoubtable warrior lost all self-command; he resigned his sword to me without a murmur, and consented at once to believe that his battalion was surrounded, and that to offer any resistance would but occasion a needless loss of blood. Nor was he singular in these respects: his followers, placing implicit reliance ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... Jack!" Having breathlessly gone that far, she was able to finish with greater self-command. "Ther linin's in sheer rags. I kin be mendin' thet wust place by the sleeve ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... he lost his self-command, and it might be so with the Bunkers. This rafting is dangerous business, and I advise you never to engage in it;" and Captain Sedley walked off towards ...
— The Boat Club - or, The Bunkers of Rippleton • Oliver Optic
... enlarged sufficiently upon such topics. What I have to note is that, in any case, the change supposes the necessity of a corresponding morality in the growth of the instincts, the public spirit, the hatred of indolence, the temperance and self-command which would be requisite to work it efficiently. The organisation into which we are born presupposes certain moral instincts, and, moreover, necessarily implies a vast system of moral discipline. Our hopes and aspirations, our ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... supporting Grace, passed me on their way to the cabin. My poor sister was pale as death, and I could see that she trembled so much she could hardly walk. A significant glance from Lucy bade me not to interfere, and I hid sufficient self-command to obey. I turned to look at the neighbouring sloop, and found at once an explanation of my sister's agitation. The Mertons and Rupert were on her quarter-deck, and so near as to render it impossible to avoid speaking, at least to the former. At this embarrassing instant Lucy returned to ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... as the hero's mother was at the Peace Ball given in Fredericksburg during the visit of Washington to that town. With all her majestic self-command, she did not disguise the pleasure with which she received the special request of the managers that she would honor the occasion with her presence. There was even a happy flutter in the playful rejoinder that "her dancing days were pretty well over, but that if her coming would contribute to the ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... appreciate the nobleness of Ellen's self-command and the obedience which was the security of future happiness, but was hurt at what he thought weak alienation. One note of sympathy would have done much for Griff just then. I have often thought it over ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... name of Hugh, Rachel winced. Lady Newhaven had mentioned no name in the earlier stages of her story while she had some vestige of self-command; but now at last the Christian name slipped ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... applause, and the lights of the auditorium were resuming. The lighting-up pierced the obscurity of the box, and Ramage stopped his urgent flow of words abruptly and sat back. This helped to restore Ann Veronica's self-command. ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... self-command but her knees remained weak and her lips tremulous, and she rested her forehead on both hands which had fallen, tightly clasped, on the table in front of her. After a few moments she felt better and she rang up her D. C., Mr. Vaux, ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... them in the "Diary." They were, we doubt not, most amiable women. But "the sweet queen," as she is constantly called in these volumes, is not by any means an object of admiration to us. She had, undoubtedly, sense enough to know what kind of deportment suited her high station, and self-command enough to maintain that deportment invariably. She was, in her intercourse. with Miss Burney, generally gracious and affable, sometimes, when displeased, cold and reserved, but never, under any circumstances, rude, peevish or violent. She knew how to dispense, ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... in a low tone, Morok had evidently pointed to Dagobert. The latter, notwithstanding his self-command, felt that the restraint he had imposed upon himself, since his arrival at this unlucky inn, and above all wince the commencement of the conversation between Morok and the burgomaster, was becoming no longer bearable; besides, ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... eloquence of the disappearance and the long search, and gave a history of Endicott's life in nice detail, pleased with the unaffected interest of this severe but elegant woman. As he spoke his eye took in every mark of feeling, every gesture, every expression. Her self-command, if she knew Horace Endicott, remained perfect; if she knew him not, her manner ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... Minor Canon, with a smooth motion of his hand: 'nothing unsteady, nothing forced, nothing avoided; all thoroughly done in a masterly manner, with perfect self-command.' ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... little man's voice was as sharp as the crack of a whip; 'I forbid it. Do you hear me? I forbid it. Some self-command; my dear good fellow, remember, remember it's only the will, the will that ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... blow your brains out, I do not know. Boy, if you have any wish to live out your days, never taunt me with cowardice again! There, go below, and do not let me see you again until I have recovered my self-command, or even yet I shall ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... believe," Miss Brandon said, "that it was quite involuntarily I became a spy on your actions. I did not overhear one word; and my partner had that moment left me, when I saw—" Not all her self-command could check the shudder that ran through every limb, and the choking in her ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... by this strange, self-conscious, frank, contemptuous, and vain creature, by this young man who, even in his weaknesses, has a certain heroic air about him. It was necessary to break through the bonds of unworthy love. Unable to trust any longer to his often baffled resolution and self-command, Alfieri devised a primitive and theatrical remedy too much in harmony with his whole nature to be otherwise than efficacious. The lady occupied a house in the great rococo square of San Carlo, opposite to the one which he rented; she could not go in or out of her door without ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... invariably appear, and no organ will be more seriously affected, and possibly impaired, than the brain. This is shown in the inebriate by a weakened intellect, a general debility of the mental faculties, a partial or total loss of self-respect, and a departure of the power of self-command; all of which, acting together, place the victim at the mercy of a depraved and morbid appetite, and make him utterly powerless, by his own unaided efforts, to secure his recovery from the disease which is destroying him." And he adds: "I am of ...
— Grappling with the Monster • T. S. Arthur
... defence Of weakness, fraud, and hypocrisy, have always been most disreputable. On the other hand, the excesses of haughty and daring spirits have been treated with indulgence, and even with respect. The Italians regarded with corresponding lenity those crimes which require self-command, address, quick observation, fertile invention, and profound knowledge ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... gravely wondering. He kissed her, and, after a momentary hesitation, gave her to her mother. The horror of the situation overpowered him: he turned his face away from us. I understood what he felt; he almost overthrew my own self-command. ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins
... not have started? "Page" is my Christian name. And I was to call her "Margery"? For just the briefest moment I wondered if my first impression of my companion could have been amiss. But I rallied my self-command and such shreds of gallantry as my life and my convictions had left. Undeniably she was a pretty girl, despite ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... nights such as fell to her lot. But she belonged to that class of natures which, although delicate and fragile, rejoice in difficulty. Her grief for her father was exquisite, but it was controlled by a sense of her responsibility. The greater the peril, the more complete was her self-command. ...
