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More "Serenity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... had first entered Soda Springs Valley his companions had called him Buck Johnson. Since then his form had squared, his eyes had steadied to the serenity of a great authority, his mouth, shadowed by the moustache and the beard, had closed straight in the line of power and taciturnity. There was about him more than a trace of the Spanish. So now he was known as Senor Johnson, ...
— Arizona Nights • Stewart Edward White
... appear all to enjoy a certain share of individual prosperity; their intercourse is conducted with unbroken harmony, and they seem to resign themselves to those delightful feelings which steal over the mind during the stillness and serenity of a ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... copper. As they advanced through the inlet, the fresh beauty of the country appealed to the English captain: "To describe the beauties of this region will be a very grateful task to the pen of a skilful panegyrist—the serenity of the climate, the pleasing landscapes, and the abundant fertility that unassisted nature puts forth, require only to be enriched by the industry of man with villages, mansions, and cottages to render it the most lovely country ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... placid resignation which would have made a far plainer face beautiful. The eyes were deep dark blue, and though sorrow and suffering had dimmed their brightness, their softness was increased; the smile was one of peace, of love, of serenity; of one who, though sorrow-stricken, as it were, before her time, had lived on in meek patience and submission, almost a child in her ways, as devoted to her mother, as little with a will and way of her own, ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... some fear. As he reached the Hotel St. Clare, employing that old ruse of cowards who wish to appear brave, he began to sing; but as he advanced, his voice trembled, and though the innocence of the song proved the serenity of his heart, on arriving opposite the passage he began to cough, which, as we know, in the gamut of terror, indicates a greater degree of fear than singing. Seeing, however, that nothing moved ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... and patient heart shall share The strong sweet loveliness of all things made, 10 And the serenity of inward joy Beyond the storm ...
— Sappho: One Hundred Lyrics • Bliss Carman
... than negatived. The present state of affairs in the Southern States of America is a warning against easy optimism in this respect. We must expect clashing and growing ill-will rather than social serenity to be the outcome of a ...
— The Black Man's Place in South Africa • Peter Nielsen
... faithfully retraced the last time that I had ever walked to church with her whom I had been fond to deem my mother. These silent devotions, and these home-harmonised thoughts, first chastened, and then made me very, very happy. At last, I felt the spirit of blissful serenity so strong upon me, that, forgetting for a moment to what ridicule I might subject myself; I began to sing aloud that morning hymn that I had never omitted, for so many years, until I had joined ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... high-beaked Roman way, gray on the temples, firm-lipped, he lay like an emperor in harness. But the pride and resolution on his face were outdone by the serenity of hers. Very surely those two ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... above engraving, because, for persons wishing to study the present qualities and methods of line-work, it is a pleasant and sufficient possession, uniting every variety of texture with great serenity of unforced effect, and exhibiting every possible artifice and achievement in the distribution of even and rugged, or of close and open line; artifices for which,—while I must yet once more and emphatically repeat ...
— Ariadne Florentina - Six Lectures on Wood and Metal Engraving • John Ruskin
... be forgiven. How vain and impotent is party rage, directed against such a man. He is not more elevated by his lofty residence, upon the summit of his own favorite mountain, than he is lifted, by the serenity of his mind, and the consciousness of a well-spent life, above the malignant passions and bitter feelings of the day. No! his own beloved Monticello is not less moved by the storms that beat against its sides than is this illustrious man by the howlings ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... were quiet below them on the hillside. The silence of the sheeplands, almost oppressive in its weight, lay around them so complete and unbroken that Mackenzie fancied he could hear the stars snap as they sparkled. He smiled to himself at the fancy, face turned up to the deep serenity of the heavens. Charley blew the embers, stirring them ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... through the Divinity School and to his ministry, known by few, understood by none, least of all by himself, were years in which the revolting spirit of an archangel thought out his creed. He came forth perfect, with that serenity of which we have scarce another example in history,—that union of the man himself, his beliefs, and his vehicle of expression that makes men great because it makes them comprehensible. The philosophy into which he had already transmuted all his earlier ...
— Emerson and Other Essays • John Jay Chapman
... gazed upon the strange scene from the window above, of prisoners and warders amicably chatting together, others squatting in groups over a harmless game, a horrible voice disturbed the serenity of the picture. Then at a closely barred window a face appeared, with matted hair and long unkempt beard. It was the face of a madman; with terrible curses he filled the air, and we looked ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... "you always seem happy," and in that saying they tell a truth, for I am happy often, very, very often and between times I make myself seem to be happy. This making myself "seem to be happy" gives me serenity, contentment, fortitude, and the very "seeming" soon blossoms into a reality of the condition I ...
— Evening Round Up - More Good Stuff Like Pep • William Crosbie Hunter
... power of beauty, has assured us, that the temper of the mind has a strong influence upon the features: "Wisdom maketh the face to shine," says that exquisite judge; and surely no part of wisdom is more likely to produce this amiable effect, than a placid serenity of soul. ...
— Essays on Various Subjects - Principally Designed for Young Ladies • Hannah More
... reason that morning which accounted for his absolute serenity. From Third Avenue to the waterfront any one who was well-informed at all—and there was no one who had not at least heard whispers of his fame—knew that the thin-faced, hard-eyed, steel-sinewed ex-lightweight who dressed in almost funeral black and ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... upon the serenity of Cuban ladies, driving in the Paseo or listening to the nightly music in the Plaza de Isabella, one could not possibly imagine them to be lacking in tenderness, or that there was in them sufficient hardihood to witness such exhibitions as we have described, ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... make him. He was quite innocent of any legal knowledge, his own rule of law being to hit a Consolidated head whenever he saw one. Lawyers might argue themselves black in the face without affecting his serenity or ...
— Ridgway of Montana - (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) • William MacLeod Raine
... winter's day there came knocking at the widow's door—a young man. Winter days, when the ice of January is refrozen by the wind of February, are very cold at Saratoga Springs. In these days there was not often much to disturb the serenity of Mrs. Bell's house; but on the day in question there came knocking ...