— The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford
... it right out to the end first," she said. "No; please don't interrupt! Mr. Jack, give me the letter ... oh! I've got it." (She drew it out and began to unfold it, talking all the while with astonishing smoothness and self-command.) "And I'll read you all the important part. It's written to Mr. Kirkby. He got it this morning and very kindly brought it straight ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... the boy, hardened and inured to danger, in the twinkling of an eye understood that if he did not regain self-command, if he did not muster courage, if he shot badly and only wounded the assailant, even though heavily, the little maid must perish. But he could master himself to that degree that under the influence of these thoughts his hands and limbs suddenly became calm like steel springs. ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... a bomb-shell the Inspector could not have looked more astounded. The detective, who was a man of greater self-command, did not betray his feelings so plainly, though he was not entirely without them, for, as I made this statement, he turned and looked at me; Mr. ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... had no hindrances like yours—only the most fearful burden of dullness and sloth, that had crept upon me and mastered me, during all the weeks that I had let myself be so upset and delayed. I cannot picture what I go through when I lose my self-command in that way, but it is like one who is tied down upon a railroad track and hears a train coming. He gets just as desperate as he pleases, and suffers anything you can imagine—but he does not get free. And always the book would be hanging ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... my mind from them, it is a great comfort to tell you of my troubles. Up there I feel in despair, and have to exert all my self-command to suppress my anger. I do not wish my servants to understand, for they are quite capable of laughing at me, neither do I wish poor Visitacion to know anything. I cannot dissimulate. I cannot feign happiness when I am so irritated! What a hell ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... somewhat desiccated matron appeared to offer him no practical relief. He thought her a humbug, and he judged of humbugs with a good deal of confidence. He had listened and made himself agreeable to her at first, in order to get a footing in Washington Square; and at present he needed all his self-command to be decently civil. It would have gratified him to tell her that she was a fantastic old woman, and that he should like to put her into an omnibus and send her home. We know, however, that Morris possessed the virtue of self-control, and he had, moreover, the constant habit of seeking ...
— Washington Square • Henry James
... antecedent training, was eminently capable of the sustained intellectual efforts which strategical conceptions involve. Such was his self-command that under the most adverse conditions, the fatigues and anxieties of a campaign, the fierce excitement of battle, his brain, to use the words of a great Confederate general, "worked with the precision of the most perfect machinery."* (* General G. B. Gordon. Introduction to Memoirs of Stonewall ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... heard grumbling in private over certain aspects of his bearing in the House. He had come into damaging collision with the Speaker on one or two occasions, and had made here and there a blunder in tactics which seemed to show a weakening of self-command. Tressady, indeed, knew enough to wonder that the man's nerve and coolness had maintained themselves ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... had had a sharp dispute with her father. She came one day into the office, and desired him to give her some employment in the business. Consul Garman never lost his self-command, but on this occasion he was on the very point of doing so. The dispute was short, it is true, and soon ended, like every other conflict that was carried on against the father's principles, in a decided victory for his side; but from that time the daughter became ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... regret to see that Mr. Bancroft's investigations and conclusions lead him to exalt Washington in comparison with the soldiers and civilians who stood around him; and the reader of his pages will have fresh cause to admire, not merely the firmness and self-command of that illustrious man, but his abilities as a commander and a statesman. We have especially to thank Mr. Bancroft for the distinctness with which he shows how much the success of the Northern army was due to Washington's disinterested advice. His high praise of the commander-in-chief ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... her mother's receipt of each of these letters, thought she saw a cloud on her brow, Zosephine explained, with a revival of that old look of sweet self-command which the daughter so loved to see, that they contained matters of business not at all to be called troubles. But the little mother did not show the letters. She could not; Marguerite did not even know their writer had changed his business. ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... under these tremulous comedy airs. So that, instead of laughing too, he took her hand and, there being no spectators anywhere to be seen in the damp November garden, he raised it to his lips with a few broken words of affection and gratitude which very nearly overcame the self-command of both of them. She dashed wildly into another subject, and then suddenly it occurred to her impulsive mind that the moment had come to make him acquainted with those dying intentions of his great-uncle which we ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... was resumed by Critobulus, and on this wise. He said: I think I take your meaning fully, Socrates, about these matters; and for myself, examining my heart, I am further satisfied, I have sufficient continence and self-command in those respects. So that if you will only advise me on what I am to do to improve my estate, I flatter myself I shall not be hindered by those despotic dames, as you call them. Come, do not hesitate; only tender me what good advice you can, and trust me I will ...
— The Economist • Xenophon
... had come to herself, and the two helpless women, bending over the children in wild efforts to restore them, and the triplet of little corpses, formed a sight which overthrew his self-command. The nearest surgeon came in, but, as Jude had inferred, his presence was superfluous. The children were past saving, for though their bodies were still barely cold it was conjectured that they had been hanging more than an hour. ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... eyes upon her. It seemed to him as if all that he could suppress in himself he had suppressed, as if all that he could restrain in himself he had restrained, and the time had come—in a rush, in a moment—when the power of self-command had departed from him. Love at first sight is a trite expression quite sufficiently discussed; enough that in certain smouldering natures like this man's, that passion leaps into a blaze, and makes such head as fire does in a rage of wind, when other passions, ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... that I happened to have that thick shawl in my hand," said I; "in another minute her whole dress would have been in a blaze, and it would have been next to impossible to save her. What courage and self-command she showed! she never attempted to move after I threw the shawl around her, till I told ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... life and vigor. By the force of this reaction he was roused from his stony lethargy, his paralysis of horror, and his presence of mind was restored. Then there came those tears which fell upon his face. This completed the recovery of his self-command. It did more. It assured him that he was an object, not of murderous fury, but of tender love, and that the one whom he had feared had come, not with purposes of cruelty, but with yearnings of affection. ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... showed his speech to the Chancellor, that wise minister forgot for a moment his habitual self-command. "This is extravagance, Sir," he said: "this is madness. I implore your Majesty, for the sake of your own honour, not to say to anybody else what you have said to me." He argued the matter during two hours, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... her hands, as if to shade them from the light, and Esther herself, less accustomed to self-command, was getting too much agitated ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... grant of yesterday, she was so much in earnest in her purpose to remain technically virtuous, that she felt that there was not the slightest danger for her in preliminaries fraught with peril for a woman less sure of her self-command. After all, the Duchess was practically separated from her husband; a marriage long since annulled was no great sacrifice ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... apartments of one whom he had deprived of a kingdom. Had this trait been related of a great man, and a hero, it would irresistibly excite our admiration; but the character of this prince leaves us in doubt whether such moderation ought to be ascribed to a noble self-command or to the littleness of a weak mind which even good fortune could not embolden and liberty itself could not strip ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... an occurrence in our unfortunate family affairs had decided me to break off all intercourse with my relations. The second reason, and the chief one, why I have distinguished you above all the rest is this: I have a good opinion of your disposition and self-command. I have, several times and in divers ways, made inquiries about you, both of friends and strangers, and the information I have received has always been such as to lead me to believe you the most fitting ...