— The Courtship of Susan Bell • Anthony Trollope
... in the sombre paths of an ascetic and monastic life. Whatever precautions the great philosopher has been able to take in order to shelter himself against this false interpretation, which must be repugnant more than all else to the serenity of the free mind, he has lent it a strong impulse, it seems to me, in opposing to each other by a harsh contrast the two principles which act upon the human will. Perhaps it was hardly possible, from the point of view in which he was placed, to avoid this mistake; but ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... plays of this period end happily and are wholly free from the bitterness of the Third Period comedy. Nevertheless, they have little of the rollicking, uproarious fun of the earlier comedies. Their charm lies rather in a subdued cheerfulness, a quiet, pure, sympathetic serenity of tone, less strenuous, but even more poetic, than what had gone before. In some ways they are hardly equal to the great tragedies just mentioned, for the poet is growing older now, and the fiery vigor of Macbeth ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken
... Agnes and I were on pleasant terms; but there was one speck on the mirror of her serenity which threatened at times to mar the whole. It was my intimacy with Mr. Barr. Some one had informed her,—I have no doubt it was Miss Kingsley,—that he was much in my society, and that we behaved like lovers. I had learned by this time not to allow my awe for Aunt Agnes to prevent me ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... melted gradually into every rainbow hue and tinge; from deep crimson to rose-colour and pink and pale violet and faint blue, floating in silvery vapour, until they all blended into one soft gray tinge, which swept over the whole western sky. But then the full moon rose in cloudless serenity, and at length we heard, faintly, then more distinctly, and then in all its deep and sonorous harmony, the tolling of the cathedral bell, which announced our vicinity to a great city. It has a singular effect, after travelling ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... this young fellow to the scouts who came in droves and watched him and listened to the talk about him and dreamed of being just such a real scout as he. He moved about unconsciously among them, simple, childlike, stolid, but with a kind of assurance and serenity which he may have learned ...
— Tom Slade on Mystery Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... enthusiastic; living, as it were, from day to day, in a place where the luxuries of life were had without effort; in a city that offered to consideration the restlessness of a New York, without its earnestness; the serenity of a Naples, without its languor; the romance of a ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... forth and his hat tilted over his eyes. He pulled his tawny beard lazily with one hand, and with the other caressed a great tumbler of iced beer. He was beautifully happy in his perfect idleness, and a sense was upon him of the eternal fitness of things in general. In the absolute serenity of his beatitude he fell asleep, with one hand still lazily clutching his beard, and the other still lingering lovingly near the great tumbler. This was surely not surprising, and on the face of things it would not have seemed that there was any reason for blushing ...
— An Old Meerschaum - From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories, Volume II. (of III.) • David Christie Murray
... evening of such a day of serenity, after the hammocks had been piped down and the watch mustered, that Captain M—- was standing on the gangway of the Aspasia, in conversation with Macallan, the surgeon. It was almost a calm: the sails were not asleep with the light airs that occasionally distended them, ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... of the dying patriarch were almost as rigid as though in death: but there was a serenity in his countenance which betokened an absence of pain. There were five physicians, members of the House, present, viz.:—Drs. Newell, Fries, Edwards, Jones of Georgia, and Lord. These gentlemen were unremitting ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... somewhere between the time we boarded the basha on the yestereen and the hour of departure that morning, and an exhaustive but vain hunt for the same, first in the vehicle and then at the stables, nothing marred the serenity of our first half hour. The sky was dreamy; a delicate blue seen through a golden gauze. I fancy it was such a sky with which Danae fell in love. We rose slowly up the Shiwojiri pass, which a new road enabled even the basha to do quite comfortably; and the southern ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... moved for an address of thanks, which was opposed by the earl of Chesterfield, for the reasons so often urged on the same occasion; but supported by lord Carteret on his new-adopted maxims, with those specious arguments which he could at all times produce, delivered with amazing serenity and assurance. The motion was agreed to, and the address presented to his majesty. About this period a treaty of mutual defence and guarantee between his majesty and the king of Prussia, was signed at Westminster. In the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... possible to conceive a more intelligent, venerable looking head, than poor Herbert Stockhore presents; a fine capacious forehead, rising like a promontory of knowledge, from a bold outline of countenance, every feature decisive, breathing serenity and thoughtfulness, with here and there a few straggling locks of silvery gray, which, like the time-discoloured moss upon some ancient battlements, are the true emblems of antiquity: the eye alone ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... other hand, as the clamours of war had not up to this period disturbed the serenity of the tribe, I began to distrust the truth of those reports which ascribed so fierce and belligerent a character to the Typee nation. Surely, thought I, all these terrible stories I have heard about the inveteracy with which they carried on the feud, their deadly intensity, ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... prefer, the other will have to submit, and harbor no resentment." But when, shortly after Maximilian's death, the struggle became closer and the issue nearer, the inequality between the forces and chances of the two rivals became quite manifest, and Francis I. could no longer affect the same serenity. He had intrusted the management of his affairs in Germany to a favorite comrade of his early youth, Admiral de Bonnivet, a soldier and a courtier, witty, rash, sumptuous, eager to display his master's power and magnificence. Charles of Austria's agents, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... of view some of her feelings and emotions were very devastating for her own existence and her own serenity. And her deep attachment to the family was also a source of pain and suffering because of its acuteness. There was not much family left but for those who remained, Nelka gave a full measure of love and devotion. The loss of those close ...
— Nelka - Mrs. Helen de Smirnoff Moukhanoff, 1878-1963, a Biographical Sketch • Michael Moukhanoff
... yellow-green stare, but he sensed a change in them. Some of their complacency had ebbed; his reply had been as a stone dropped into a quiet pool, sending ripples out afar to disturb the customary mirror surface of smooth serenity. ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... personages was of a double character, for they were Norman and Saxon, and, moreover, differed in opinion concerning the time of holding Easter. This, however, was but a slight gale to disturb the general serenity of Eveline; for with her unhoped-for union with Damian, ended the trials and sorrows of ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... in the least lessen the necessary unpleasantness associated with normal labor. It lies in the choice of every expectant mother to journey through the months of pregnancy with dissatisfaction and resentment or with joy and serenity. "The child will be born and laid in your arms to be fed, cared for, and reared, whether you weep or smile through the months ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... panorama of grey and pearly white—the sky, the torrents, the mountains; but the blue and rusty green of the stone pines, flung abroad in hanging woods and coppices, broke up and distributed the infinite serenity of ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... She looked most attractive, her small smooth head bent over some sort of fancywork. Before she looked up Keith had leisure to note the poise of her head and shoulders, the fine long lines of her figure, and the arched-browed serenity of her eyes. Different type this from the full- breasted Morrell, more—more patrician! Rather absurd in view of their respective places in society, but a fact. Keith found himself swiftly speculating ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... are up to?" asked the Scarecrow, staring after the three suspiciously. "Why this sudden devotion? It upsets my Imperial Serenity a lot." ...
— The Royal Book of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... leave. Lord Vargrave went to Madame de L——-'s. His position in what is called Exclusive Society was rather peculiar. By those who affected to be the best judges, the frankness of his manner and the easy oddity of his conversation were pronounced at variance with the tranquil serenity of thorough breeding. But still he was a great favourite both with fine ladies and dandies. His handsome keen countenance, his talents, his politics, his intrigues, and an animated boldness in his bearing, compensated for ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book VI • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... preserved his serenity of temper when he was out of the housekeeper's sight. One important discovery he had made, in spite of the difficulties placed in his way. A compromising circumstance had unquestionably occurred in Stella's past life; and, in ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... Villars came out to enjoy the serenity of the evening, and, passing by the arbour where Cecilia lay, she ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... leads to optimism. Pessimism leads to weakness. Optimism leads to power. The one who is centred in Deity is the one who not only outrides every storm, but who through the faith, and so, the conscious power that is in him, faces storm with the same calmness and serenity that he faces fair weather; for he knows well beforehand what the outcome will be. He knows that underneath are the everlasting arms. He it is who realizes the truth of the injunction, "Rest in the Lord, wait patiently for Him and He shall give thee thy heart's desire." All shall ...