— Major Frank • A. L. G. Bosboom-Toussaint
... recrimination, was easily collected from the tone; and in the next minute the parties separated with little ceremony (as was sufficiently evident) on either side, and with mutual wrath. The Landgrave reentered the banqueting-room; his features discomposed and inflated with passion; but such was his self-command, and so habitual his dissimulation, that, by the time he reached his seat, all traces of agitation had disappeared; his countenance had resumed its usual expression of stern serenity, and his manners their usual air of ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... Lord Treherne's letter, which at length she impatiently crushed together. I heard a half-smothered hysterical sob, as, with a faltering voice, she bade our guest "Good-evening." Ah! when the heart is aching and throbbing with agony, concealed and suppressed, it requires heroic self-command to descend to the commonplaces of this workaday world; but women early learn to conceal and subdue their feelings, when premature sorrows have divided them ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... she said, recovering her self-command much more quickly than he could have imagined possible. "I will give it you; it would be sinful to keep it after that dread to-morrow; even now, what do I with your gift?" She drew forth from her bosom the locket of which we have before spoken, and, looking on it fondly for a moment, ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... will believe," Miss Brandon said, "that it was quite involuntarily I became a spy on your actions. I did not overhear one word; and my partner had that moment left me, when I saw—" Not all her self-command could check the shudder that ran through every limb, and the choking in her ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... Minister first. Her bright eyes rested on him, gravely wondering. He kissed her, and, after a momentary hesitation, gave her to her mother. The horror of the situation overpowered him: he turned his face away from us. I understood what he felt; he almost overthrew my own self-command. ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins
... nerve gave way. She laid her head against the stones of the engine-house and sobbed. All her self-command, her cool clearness, was gone. The shock of disappointment, the terrors of this sudden loneliness, the nightmare of her stumbling flight coming upon a nature already shaken, and powers already lowered, had worked with miserable effect. She felt degraded by ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... particularly desire she and my sisters should hear nothing of it. If this is to be my last evening on earth, I should not wish it to be clouded by tears and lamentations, which might make it difficult for me to maintain my own self-command. Herslett said I was not to be agitated. I shall bid them all good night just as usual. In the morning I beg you will be good enough to make the necessary explanations. Lady Mary need hear nothing of it till it is over, for you know she never leaves her room ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture
... to him. The father waited in silence. He knew better than to force an unwilling confidence. At length the lad, with an obvious effort at self-command, said: ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... hand imperiously. "Dr. Foxmore," she said, recovering her self-command, "there is no need of words. I tell you it is quite ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor
... without any fault of theirs, incurably vicious sons. It is to be remembered, also, that Commodus was left, at the perilous age of nineteen, master of the world; while his father, at that age, was but beginning a twenty years' apprenticeship to wisdom, labor, and self-command, under the sheltering teachership of his uncle Antoninus. Commodus was a prince apt to be led by favorites; and if the story is true which says that he left, all through his reign, the Christians untroubled, ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... stout post-mistress looked at the tall young woman with sudden appreciation of her self-command and mental growth. "Maybe you're about right, but I thought—well, fact is, I've seen of late so many people just tear open a letter—and go ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... them thus in a letter to the Politico-Economical Society: 'Gentlemen, certain ideas fundamental to Political Economy I presented in a book in the endeavour to effect a certain purpose. These were too much intermingled with less elementary ideas in consequence of my defective self-command from a dreadful nervous idea, and thus by interweaving they were overlapped and lost. But I am not disposed to submit to that wrong. I affirm steadily that the foundations of Political Economy are rotten and ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... mourning for his father at one side of him, and the little boy defending his mother at the other. He felt their emotion taking possession of himself, and his eyes were beginning to brim over with the same sorrow; so, to recover her self-command, he began ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... the nobleness of Ellen's self-command and the obedience which was the security of future happiness, but was hurt at what he thought weak alienation. One note of sympathy would have done much for Griff just then. I have often thought it over since, and come to the conclusion that Mrs. Fordyce ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a rapid glance at Monsieur Bernard, who, seeing the tears in the eyes of his new neighbor, seemed to be making him a sign not to undo the results of the self-command he and his grandson had practised for so ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... virtue and self-command, which the republican Romans preserved, added to the bravery with which they maintained whatever claims they put in, overawed a great part of their enemies; and those, who were not absolutely overawed thought that ...
— An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. • William Playfair
... broke the news as gently as he could, and she bore it better than he had expected, suppressing her agitation and taking in all the details without interruption. Even when all the circumstances had been laid before her, her self-command did not desert her. Yes, she must see the stranger from Tennessee. Possibly she might extract something from him which others had failed to elicit. Her father accordingly went back to his own home, and brought Mr. Haskins over. The three spent ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent
... before, a party of the prince's friends had been at Boulogne on the lookout for his arrival; but when they found he did not come, they had left the city. All that remained to be done was to attempt to save the prince. He was almost beside himself. Apparently he lost his self-command, and men of more nerve and experience did with him ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... fixed idea. It had been an immoveable idea since he first set eyes upon her. It seemed to him as if all that he could suppress in himself he had suppressed, as if all that he could restrain in himself he had restrained, and the time had come—in a rush, in a moment—when the power of self-command had departed from him. Love at first sight is a trite expression quite sufficiently discussed; enough that in certain smouldering natures like this man's, that passion leaps into a blaze, and makes such head as fire does in a ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... in an odd, choked voice. Then, fearful of losing her self-command, she added hastily: "I'll write and tell Elisabeth that I'll come, then." And fled ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... at Herrera, who approached the door and pronounced a name, at which Baltasar, in spite of his self-command, started and grew pale. ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... desiccated matron appeared to offer him no practical relief. He thought her a humbug, and he judged of humbugs with a good deal of confidence. He had listened and made himself agreeable to her at first, in order to get a footing in Washington Square; and at present he needed all his self-command to be decently civil. It would have gratified him to tell her that she was a fantastic old woman, and that he should like to put her into an omnibus and send her home. We know, however, that Morris possessed the virtue of self-control, and he had, moreover, the constant habit of seeking ...
— Washington Square • Henry James
... them. It is best," I said. The poor girl raised her eyes to mine, and their startled, troubled gaze went to my heart. There must have been prodigious effort in the self-command of her tone to the slaves, for her voice broke down utterly now, ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... with his sword across his knees, thinking deeply. She went to the window and looked out. When she spoke again her voice had regained its self-command. ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... dinner out the window, when her master at last appeared, followed by his guests. They had not exchanged a word after they left the mayor's. Aside from the fatigues of the evening, they wished to reflect, and to resume their self-command. Mme. Petit found it useless to question their faces —they told her nothing. But she did not agree with Baptiste about M. Lecoq: she thought him good-humored, and rather silly. Though the party was less silent at the dinner-table, all avoided, as if by tacit consent, any allusion to the events ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... arguments—she only held firmly to her decision. Without some encouragement from Hardyman's father and mother she still steadily refused to become his wife. Irritated already by Lady Lydiard's letters, he lost the self-command which so eminently distinguished him in the ordinary affairs of life, and showed the domineering and despotic temper which was an inbred part of his disposition. Isabel's high spirit at once resented ...
— My Lady's Money • Wilkie Collins
... impede his great intelligence. There he sat, as above the common passions of humanity, surveying its doings with a mind unobscured by prejudice, as wide in its grasp as it was masculine it capability. His clearness of apprehension, his perspicuity of statement, his perfect self-command, his vast knowledge of every kind, were amongst the least of his qualifications for his high station. More preeminently than all was his heroic and almost chivalric devotion to the judicial office; his stern and unflinching love of ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... not know. Mother thinks a little," said Dolly, faltering. This speaking to eyes and ears of sympathy, after so long an interval, rather upset her; her lips trembled, tears came, she was upon the point of breaking down; she struggled for self-command, but her lips trembled more ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... into clearness as well as quietness: you can no more filter your mind into purity than you can compress it into calmness; you must keep it pure, if you would have it pure; and throw no stones into it, if you would have it quiet. Great courage and self-command may to a certain extent give power of painting without the true calmness underneath, but never of doing first-rate work. There is sufficient evidence of this in even what we know of great men, though of the greatest we nearly always know the least (and that necessarily; ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... night, Marian saw no more of Thurston, except occasionally at church, when he came at irregular intervals, and maintained the same coolness and distance of manner toward her, and with matchless self-command, too, since often his heart yearned toward her with ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... and supporters agitated in his behalf. During the supplementary elections he was nominated for the Chambers by four districts at once, and, despite the government's efforts, he obtained a fourfold election. A vote of the Assembly declared the election valid. With unwonted self-command the Prince declined to take his seat, on the ground that it might embarrass the government in its difficult situation. His letter to the president of the Assembly ended with the significant declaration that if duties should be imposed upon him ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... anxiety of heart whatever. I have been in perfect peace and contentment; I never have had one doubt. I was not conscious to myself, on my conversion, of any change, intellectual or moral, wrought in my mind. I was not conscious of firmer faith in the fundamental truths of Revelation, or of more self-command; I had not more fervour; but it was like coming into port after a rough sea; and my happiness on that score remains to this day ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... the young man, supporting himself on his two elbows, drew close to Aramis's face, with such an expression of dignity, of self-command and of defiance even, that the bishop felt the electricity of enthusiasm strike in devouring flashes from that great heart of his, into ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... out of Kars' eyes. The girl's final words shocked him momentarily out of his self-command. There was one other at least who held his breath for what was to follow that curt negative. But Bill Brudenell need have ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... to me—to me, your lover, who had never a thought that was false to you!—to me, your mate of many years!—to me, your almost husband!" cried the youth, losing all self-command in the sharpness of his pain, and bursting into a tempest of grief and rage, and ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... enough acquainted with these rough youths to know that some deviltry was preparing, and, already furious with his bride and distrustful of the future, his self-command at last gave way. Drawing Fan away from the crowd he ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... the cup to be for ever dashed from my lips?" muttered Richard; but recovering his composure, by exertion of the self-command, of which he possessed so large a portion, he desired Hartley to proceed with his communication. Hartley accordingly proceeded to inform him of the particulars preceding his birth, and those which followed after it; while Middlemas, seated on a sea-chest, listened with inimitable composure ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott
... We can fancy how tender the accents, and how, with some lightening of fear, but still hesitatingly and ashamed, the shepherds, unaccustomed to courtly splendours, approached. The little pause while they draw near helps him to self-command, and he resumes his words in a calmer tone. With one sentence of assurance that he is their brother, he passes at once into that serene region where all passion and revenge die, unable to breathe its keen, pure air. The comfort which he addresses to their penitence ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... first breathing of solemn music from the choir. The signs of gratulation for the escape of the Deliverer, first heard in the streets, and now witnessed amidst the worshipping crowd, were too much for the self-command of the conspirators. Their attitude became every moment more downcast—their countenances more sullen and wretched. They had a strong impression that their execution was to seal the thanksgivings of this day; and in every allusion to deliverance from danger, privy ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... Having breathlessly gone that far, she was able to finish with greater self-command. "Ther linin's in sheer rags. I kin be mendin' thet wust place by ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... understanding as great as his courage and self-command Colon told his men more than they had ever known of the Indies. The East had for generations been the enchanted treasure-house of Europe. Arabic, Venetian, Genoese and Portuguese traders had brought from it spices, rare woods, gold, diamonds, pearls, silk, and other foreign luxuries. ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... as I have said, was very fond of betting. Moreover, he prided himself not a little upon his self-command, and as he had not any mistress to be jealous of, as soon as the gentleman had finished his story he came at once to ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... His hand was stayed, as he raised the deadly weapon, by the sudden appearance of Macleod's son; who, with rare and commendable temper, advised him to look for a love among the hundred maidens of his own degree who were possessed of equal charms. With the same uncommon self-command, poor Cormac formed the resolution of drowning his love in the swell of his own music. Ross applies the story to ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... was, I could not but pity the unfortunate being whose very apprehensions were thus agonizing. I dared not answer her—I dared not summon assistance, lest she should betray herself to others as she had done to her husband; for she had lost all self-command. I attempted to pacify her by an indefinite reply to her inquiries, but in vain. 'Do not deceive me,' said she, 'Greville, you were ever good and generous; tell me did he know all, did he curse me, did he seek ...