— In Tune with the Infinite - or, Fullness of Peace, Power, and Plenty • Ralph Waldo Trine
... the epithets he was mentally heaping upon the head of Bassett, disturbed for a moment the serenity of Mr. Vyner's countenance. A rapid glance at Miss Hartley helped him ...
— Salthaven • W. W. Jacobs
... tables, and window shelves, and soon had her hands full of the demure little songsters. Max, too, was pursuing the wrens, and Twonette, losing part of her serenity, actually caught a bird. The sport was infectious, and soon fat old Castleman was puffing like a tired porpoise, and sedate old Karl de Pitti was in the chase. Frau Katherine grabbed desperately at a bird now and then, but she was too ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... not exactly understand Ellen's sneer, but the remark disturbed her serenity, and she moved softly away from the sisters and sat down beside the old gentleman, weaving garlands for him to pull in pieces, and thinking of the happy time, so soon coming, when she could once more be with her ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... dangerous pies. He thought of it like that—he could not help it; he saw too far into motive and internal action; was too impatient of the little storms, the paltry, tea-cup things. She, with her unique gift of serenity—her place was not among the busybodies grinding axes that were better blunt; interfering with the slow, slow working of the Mills of God. Her gift was example—rare and delicate; her light the silver light of a soul, that through suffering and patience ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various
... means a narrower, more anxious life than should be theirs who are to live in the strongly electric atmosphere of a body of girls and young women and yet keep a calm serenity of spirit—a life less full than is essential for those who have to give at all times freely of ...
— Women Workers in Seven Professions • Edith J. Morley
... plains; all these champaign beauties reflected and doubled as it were, by the waters of the river; the melodious and varied song of a thousand birds, perched on the tree-tops; the refreshing breath of the zephyrs; the serenity of the sky; the purity and salubrity of the air; all, in a word, pours contentment and joy into the soul of the enchanted spectator. It is above all in the morning, when the sun is rising, and in ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the years 1811, 1812, 1813, and 1814 or the First American Settlement on the Pacific • Gabriel Franchere
... society something better than pity. Jennie Burton looked at her wistfully and wonderingly many times, for the impress of the spiritual experience of that day was on her face, and made it more than beautiful. The blending of sadness and serenity, of quiet strength with calm resolve, was apparent to one possessing Miss Burton's insight into character. "Can it be," she thought, "that Van Berg has discovered her secret, and finds that while he can ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... an indefinable elation because the world as he saw it then was altogether good, crooned his pet song while he waited at the porch with Flora's horse and his own. They were going to ride together because it was Sunday and because, if the weather held to its past and present mood of sweet serenity, he might feel impelled to start the wagons out before the week was done; so that this might be their last Sunday ride for ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... of loneliness and gloom; it is like noble birth which admits to all best company; it is like wealth which surrounds us with whatever is rarest and most precious; it is like virtue which lives in an atmosphere of light and serenity, and is itself enough for itself. Whatever our labors, our cares, our disappointments, a free and open mind, by holding us in communion with the highest and the fairest, will fill the soul with strength and joy. The artist, day by day, year in and year out, hangs over his work, ...
— Education and the Higher Life • J. L. Spalding
... according as it is put in motion by different passions, sometimes covers the face with a sudden and modest blush, sometimes enflames it with the heat of rage and fury, sometimes retires, leaving it pale with fear, and at others diffuses a calm and amiable serenity over it? All these affections are strongly imaged and distinguished in the lineaments of the face. The mask deprives the features of this energetic language, and of that life and soul, by which it is the faithful interpreter of ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... pale-faced, middle-aged lady, whose still beautiful features, combined with the quiet, almost grave elegance of her toilet, had already attracted his attention in the drawing-room. It was a countenance of perfect serenity; but no observing eye could look at it without feeling that that was a serenity not born of joy, but of sadness—a calm that had succeeded a storm—a peace won by a great battle. Sir Henry felt pleased when he saw ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 452 - Volume 18, New Series, August 28, 1852 • Various
... of contracting this happy union, an examination of your conscience should suggest to you some remorse for having abandoned me so abruptly, let me say that no shadow, not even the lightest, must cloud the serenity of this joyous day: I am about to leave the stage forever, to become the wife of the Baron ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... negligent of time and its employment is usually found to be a general disturber of others' peace and serenity. It was wittily said by Lord Chesterfield of the old Duke of Newcastle- -"His Grace loses an hour in the morning, and is looking for it all the rest of the day." Everybody with whom the unpunctual man has to do is thrown from time to time into a state of fever: he is systematically ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... inflamed by passion, and their excitability degenerates into irritability, succeeded by serious functional derangements, which prematurely break down the individual with inveterate, deep-seated disorder. Serenity, hope, faith, as well as firmness, are natural hygienic elements. It is a duty we owe ourselves to promptly relinquish a business which corrodes with its cares, and depresses with its increasing ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... sorry for Freya. She was not the sort of girl to take anything tragically. One could feel for her and sympathise with her difficulty, but she seemed equal to any situation. It was rather admiration she extorted by her competent serenity. It was only when Jasper and Heemskirk were together at the bungalow, as it happened now and then, that she felt the strain, and even then it was not for everybody to see. My eyes alone could detect a faint shadow ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... conscience, this implies that there is One to whom we are responsible, before whom we are ashamed, whose claims upon us we fear. If, on doing wrong, we feel the same tearful, broken-hearted sorrow which overwhelms us on hurting a mother; if, on doing right, we enjoy the same seeming serenity of mind, the same soothing, satisfactory delight, which follows on one receiving praise from a father,—we certainly have within us the image of some person to whom our love and veneration look, in whose smile we find our happiness, for whom we yearn, towards whom we direct our pleadings, ...
— A Candid Examination of Theism • George John Romanes
... minority, the management of her fortune and the care of her person, had by the Dean been entrusted to three guardians, among whom her own choice was to settle her residence: but her mind, saddened by the loss of all her natural friends, coveted to regain its serenity in the quietness of the country, and in the bosom of an aged and maternal counsellor, whom she loved as her mother, and to whom she had been known from ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... very flattering manner in which our governor has introduced me to you rather disturbs the serenity of my thoughts, for I know that the high panegyric that he gives to me is scarcely justified to mortal man. We have faults, all have failings, and no one can claim more than a fair and common average of honest purpose and noble aim. I come to-day as a gleaner on a well-reaped field, by skillful ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... dying fire fall into ashes. On a shelf, an eight-day clock ticked ominously; the girl stood with one hand upon her father's shoulder, motionless and impassive, like some beautiful statue. There was no trace of fear of any impending tragedy to mar the proud serenity of her face. At length the sound of voices came to them from outside. It grew in volume and rose like the angry murmur of the sea. Pasmore was looking through a crack when the noise of the chopping began again. In another minute there was a ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... ceased, and I had again become habituated to reverence the Deity in all my thoughts and feelings, I for some time enjoyed the most unbroken serenity and peace. The examinations to which I was every two or three days subjected by the special commission, however tormenting, produced no lasting anxiety, as before. I succeeded in this arduous position, in discharging all which integrity and friendship required of me, and left the rest ...
— My Ten Years' Imprisonment • Silvio Pellico
... other hand, there shall be any, who, in the silent humility of their lives, and in their unaffected reverence for holy things, show that they in truth accept these principles as real and substantial, and by habitual purity of heart and serenity of temper, give proof of their deep veneration for sacraments and sacramental ordinances, those persons, whether our professed adherents or not, best exemplify the kind of character which the writers of the Tracts for the Times have ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... The love that is based on attraction of sex Is a love that has brought me but sorrow. Why vex My poor soul with the same thing again? If you love With a higher emotion, you know how to prove And sustain the assertion by conduct. Maurice, Love must rise above passion, to infinite peace And serenity, ere it is love, to my mind. For the women of earth, in the ranks of mankind There are too many lovers and not enough friends. 'Tis the friend who protects, 'tis the lover who rends. He who can be a friend while he would be ...
— Three Women • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... should be baffled, from a convenient hexameter in old Bacis's oracle book, up to the fact that the Greeks used the longest spears. If he found it weary work looking the crowding peril in the face and smiling still, he never confessed it. His friends would marvel at his serenity. Only when they saw him sit silent, saw his brows knit, his hand comb at his beard, they knew his inexhaustible brain was weaving the web which should ensnare the ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... stay then? It was a very calm, very secure refuge. There was no danger of discovery. Yet there was a restlessness in my spirit at war with the half-mournful, half-joyous serenity of the place, where I had seen so many people die, and where there were so many new graves in the little cemetery up the hill. If I could go away for a while, I might return, and learn to ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... of the first basin the man had risen to serenity; at the second he was jovial; at the third, argumentative, at the fourth, the qualities signified by the shape of his face, the occasional clench of his mouth, and the fiery spark of his dark eye, began to tell in his conduct; ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... of language that the word should mean the creation of images. Imagination is the instrument of God's creation in his own image and likeness. Today I came to Petrarch and Dante—the mystics of the supreme elements. To contrast their serenity with Blake's wrath shows the whiter heights. All height is inward through narrow circles to the Central Fire of Silent Love from which the angels shrink in spiral messages of inspiring flame, and toward which ...
— The Forgotten Threshold • Arthur Middleton
... finest woman in England of her age; Booth himself often avers she is as handsome as ever. Nothing can equal the serenity ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... Conciergerie, his courage returned, and he exhorted his children to prepare for death. When the fatal bell rung, he recovered all his wonted cheerfulness; having paid to nature the tribute of feeling, he desired to give his children an example of magnanimity; his looks exhibited the sublime serenity of virtue, and taught them to view death undismayed. When he ascended the cart, he conversed with his children, unaffected by the clamours of the ferocious populace; and on arriving at the foot of the scaffold, took a last and solemn farewell of his children; immediately after ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton
... of festivities for the Serenity of Hesse, our son-in-law, who passes a few days here on his return to Germany. If you recollect Lord Elcho, you have a perfect idea of his person and parts. The great officers banquet him at dinner; in the evenings; there are ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... the ashes of Mr. John Gay, The warmest friend; The most benevolent man: Who maintained Independency In low circumstances of fortune; Integrity In the midst of a corrupt age And that equal serenity of mind, Which conscious goodness alone can give, Through the whole course ...
— Life And Letters Of John Gay (1685-1732) • Lewis Melville
... born, not made. They are always disappointed by the greatest works of art, by their inadequacy and strain and labour. They look for a proof of what man can do and find a confession of what he cannot do; but that confession, made sincerely and passionately, is beauty. There is also a serenity in the beauty of art, but it is the serenity of self-surrender, not of self-satisfaction, of the saint, not of the lady of fashion. And all the accomplishment of great art, its infinite superiority in mere skill over the work of the merely skilful, comes from the incessant ...
— Essays on Art • A. Clutton-Brock
... most reasonable and genuine Source of Honour, we generally find in Titles an Imitation of some particular Merit that should recommend Men to the high Stations which they possess. Holiness is ascribed to the Pope; Majesty to Kings; Serenity or Mildness of Temper to Princes; Excellence or Perfection to Ambassadors; Grace to Archbishops; Honour to Peers; Worship or Venerable Behaviour to Magistrates; and Reverence, which is of the same Import as the former, ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... the contrary, did not seek pleasure, but pleasure seemed to seek him: he had a perpetual complacence and serenity of mind, which rendered him constantly susceptible of pleasing impressions; every thing that was prepared to refresh or entertain him in his seasons of retirement and relaxation, added something to the delight which was continually springing in his ...