— Theresa Marchmont • Mrs Charles Gore
... sentient, luminous, as my father should grow feebler and fainter, and finally ghostly still and white. Yet when his step was tottering and his frame that of a wraith, he was as dignified as in the days of greater pride, holding himself, in military self-command, even more erect than before. He did not omit to come in his very best black coat to the dinner-table, where the extremely prosaic fare had no effect upon the distinction of the meal. He hated failure, dependence, and disorder, broken rules and ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... half-hour before we got off from "The Hoo" the other day was a severe trial to my self-command; but I was anxious not to afflict you, and I was willing, if possible, to begin the bitter series of partings, of which the next month will be one succession, with something like fortitude, however I may end it. Thank you for writing to me, and thank you for all your ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... does not seem to be held in high esteem by the Rebel soldiers. They say he lacks judgment and self-command. But all speak well of Price. No one can doubt that he is a man of unusual energy and ability. McCulloch will increase Price's force to about thirty-five thousand, which number we must ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... mother's heart, she seldom indulged in passionate caresses, and never left unchastised any of his faults, or gave way in any instance to his tears and impatience. When others objected that it was absurd to expect self-command from a creature whose reason was not developed, she maintained that habits of self-control are to be acquired at the earliest age, and that the benefit thus obtained extends to the whole of life. The child thus trained ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton
... quite heartily, "the thing had a pretty look to it. Really, a beautiful look. There was a fine reward. A good deed carries it. Always remember that, Dannie—and remember that I told you. There was a fine reward. No encouragement of applause, Dannie—just a long sigh in secret: then a grim age of self-command. By jove! but there was a splendid compensation. A compensation within myself, I mean—a recollection of at least one heroically unselfish act. There would have been pain, of course; but I should never have forgotten ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... necklace. Inasmuch as she knew this to be altogether her fault, whatever the outcome, she was in a mood to quarrel with the whole wide world; and she schooled herself to treat with Staff on terms of toleration only by exercise of considerable self-command and because she was exacting a ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... Dearest Florinda, we will share his punishment!" exclaimed the terrified Violetta, losing all self-command in the fear of such a moment. "He has not been guilty of this indiscretion without participation of mine; he has not ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... did not, though she longed much to do it, hold her breath that she might hear what they were saying. Another time she passed Charles's door when it was ajar and the little study open, and she had so much self-command that she passed by without peeping in, and she began to think she was cured of her faults. But in reality this was far from being the case, and whenever she recollected Mrs. Arden's mysterious note she felt her inquisitive propensities as strong as ever. Her eyes and ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... Thornton," said Dick, with what self-command he had, while Bill Poodles, who was with ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic
... courage of any value is the offspring of pride and will. The existence of what is called "natural courage" may well be doubted. What is frequently mistaken for it is either perfect self-command, or a stolid indifference, arising from dull-brained inability to comprehend ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... convict had at least an excellent chance of becoming a better man, especially when drafted to a pastoral or agricultural district. Whereas, now that the well-disposed and the irreclaimably bad are often brought constantly together in the same class, it is much more difficult for them to regain that self-command and those moral sentiments, the loss of which brought them to their degraded position of prisoners. Having constantly before their eyes the garb and stamp of their infamy, reformation, if not impossible, is extremely difficult. Pass them on the highways at ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... a tact and self-command, a knowledge of finesse that he would not have believed possible in a rough and uneducated mountaineer. But the same quality, the wonderful perception, or rather intuition, that had made Wood a military genius, was serving him here, and though he perceived at once the drift of the Secretary's ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... corner of the picture, on the left of the spectator, are three of the guards, drawn up across the door, standing at ease, with all the self-command of soldiers in such situations, hardly suppressing a laugh at the ridiculous attempts made to oppose them; in front of the guards, is the commander of the enemy's forces; viz.—a little boy with a tin sword, on regular guard position, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 336 Saturday, October 18, 1828 • Various
... Martha for her visitor, and she came forward to him now with the dignity and kindly patronage of some lady abbess receiving the miscreant and boorish yokel of a neighbouring village. And yet how fine she was! As Maggie watched her, she thought of what she would give to have some of that self-command and dignity and decision. Was it her religion that gave her that? Or only her own self-satisfaction? No; there was something behind Aunt Anne, something stronger than she, something that Mr. Warlock also knew ... and it was this something that Uncle ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... long-armed! beyond denial, hard Man's heart is to restrain, and wavering; Yet may it grow restrained by habit, Prince! By wont of self-command. This Yog, I say, Cometh not lightly to th' ungoverned ones; But he who will be master of himself Shall win it, if he ...
— The Bhagavad-Gita • Sir Edwin Arnold
... the supplementary elections that were held at the beginning of June, he obtained a fourfold triumph. The Assembly, in spite of the efforts of the Government, pronounced his return valid. Yet with rare self-command the Prince still adhered to his policy of reserve, resigning his seat on the ground that his election had been made a pretext for movements of which he disapproved, while at the same time he declared ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... the man in silence, tempted to tear him from his horse. "The boy is ill," he answered when he recovered his self-command. "Take charge of him yourself." He remounted, rode onward out of sight beyond a thicket, and there waited for the brigade commander, now and then fingering his revolver. As Charlie was being placed in an ambulance by the orderly and a sergeant's wife, Waldron came up, reined in ...
— The Brigade Commander • J. W. Deforest
... fatal word would be to break the spell; and whatever momentary impulse or passionate longing, engendered by a look, a smile, the light touch of a hand, the mere sense of proximity, might move him to speak of his love, he had sufficient self-command to keep the fatal words unspoken. He meant to wait till the last hour of his visit. Only when separation was imminent would he plead his cause again. Thus at the worst he would have lost no happy hours of her company. And, in the mean time, since she was always kind, and seemed to ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... She regained her self-command at once: "Georgy asked me about the cliff, and I told her that grandpa said I was never to go there—never. But she took me by the arm and pulled me: she pulled me hard—she is stronger than I am," said the poor little mite. It was not difficult to guess ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... sun-tan, to the seers, who are what they are because they rule themselves. Your old Alec Binz had it right. You handle wild animals in cages or afield just in proportion as you handle yourself. Those who command themselves see self-command when it lives in the eye of another. . . . They called me—those priests did—years ago. I almost wanted to live with them for a while; but it ...
— Son of Power • Will Levington Comfort and Zamin Ki Dost
... be mute, breathe not a word Of how, or where, or when, save that we met; To chance, or luck, or fortune bid the fault, Till ye can tell how else our friendship came. Improved occasions are not often rued, Except discretion fails in self-command. ...
— A Leaf from the Old Forest • J. D. Cossar
... but at the same time encouraged the lads, for it gave them a feeling of confidence in their own power; but as soon as they recommenced their advance, there was another shock,—something struck against Vince's leg, and in spite of his effort at self-command he ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... before him! Trembling she smiled upon him and stretched forth her arms to him. Michael Strogoff stepped forward; he was about to throw himself—when the thought of duty, the serious danger to himself and mother, in this unfortunate meeting, stopped him, and so great was his self-command that not a muscle of his face moved. There were twenty people in the public room, and among them were perhaps spies, and was it not known that the son of Marfa Strogoff belonged to the Corps of Couriers to the Czar? ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... It needed all his self-command to finish the reading, and when he came to the end and handed back the paper, Raby perceived that his hand shook and his face was ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... foolishness by severer doses of mockery than he had earned.[39] The friend who seems most to have affected him in the deepest things was Anstice, whom he describes to his father (June 4, 1830) as 'a very clever man, and more than a clever man, a man of excellent principle and of perfect self-command, and of great industry. If any circumstances could confer upon me the inestimable blessing of fixed habits and unremitting industry, these [the example of such a man] will be they.' The diary tells how, in August (1830), ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... enabled Hyacinth to regain his self-command, and the performance of the perfectly ordinary acts required of him helped to bring him back again ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... him aside, as he arose and faced his father. Through the tumult his voice sounded quiet and strong, the quiet of perfect self-command, the strength of a fearless heart and an ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... consented to preside at a dinner if speeches were absolutely forbidden. The condition was faithfully observed, but it was the most extraordinary instance of American self-command on record. Whenever two or three Americans are gathered together, somebody must make a speech; and no wonder, because somebody always speaks so well. The custom is now so confirmed that it is foolish and useless to ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... Philip," said the Constable, resuming self-command. "I grieve less that she has left me, than that she has misjudged me—that she has treated me as the pawnbroker does his wretched creditor, who arrests the pledge as the very moment elapses within which ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... precisely the same manner, but overbalanced himself when halfway down, swung round, lost self-command, let slip his axe, and finally went head over heels, with legs ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... a breath as if to steady himself. It was plain that he was very strongly moved beneath his self-command: his air ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... told herself, and then tightening her grip on the reins she started with surprise. The man to whom her thoughts had strayed was leaning against a hemlock with his eyes fixed on her face. It was the first time they had met since she played the part of Delilah, and, in spite of her customary self-command, Millicent betrayed her agitation. A softer mood was upon her and she had the grace to be ashamed. Still, it appeared desirable to discover whether ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... tone warned the doctor that her self-command was not to be further shaken that night. He resumed the character of Mrs. Armadale's medical referee on the subject of ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... us note that we can only succeed in attaining satisfactory results in kindergarten work by beginning intelligently and never discontinuing our patient watchfulness, self-command, and firmness of purpose,—firmness, remember, not stubbornness, for it is a rare gift to be able to yield rightly and at ...
— Froebel's Gifts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the house in time to give Mrs. Makely his hand and help her spring to the ground, which she did very lightly; her remarkable mind had kept her body in a sort of sympathetic activity, and at thirty-five she had the gracile ease and self-command ...
— A Traveler from Altruria: Romance • W. D. Howells
... well remember over all those wild, miserable, mad, remorseful years. Tell Him that you have not had one really happy, one really satisfied day all those years, and tell Him that you have spent all, and are now no longer a young man; youth and health and self-respect and self-command are all gone, till you are a shipwreck rather than a man. And tell Him that if He will take you back that you ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... thing—if we could get at it—that's behind the lassitude of these boys. It all comes back to that. That they're restless, irresolute. That they need the stimulus of excitement and can't endure the drag of routine. They need a generous allowance, my dear,—even for an occasional failure in self-command, those two boys out at ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... respected his property and the character of his race; and, perhaps, though his genius suffered nothing by the circumstance, it is to be regretted that he was still left under the charge of his mother: a woman without judgment or self-command; alternately spoiling her child by indulgence, irritating him by her self-willed obstinacy, and, what was still worse, amusing him by her violence, and disgusting him by fits of inebriety. Sympathy for her misfortunes would be no sufficient apology for concealing ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... head again. He felt that if Maurice went on talking to him he should lose his self-command. He must get away; yet he could not bear to hurt his friend. He turned toward Maurice and held out ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... cares, and render every person as happy as possible. She neither suffered rudeness to disturb her temper, nor awkwardness to excite her contempt; her conduct, under every temptation of this nature, was uniformly marked by self-command, modesty, ...