— Almoran and Hamet • John Hawkesworth
... had been, indeed, Countess of Rochester, she could not have been treated with greater respect than was shown her. The apartment allotted her opened upon a large garden, surrounded by high walls, and she walked within it daily. Her serenity of mind remained undisturbed; her health visibly improved; and, what was yet more surprising, she entirely recovered her beauty. The whole of her time not devoted to exercise, was spent in reading, or in prayer. On the appointed ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... them plainly, being, as I have said, not fifteen feet away from the window. Sir William Howe was dancing with Miss Redman. I was struck, as others have been, with his likeness to Washington, but his face wanted the undisturbed serenity of our great chief's. I dare say he knew better than to accept as his honest right the fulsome homage of this parting festival. I thought indeed that he looked discontented. I caught glimpses of Colonel Tarleton bowing to Miss Bond. Then I saw Miss Franks sweeping a ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... and that magic word, the finances, promised them a liberal gratification, of which they wished to prove themselves worthy. The lighter seemed to leap the mimic waves of the Loire. Magnificent weather, a sunrise that empurpled all the landscape, displayed the river in all its limpid serenity. The current and the rowers carried Fouquet along as wings carry a bird, and he arrived before Beaugency without the slightest accident having signalized the voyage. Fouquet hoped to be the first to arrive at Nantes; there he would see the notables and gain support ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... passage to a better state of existence—that it seemed selfish to regret. Still, we wept and mourned, even while, in one sense, I think we rejoiced. She was relieved from, much bodily suffering, and I remember, when I went to take a last look at her beloved face, that I gazed on its calm serenity with a feeling akin to exultation, as I recollected that pain could no longer exercise dominion over her frame, and that her spirit was then dwelling in bliss. Bitter regrets came later, it is true, and these were fully shared—nay, ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... third day Paul made his usual round of calls. He made them more quickly now because he was recognized, and was practically thrown out of each editorial sanctum. His serenity remained unruffled, and his confidence undisturbed. Of all the six editors, Burns, of The Intelligencer, treated him worst, adding ridicule to his gruffness, a refinement of cruelty which annoyed the young ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... the play of light and shade distributed over its surface by the stelae, niches, and deep-set doorways, varied its aspect in the course of the day, without lessening the impression of its majesty and serenity which nothing could disturb. The pyramids themselves are not, as we might imagine, the coarse and ill-considered reproduction of a mathematical figure disproportionately enlarged. The architect who made ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... these dainty wee flowers, scattered through the grass of moist meadows and by the wayside, reflect the blue and the serenity of heaven in their pure, upturned faces. Where the white variety grows, one might think a light snowfall had powdered the grass, or a milky way of tiny floral stars had streaked a terrestrial path. Linnaeus named the flower for Dr. Houston, a young English physician, botanist, and collector, ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... equal hospitality on both occasions, and it was quite evident did not care one farthing in which direction we were tending. He would stand in front of his house, jingling his money—our money—in his pockets, and watch us depart with the greatest serenity, whether we went east or west. I thought him at one time the most genial of Bonifaces (for it was his profession to wear a smile), and at another a mere mocker of human woe. When I grew up, I perceived ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... type of a true American, able, unselfish, prudent, unambitious, and good. Other pens will do justice to his memory, but I thought as I heard the last account of him alive, as he lay within the rebel lines, his face wearing that calm serenity which grew more beautiful the nearer death approached, after having given so abundantly of his goods, now yielding his life to his country in the hour of her trial, that hereafter the good and true men of the nation would emulate the illustrious ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... friends were changed, or I was changed. I could not resume the friendships which had been interrupted. The chain of connection had been broken and the links would not weld easily. So, after some futile efforts to return to the circle I had long deserted, I desisted and accepted my exclusion with serenity. I am not sure that I desired the old relationships re-established. And as my long absence had prevented any fresh shoots of friendship being grafted, I found myself alone in London. I ...
— The Crack of Doom • Robert Cromie
... prepared myself to be all gentleness, all obligingness, all serenity; and as I have now and then, and always had, more or less, good motions pop up in my mind, I encouraged and collected every thing of this sort that I had ever had from novicehood to maturity, [not ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... Khartoum, and down again to our own days when the youth of England upheld the invincible valour, self-sacrifice, and glory of their race in the greatest of all wars,—all have been filled with the love of God and have found therein a perfect serenity in the face of death, and that peace which passeth ...
— The Glory of English Prose - Letters to My Grandson • Stephen Coleridge
... shall rise The end and healing of his earthly pains, Since the will governed sets the soul at peace. The soul of the ungoverned is not his, Nor hath he knowledge of himself; which lacked, How grows serenity? and, wanting that, Whence ...
— The Bhagavad-Gita • Sir Edwin Arnold
... because of the bravery of His Majesty, whom his father Amen loved more than any other king of Egypt from the very beginning, the King of the South and North, Aakheperenra, the son of Ra, Thothmes (II), whose crowns are glorious, endowed with life, stability, and serenity, like Ra for ever." ...
— The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians • E. A. Wallis Budge
... had fairly learned to tread its paths; and when I meet her next, it must be in some world where there is triumph without armies, and where innocence is trained in scenes of peace. I know, however, that her little life, short as it seemed, was a blessing to us all, giving a perpetual image of serenity and sweetness, recalling the lovely atmosphere of far-off homes, and holding us by unsuspected ties to whatsoever things ...
— Our Young Folks—Vol. I, No. II, February 1865 - An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... remembrance of one so dear throw upon the darkest scene of their lives, and how would the glory of his subsequent ascension, and dignity in the invisible world, occupy their daily intercourse and their most devotional moments! "The sweet hour of prime," and the serenity of "evening mild," and "twilight gray," would still find them amidst the wonders of the cross or ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... (physical inertness) 172; hebetude[obs3], hebetation[obs3]; impassibility &c. (insensibility) 823; stupefaction. coolness, calmness &c. adj.; composure, placidity, indisturbance[obs3], imperturbation[obs3], sang froid[Fr], tranquility, serenity; quiet, quietude; peace of mind, mental calmness. staidness &c. adj.; gravity, sobriety, Quakerism[obs3]; philosophy, equanimity, stoicism, command of temper; self-possession, self-control, self-command, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... abbe but we do not mind these little egaremens in our country, and I neither had leisure nor inclination to interfere with her arrangements. Satisfied with her sincere friendship for me, I could easily forgive a few trifling infidelities, and nothing had disturbed the serenity or gaiety of our establishment until this unfortunate expose which I was obliged to make, and to prove the truth of in her presence, viz. that I had been a barber. Her pride revolted at the idea of having formed such a connection, ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... uncertain joy, fainted on his neck. Her gentle spirit had been too powerfully excited by the preceding scenes. Unaccustomed to tumult of any king, and nursed in the bosom of fondness till now, no blast had blown on her tender form, no harshness had ever ruffled the blissful serenity of her mind. What then was the shock of this evening's violence! Her husband pursued as a murderer; herself exposed to the midnight air, and dragged by the hands of merciless soldiers to betray the man she loved! All these scenes were new to her; and though a kind of preternatural ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... voted in Annapolis to-day under the law permitting property owners to say if $121,000 bonds shall be issued for street and other improvements. The novelty of their presence did not disturb the serenity of the polling-room or unnerve the ladies who were exercising their right to vote for the first time. They were calm, direct and as unruffled as though it were the usual order of things. Those who voted are of the ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... seems," says M. Martha, "that in him the philosophy of heathendom grows less proud, draws nearer and nearer to a Christianity which it ignored or which it despised, and is ready to fling itself into the arms of the 'Unknown God.' In the sad Meditations of Aurelius we find a pure serenity, sweetness, and docility to the commands of God, which before him were unknown, and which Christian grace has alone surpassed. If he has not yet attained to charity in all that fulness of meaning which Christianity has given to the word ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... done for his sole benefit. He has exulted, then doubted its reality, then betaken himself to the broad prairie, where he is most at home, to cool his blood in the north wind, and restore himself to the serenity, the freedom from entanglements, befitting an uncle at the head of his tribe. This, you say, is all conjecture, deduced from the behavior of those of his nephews who most resemble him? No. Do you not recall that early affair of his, with the ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... astonished to see spiteful jets of rifle-fire issuing from both sides of the uninjured train directed against thick bunches of Japanese troops who were passing along the track over which we had just advanced. Even the Eastern temperament has limits to its serenity. For a moment the Japs were completely off their guard, but they soon recovered, and dropping flat in the grass, they opened a brisk fusillade. The Magyars were protected by the plated sides of their wagons, and were making sad havoc ...
— With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia • John Ward
... owe a duty!" she exclaimed, dropped the letter where she had found it, and fled,—fled, hurrying through all the bewildering garden-walks, down from the fragrance, the serenity, the bowery seclusion, from all this conspiring loveliness that tempted her to dally and commanded her to stay,—fled from this dream of passion, this region of joy,—fled forever, as she thought, out into the wide, chill, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... this conclusion it seemed to Phillotson more and more indubitably the true one. His mild serenity at the sense that he was doing his duty by a woman who was at his mercy almost overpowered his grief ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... replied, slowly choosing the words. "Your ancestors are here." There was not a shade of regret in her voice or manner. He tried once more, and as vainly as ever, to penetrate the veil of her perfect serenity. She never, it became apparent, descended from the most inflexible self-control; small emotions—surface gayety of mood, curiosity, the faintest possible indication of contempt, he had learned to distinguish; the fact that she cared enough for him to desert every familiar circumstance was evident; ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... me, Edfu must always represent the world-worship of "the Hidden One"; not Amun, god of the dead, fused with Ra, with Amsu, or with Khnum: but that other "Hidden One," who is God of the happy hunting-ground of savages, with whom the Buddhist strives to merge his strange serenity of soul; who is adored in the "Holy Places" by the Moslem, and lifted mystically above the heads of kneeling Catholics in cathedrals dim with incense, and merrily praised with the banjo and the ...
— The Spell of Egypt • Robert Hichens
... in the mountain valleys of Washington is a long serenity. The deep-blue sky is an ocean of intense light, and the sunbeams glint amid the cool forest shadows, and seem to sprinkle the plains with gold-dust like golden snow. Notwithstanding her hard practical speech, which was a habit, Mrs. Woods loved ...
— The Log School-House on the Columbia • Hezekiah Butterworth
... that he found in Socrates seemed a hundred times more attractive than the graceful form and the harmonious features of Clinias. With all the intensity of his stormy temperament he hung on the man who had disturbed the serenity of his virginal soul, which for the first time opened to doubts as the bud of a young oak opens to the fresh ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... his large eyes glittering blackly in the paleness of his face. Gnulemah, with the serenity of a victorious disputant willing to make ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... had that serenity which overwhelms the troubles of man beneath an indescribably mournful and eternal joy. The night promised to be as arid as the ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... it. Willing or unwilling, men must be soldiers. Cities, towns, and villages were astir with excitement. Forgetting the ordinary interests of life, people talked enthusiastically, madly, of war. Months ago had the accustomed serenity of the Queen City given place to noisy military life. Its by-ways and suburbs were dotted with tents, the phantom homes of soldiers. Men who yesterday were gentlemen, were to-day only vassals, whose existence was marked by the morning rveille ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... calmness, n. tranquillity, serenity, placidity, stillness, composure, imperturbability, dispassion, imperturbation, unconcern, equanimity, collectedness, self-possession. Antonyms: ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... his narrative, repeatedly speaks of the serenity of the weather here, and says that the scenery recalled to him delightful places in England. He felt as if the smooth, lawn-like slopes of the island must have been cleared by man. Every thing unsightly seemed to have been removed, and only what was most graceful ...
— Life at Puget Sound: With Sketches of Travel in Washington Territory, British Columbia, Oregon and California • Caroline C. Leighton
... mannerisms. No English writer—indeed one may say no writer at all—has ever tempered such a blend of quiet contempt with perfect good-humour and perfect good-breeding. Dryden would have written with an equally fatal serenity, but not so lightly; Voltaire with as much lightness, but not nearly so much like a gentleman—which may also be said Of Courier. Thackeray could not have helped a blaze of indignation—honest and healthy, but ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... consciousness, but to the higher sensations connected with the special organs of perception. The student in optics soon makes the startling discovery that his field of vision has all through his life been haunted with weird shapes which have never troubled the serenity of his mind just because they have ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully
... idea of a prison, or a place of punishment, and to make every thing conduce to their health and to their ease and comfort. The self-respect and complacency which may thus be produced in the insane, must have a salutary influence in restoring the mind to its wonted serenity. In the disposition of the grounds attached to the Asylum, everything has been done with reference to the amusement, agreeable occupation, and ...
— A Psychiatric Milestone - Bloomingdale Hospital Centenary, 1821-1921 • Various
... warm-hearted woman by the name of Snow, Lucy being her first name. Success to Philip and his bride as they sail across the seas, nearing that grand sea that rolls around all the world! Their own disappointments have met Hubert and Althea. But these have no power to disturb their patience and serenity. They have established schools for the whites and the blacks on their estate, and are teaching the doctrines and practices of ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... probably as being the longest toddy on record, the father of (fire) waters; and on its down-lapsing current my eloquence was swept into the gulf of oblivion. The meeting, fortunately, did not know what it had lost, and its serenity remained unclouded. But it is not to the Mississippi toddies and other creature comforts of America that I look back with gratitude and affection. It is to the spontaneous and unaffected human kindness that met me on every hand; the will to ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... first place, we are led to infer, from all the cases brought into notice, that every kind of external force, or precipitation in education, is abhorrent to Nature. In each of the cases supposed, we have a remarkable exhibition of the calm serenity of Nature's operations in the education of the young. For instance, in the last case supposed, the children all listened,—they all heard the same words,—the mental food was the same to each, however diversified their abilities might be; and it was indiscriminately offered in the same form to ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... rose to his lips unconsciously, and he hummed it in a dreary fashion that caused Peterkin to open his eyes. At least he did open them, and there was something in the serenity of those yellow orbs that recalled the ...
— The Spectacle Man - A Story of the Missing Bridge • Mary F. Leonard
... known his creed: But the bronze wonder of his work sufficed To lift me to the heights his faith had trod. For one rich moment, opulent indeed, I walked with Krishna, Buddha, and the Christ, And felt the full serenity ...
— The Englishman and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... have gone, for what you call their death is but their birth, with powers transcending those of their former state, as light transcends the darkness. Disturb them not with idle yearnings, lest your thought unsettle the serenity of their lives. Let the ignorance which has ruined me be a warning. Some day I shall complete my term of loneliness, and begin life anew. We will know each other then, dear Paul, as here. Remember, I shall always be your spirit ...
— The Ghost of Guir House • Charles Willing Beale
... far metallic clangor of sound, hoarse or harsh, perhaps, if your delicate ears must call him so; but grand; immeasurably grand; majestically, ominously and terribly grand;— ancestral voices prophesying war, and doom, and all dark tremendous destinies;—and yet he too with serenity and the Prophecy of Peace and bliss for his last word to us: he will not leave his avenging Erinyes until by Pallas' wand and will they are transformed into Eumenides, bringers of ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... sage accord with the Philistines of the day, a new conception of classicality is evolved. In other departments of art, too, the Greeks are pressed into service, on the ground that Greece was the very home of "clear transparent serenity;" and, finally, such shallow meddling with all that is most earnest and terrible in the existence of man, is gathered together in a full and novel philosophical system [Footnote: Hanslick's "Vom Musicalish-Schoenen," ...