— The Barbadoes Girl - A Tale for Young People • Mrs. Hofland
... from his seat, and losing now all self-command, reproached him with severe and bitter words. "Here is the hand," said he, extending his arm, "that saved your life at the battle of the Granicus, and the fate of Parmenio shows what sort of gratitude and what ...
— Alexander the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... was no longer nervous and flurried; he had gained considerable self-command and repose of manner. The air of uncomfortable diffidence, which formerly characterized his deportment, had disappeared, and given place to a ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... much good sense to prefer a charm to a virtue; and had penetration enough to see, that this charm was too dangerous to its possessor to be allowed the character of a blessing. He endeavoured, therefore, to strengthen her mind; to enure her to habits of self-command; to teach her to reject the first impulse of her feelings, and to look, with cool examination, upon the disappointments he sometimes threw in her way. While he instructed her to resist first impressions, ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... shudder, and a visible effort of self-command, the Landgrave inclined his ear to ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... his self-command and fixed purpose more clearly than during his six weeks' halt at Bloemfontein. De Wet, the most enterprising and aggressive of the Boer commanders, was attacking his eastern posts and menacing his line of communications. A fussy or nervous general would have harassed his men and ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the empire, and even showed the greatest reverence for the cultivation of the mind. Philosophy was the great object of his zeal, but he also gave his attention to all branches of science, to law, to music, and to poetry. His disposition was kind and amiable, and he succeeded in acquiring that self-command and composure which it was the professed object of the Stoics to secure. He was firm without being obstinate, gentle without being weak. He was modest, retiring, and studious. He believed that it was necessary for good ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... phrase above quoted he never complained of his social oppressors, so far as I remember, in his writings. His perfect amiability was one of his most striking characteristics, and in a nature fastidious as was his in its whole organization, it implied a self-command worthy of admiration. ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... nature of the revelation, Grant showed considerable self-command. He did not turn pale, nor did he look ...
— Helping Himself • Horatio Alger
... in so many legends of witchery and seduction since the Odyssey the [Greek: thespesie aoide] has borne its part. "But," the Wanderer might say, replying against Circe's warning, "have we not learned prudence and self-command from Athene, the chaste Tritonid? Have not ten years under shield before Troy, and a thousand leagues of seafaring, made our hearts as hard as our hands, and our ears deaf to the charms of song? Thus much of wisdom, at least, hath come with grizzled hair, that we ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... hand and pressed it. Then he left her, bewildered by the subtle atmosphere that seemed to surround her. He did not fear her threat. There was a vitality and self-command about Mrs. Pendean that seemed to shut out any likelihood of self-destruction. She was young and time could be trusted to do its inevitable work. But he perceived the quality of her love for the man who was too certainly destroyed. She might ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... truce to curiosity, dictated by nature, was first broken by the Archbishop, who did not possess my Lady Sarah's robust powers of self-command. Passing Alban a cigar, he asked him a question which had been upon ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... Indeed, he himself once saw her bounce out of the shop as he entered, exclaiming audibly, "Here's that fussy old man again." Tozer was an old man, it is true, but nobody (under eighty) cares to have the epithet flung in his teeth; and to be in the way is always unpleasant. He had self-command enough to say nothing about it, except in a very modified shape to his wife, who was ready enough to believe anything unpleasant about Mrs. Tom; but he took to gardening with ardour from that day; and learned all about the ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... slow in making its way in the mind of the Bernese. Lineament after lineament, however, became successively known to him, and most of all, the voice served to awaken long dormant recollections. But, as heavy natures are said to have the least self-command when fairly excited, so did the baron betray the most ungovernable emotion of the two, when conviction came at last to confirm the words of his friend. He threw himself on the neck of the Genoese, and the old man wept in ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... hope, if it was not the avowed object of his ambition, to succeed Damasus as Bishop of Rome. Is the rejection of an aspirant so singularly unfit for the station, from his violent passions, his insolent treatment of his adversaries, his utter want of self-command, his almost unrivalled faculty of awakening hatred, to be attributed to the sagacious and intuitive wisdom of Rome?" ('History of Latin Christianity,' Book ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin
... and again, and had his cup filled so frequently, that he gradually forgot all his good intentions, and felt a degree of excitement which seemed to run through his veins in a manner he had never before experienced. He had by this time lost all self-command; and as he could neither call sense nor recollection to his aid, by degrees he fashioned himself to the habits of his friends, and pleased them more ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... smiling playfulness. How well I know that mood! Such self-command has its beauty; but it's no great help for a man with such fateful eyes. I could see he was moved in his correct, restrained way, and in his own way, too, he tried to move me with something that would be very simple. He told me that ever since we became friends, we two, he had ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... pass, of its extent; of why he found himself lying in the depths, the victim of humiliations so frightful that they penetrated even to him, stupefied and crazed with drink and fever though he was. His courage, his self-command were burnt up by the brandy. His body had at last revolted, was having its terrible revenge upon the mind that had so long misused it in every kind ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips
... this all the better, for he had small trust in Richard's patience and self-command, and thought there was much more chance of getting him unnoticed out of the Castle, if he did not know how much depended on it, and how dangerous his ...