— On Conducting (Ueber das Dirigiren): - A Treatise on Style in the Execution of Classical Music • Richard Wagner (translated by Edward Dannreuther)
... such as has been well compared to that soft green on which the eye, wearied by warm tints and glaring lights, reposes with pleasure. A just understanding; an inexhaustible yet never redundant flow of rational, gentle, and sprightly conversation; a temper of which the serenity was never for a moment ruffled, a tact which surpassed the tact of her sex as much as the tact of her sex surpasses the tact of ours; such were the qualities which made the widow of a buffoon first the confidential friend, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... was waiting by the fence, impatience written with a wandering reflection all over the serenity of her every-day expression. Susan only waited to lay aside her bonnet and mitts and then hastened ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... to turn him from the truth that they knew he was about to achieve. In the morning they departed, and the Prince as he sat, saw flowers spring up and blossom all around him with miraculous swiftness. The air seemed purer than ever before, the sun was wonderfully bright and a peaceful serenity seemed to enfold the entire earth. And when night came and the stars awoke, the truth for which the Prince had been seeking flowed into his soul. He ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards
... Gobseck,' I began, with such serenity as I could assume before the old man, who gazed at me with steady eyes. There was a clear light burning in ...
— Gobseck • Honore de Balzac
... as if undergoing the influence of an unspoken thought, the countenance of the cardinal, till then gloomy, cleared up by degrees, and recovered perfect serenity. ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... sudden her mood seemed to change, her serenity returned, and when the praefect interposed she put out a restraining hand, warning the lictors ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... Eve Edgarton. With unruffled serenity she picked up a pulpy magazine-page from the ground in front of her and handed it to him. "And it—would greatly facilitate matters, Mr. Barton," she confided, "if you would kindly begin drying out some papers against your side ...
— Little Eve Edgarton • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... took a short trip to the Lake of the Isles, a lovely place, where instead of boats full of gigglin' girls with parasols, and college boys with yells and oars, the water lilies float their white perfumed sails, and Serenity and Loneliness seem to kinder drift the boat onwards, and the fashion-tired beholder loves to hasten there, away from the crowd, ...
— Samantha at Coney Island - and a Thousand Other Islands • Marietta Holley
... is inquinated by the contact with its different limiting adjuncts, viz. body, senses, and mind (mano-buddhi), attains through the instrumentality of knowledge, meditation, and so on, a state of complete serenity, and thus enables itself, when passing at some future time out of the body, to become one with the highest Self; hence the initial statement in which it is represented as non-different from the highest Self. This is the opinion of the teacher Au/d/ulomi.—Thus ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 • George Thibaut
... there was agreement between the offer and the demand. The upper classes had opposed and resisted the Crown; the people were eager to support it, and it was expected that the first steps would be taken together. The comparative moderation and serenity of the Instructions disguised the unappeasable conflict of opinion and the ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... moment in her quiet room, then came down, kissed her mother and father with a face of brave serenity, and went down the maple shaded street with her silk work bag in her hand. And none too soon. As she tapped at the door of the Carter house she saw Mrs. Frost ambling purposefully out of the Gibson gate with a tea cup in ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... handsome husband came with her, a knight of the garter, and just appointed to a high office in the household by the new government. Even the excitement of the hour did not disturb his indigenous repose. It was a dignified serenity, quite natural, and quite compatible with easy and even cordial manners, and an address always considerate even when not sympathetic. He was not a loud or a long talker, but his terse remarks were full of taste and a just appreciation ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... moonshine evaporated from the summits of the nearer hills, and left them hard and dark. Then there was nothing but a great soft black darkness below that jagged edge and above it the stars very large and bright. Somewhere under that enormous serenity to the south of us the hunted Boers must be halting to snatch an hour or so of rest, and beyond them again extended the long thin net of the pursuing British. It all seemed infinitely small and remote, there was no sound of it, no hint of it, no searchlight ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... call them the Slaughter-house Quartette, auntie, because whenever they are sober enough to walk without police assistance, they wander through the streets slaughtering the peace and serenity of the quiet town with their rendition of all the late, disgraceful sentimental ditties. They are in many ways striking characters. I do not wholly misunderstand their attraction for romantic Carol. They are something like the troubadours of ...
— Prudence Says So • Ethel Hueston
... To Autumn Keats attains to the serenity he has been seeking. In this unparalleled description of a richly beautiful autumn day he conveys to us all the peace and comfort which his spirit receives. He does not philosophize upon the spectacle or draw a moral from it, ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... home life there had been nothing to mar in the slightest degree its serenity and delight; indeed, our happiness had been increased on the ninth of June by the arrival of our ...
— The Romance and Tragedy • William Ingraham Russell
... of Mr. John Gay, The warmest friend; The most benevolent man: Who maintained Independency In low circumstances of fortune; Integrity In the midst of a corrupt age And that equal serenity of mind, Which conscious goodness alone can give, Through the whole course of ...
— Life And Letters Of John Gay (1685-1732) • Lewis Melville
... of heraldry most significant in the middle ages, the asp on the shield of the Guelphic viscounts is to be much remembered by you as a sign of this merciless cruelty of mistaken religion; mistaken, but not in the least hypocritical. It has perfect confidence in itself, and can answer with serenity for all its deeds. The serenity of heart never appears in the guilty Infidels; they die in despair or gloom, greatly satisfactory to adverse ...