— The Little Duke - Richard the Fearless • Charlotte M. Yonge
... soon apprised of the change that had occurred, and of the heavy responsibility that now rested on his young shoulders. A feeling of horror and of regret came over him, at first; but understanding the necessity of self-command, he aroused himself, at once, to his duty, and gave his orders coolly and with judgment. The first step was to endeavour to save the captain. The jolly-boat was lowered, and six men got in it, and passed ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... that somebody should do and suffer, yet from which calm and sober-minded men would shrink. She accordingly enlists him in her service, assigns to him some forlorn hope, in which intrepidity and impetuosity are more wanted than judgment and self-command, and sends him forth with ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... combat. The Earl of Essex accepted the challenge, and the lists were prepared near Reading. An immense concourse of persons assembled to witness the battle. Essex at first fought stoutly, but, losing his temper and self-command, he gave an advantage to his opponent, which soon decided the struggle. He was unhorsed, and so severely wounded, that all present thought he was dead. At the solicitation of his relatives, the monks of the Abbey of Reading ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... lost his self-command, and spoke certain words for which he never quite forgave himself. No doubt the blow was a heavy one, and he realized immediately all that it implied. But he did not foresee the effect of the harsh and bitter words which he flung at his father and sister, charging them with reckless extravagance, ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... renewal and holy obedience. To change our hearts is to learn to love things which we do not naturally love—to unlearn the love of this world; but this involves, of course, a thwarting of our natural wishes and tastes. To be righteous and obedient implies self-command; but to possess power we must have gained it; nor can we gain it without a vigorous struggle, a persevering warfare against ourselves. The very notion of being religious implies self-denial, because by nature ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... being was soon in a tumult of rage under the sting of this report, as he was able to piece it out from Kitty. But he kept his self-command, and by dint of it he presently arrived at some notion of her own share in the scene. Horror, recoil, disavowal—a wild resentment of the charges heaped upon her, of the pitiless interpretation of her behavior which ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... seems even now his sandal Is sounding on its way; Soon is he here before us, And what now will he say? With ease will I confront him, Ire-breathing though he stand. 'Tis easy to a wise man To practice self-command. {651} ...
— Story of Orestes - A Condensation of the Trilogy • Richard G. Moulton
... Memorabilia, which bears all the marks of true portraiture, goodness goes with happiness and knowledge. It is a most winning combination—beautiful as a Greek statue. Xenophon lays stress on his happiness, but the basis is self-command. Among a people where even religion and philosophy were tolerant of sensuality, he was pure. He was hardy, trained to bear heat and cold, temperate, simple, faithful to civic duty, a reverent worshiper of the gods, ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam
... Garoche's fate, had left the Countess and come at me again. I was out of breath after the violent thrusts I had made, and a mist now clouded my eyes. I know not how this last contest would have gone, had not Mathilde, recovering her self-command, drawn the sword of the man who had fallen first, and, holding it with both hands, pushed it with all her ...
— The Bright Face of Danger • Robert Neilson Stephens
... she had left the court Francis laughed. She flushed rosy red under the old woman's glance, and then grew bewildered and confused at her continued scrutiny, and answered with an effort at self-command. ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison
... all self-command, trembled. What could he do against such a temptation? Here were no skilful effects of dress, no silken folds, no complex and coquettish adornments, no affected exaggeration of concealment or of exhibition, no cloud. It was fearful simplicity—a ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... low; and the coarse, indecent violence, which he has thrown into the expressions of a queen and a Roman matron, is misplaced and disgusting, and contradicts the general and well-founded observation on the address and self-command with which even women of ordinary dispositions can veil mutual dislike and hatred, and the extreme keenness with which they can arm their satire, while preserving all the external forms of civil demeanour. But Dryden more than redeemed this error in the scene between Antony and ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... in a place of danger, I must try to keep a cool head and to show my mettle by doing my full duty bravely. When sometimes things go wrong, and I cannot have my own way, I shall show my courage and self-command by keeping my temper and tongue under control; I will be a good sportsman and not complain, nag, nor find fault. I will make it a rule, if I feel my anger rising, to think twice before I speak or act. If I have wronged or offended anyone, I will be strong enough to go and ...
— How to Teach Religion - Principles and Methods • George Herbert Betts
... are seldom found united with complete self-command; but when they are they form the strongest possible character, for there is all the power of clear thought and cool judgment impelled by the resistless energy of feeling. This combination Washington possessed; for in his impetuosity there was ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... losing his self-command. He had learned the character of this vagrant from Hazletine, and it was plain that he meant to retain the valuable weapon, while Jack was equally determined he ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis
... man, supporting himself on his two elbows, drew close to Aramis' face, with such an expression of dignity, of self-command, and of defiance even, that the bishop felt the electricity of enthusiasm strike in devouring flashes from that seared heart of his, ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... you were speaking you were actually tottering upon the very brink of the grave? Why I did not blow your brains out, I do not know. Boy, if you have any wish to live out your days, never taunt me with cowardice again! There, go below, and do not let me see you again until I have recovered my self-command, or even yet I shall ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... in the doorway, waiting for Mary to speak. She sat with her head turned to the window and struggled to regain her self-command; they had been talked about in the town. She could imagine how it had gone. "Oh! the Bethel girl! Yes, after the Trojan money and doing it cleverly too; she'll hook him all right—he's just the kind of man." Oh! the hatefulness ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... denied me nothing, and I have gone on my way unknowing it has been so, and fancying that if misfortune came I should bear it better than another man. 'Twas but human vanity to believe in powers which never had been tried. Self-command I have preached to myself, calmness and courage; for years I have believed I possessed them all and was Gerald Mertoun's master, and yet at the first blow I spend hours of the night in madness and railing against Fate. But one thing I can comfort myself with—that I wore a calm face and could ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... might indeed affect him and annoy him. He was excitable, and easily moved to tears, but on any great emergency, after he had overcome his early nervous excitement, such as, for instance, embarrassed him when he first appeared before the Diet at Worms—then he showed wonderful calmness and self-command. He knew no fear. Indeed, his lion's nature found satisfaction in the most dangerous situations. The danger of death into which he sometimes fell, the malicious ambushes of his enemies, seemed ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... companionship of Bluebell, who gave no further offence, now that she had learnt self-command and the necessity of keeping her feelings to herself, the spring advanced apace, and the first bluebird, alighting on the garden rails, was descried with a shriek of ecstacy ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
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