— Val d'Arno • John Ruskin
... She showed him but scant courtesy, however, for she was but a poor hostess, and after dinner carried her cousin away to the billiard-room, and left her husband to entertain the Rev. Ambrose and the detective as best he could. Cleek needed but little entertaining, however, for in spite of his serenity he was full of the case on hand, and kept wandering in and out of the house and upstairs and down until eleven o'clock came and bed claimed ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... the most exciting subjects in the most agitated times he was himself placed in the very thick of the civil conflict; yet there is no acrimony, nothing inflammatory, nothing personal. He preserves an air of cold superiority, a certain philosophical serenity, which is perfectly marvellous. He treats every question as an abstract question, begins with the widest propositions, argues those propositions on general grounds, and often, when he has brought out his theorem, leaves the reader to make the application, without ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... to shun all idle attempts to revenge past hostilities or feed the sources of future irritation. He owed much to the singular moderation and evenness of his temper; and his debt to Anaxagoras must have been indeed great, if the lessons of that preacher of those cardinal virtues of the intellect, serenity and order, had assisted to form the rarest of all unions—a genius the most fervid, with passions the ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... preserved, and the "Manual of Epictetus," a valuable compendium of the doctrines of the Stoics. The Emperor Marcus Aurelius not only lectured at Rome on the principles of Epictetus, but he left us his private meditations, composed in the midst of a camp, and exhibiting the serenity of a mind which had made itself independent of outward actions and warring passions within. Lucian (fl. 150 A.D.) may be compared to Voltaire, whom he equaled in his powers both of rhetoric and ridicule, and surpassed in his more conscientious and courageous ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... published in 1674, a copy of which is in the Editor's possession. The author's object is to correct some fatal errors which then peculiarly abounded, and to recommend the gospel in its purity to the acceptation of his fellow-sinners. Possessing that inward peace, serenity, happiness, and safety, arising from a scriptural knowledge of Christ and him crucified, he proclaims, 'I have ventured my own soul thereon with gladness,' and 'if all the souls in the world were mine, I would venture them all.' His prayer is that others may receive the same ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... instinct, which, partially developed in painting, may be now seen throughout every mode of exertion of mind,—the easily encouraged doubt, easily excited curiosity, habitual agitation, and delight in the changing and the marvellous, as opposed to the old quiet serenity of social custom and religious faith,—is again deeply defined in those few words, the "dethroning of Jupiter," the "coronation ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... was showing ruddily in the window of the hut when Joyce opened her eyes. The returning spirit came slowly back with stately serenity. There was no shock nor start of wonder; it took possession of the refreshed body that was awaiting it, and accepted ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... tarletan and tinsel, of delicate zephyrs and extremes in butterfly effects. Hoop-skirts were persisted in, despite the protests of art and reason; so, the serenity of this dress, fitting close as a habit, and falling in soft straight folds with a sculpturesque effect, and with the brown-eyed Italian face above ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... pile was made, with an inscription to the honour of the deceased. When they come from the funeral, they discourse of his good life and worthy actions, but speak of nothing oftener and with more pleasure than of his serenity at the hour of death. They think such respect paid to the memory of good men is both the greatest incitement to engage others to follow their example, and the most acceptable worship that can be ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... amid darkness. And even so, in our own times, did Baldassarre Peruzzi, a painter and architect of Siena, of whom we can say with certainty that the modesty and goodness which were revealed in him were no mean offshoots of that supreme serenity for which the minds of all who are born in this world are ever sighing, and that the works which he left to us are most honourable fruits of that true excellence which was infused ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 05 ( of 10) Andrea da Fiesole to Lorenzo Lotto • Giorgio Vasari
... consciousness of community with all living things, as subjects of one all-embracing and unchanging law, the law of perfect love. Magic and portents, apparitions and visions, the raptures of "infused contemplation" and their dark Nemesis of Satanic delusions, can no more trouble the serenity of him who has learnt to see the same God in nature whom he has found in the holy place ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... The lady's sight begins to fail her. She blesses God for the serenity she enjoys. It is what, she says, she had prayed for. What a blessing, so near to her dissolution, to have her prayers answered! Gives particular directions to him about her papers, about her last will and apparel. Comforts the women and him ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... what was pointed out. To him it was a glimpse of a very new world of contrition, faith, hope, and prayer; but he saw the uneasy expression on Louis's face give place to serenity, as one already at home ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Tippoo to Bangalore; while shouts, and irregular discharges of musketry, announced the real or pretended rejoicing of the inhabitants. The city gates received the living torrent, which rolled towards them; the clouds of smoke and dust were soon dispersed, and the horizon was restored to serenity and silence. ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott
... change which had come over him since the day when he had first appeared to her, so sombre in his long cassock, with his face emaciated, livid, almost distorted by anguish. It was like a resurrection, for now his countenance was bright, his lofty brow had all the serenity of hope, while his eyes and lips once more showed some of the confident tenderness which sprang from his everlasting thirst for love, self-bestowal and life. All mark of the priesthood had already left him, save that where he had been tonsured ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... sober ideas of their pious inhabitants. The religious who devoutly endeavour to "walk with GOD," are often treated with raillery by those whom pleasure or business prevents from thinking of future and more exalted objects. A little experience of the serenity and peace of mind to be found in convents, would be of use to temper the fire of men of ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... one exception to this rule. During an argument he was often excited. The war of words, the keen and subtle conflict between trained minds—in this his soul took delight, in this he sought and found the joy of battle and of victory. Yet he would not allow his serenity to be ruffled by any foe whom he considered unworthy of his steel; he refused to argue with people whom he knew to be hopelessly illogical—definitely refused, though with such tact that no wound was given, even ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... trees. There are no hedges. Only here and there a row of poplars or pollard willows is flung out as a screen against the open sky. This country is formed for the very expression of peace. The straight flat roads, the straight flat fields and straight tall trees stand still in an immense quiet and serenity. We pass low Flemish houses with white walls and red roofs. Their green doors and shutters are tall and slender like the trees, the colours vivid as if the paint had been laid on yesterday. It is all unspeakably beautiful and it comes to me with the natural, inevitable shock and ecstasy ...
— A Journal of Impressions in Belgium • May Sinclair
... continued alternately reading those fragments, walking up and down my chamber, and gazing on the skies. The cavalry torches still illumined the Castle-square; the blaze from the windows of the ball-room still poured its steady radiance on the gardens; and the pure serenity of a rising moon shone over all. Captivity, luxury, and the calm glory of the heavens, were at once before me. Feverish with pain and pleasure, pressed with the anxieties of state, and filled with solemn and spiritualized contemplation, I continued gazing from my casement until the torches and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... "For example, your Serenity—" Marietta paused, to search her memory.— "Well, for one example, he calls roast veal a fowl. I give him roast veal for his luncheon, and he says to me, 'Marietta, this fowl has no wings.' But everyone ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... stood on the hill, gazing round to enjoy every shape and shade at leisure, my eye turned on the Castle. It spoiled all my serenity at once. I felt that it was a spot from which I was excluded by nature; that it belonged to others so wholly, that scarcely by any conceivable chance could it ever be mine; and that I could remain within its walls no longer, but with ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... king; and when the two years are out, and another is chose, a messenger is, sent to him, who stands at the bottom of the stairs, and he at the top, and says, "Va. Illustrissima Serenita sta finita, et puede andar en casa."—"Your serenity is now ended; and now you may be going home," and so claps on his hat. And the old Duke (having by custom sent his goods home before), walks away, it may be but with one man at his heels; and the new one brought immediately in his room, in the greatest ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... that he must always tell the truth for sundry philosophical reasons—a statement which the First Assistant tactfully smoothed to something within range of credulity by translating it that one must not lie to Americanos, because Americanos do not like it—there came a period of serenity. ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... thing, screamed its terror over the desert whose majesty did not even permit of its catching up the shriek of the panting engine to fling it back in echoes. The desert ignored, and before and behind the onrushing train the deep serenity of the waste ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory
... window soon after my arrival, a bit removed from a group of talking persons to whom I was giving but scant attention, I became conscious that some one was addressing me, and turned to find the Duke of Borthwicke, his hand laid lightly on my shoulder, his countenance of baffling serenity, and his voice mellow and of a conciliating quality. He wore gray satin of an elegant finish, but neither embroidery nor jewels, and, notwithstanding his position and power, conveyed the impression in some adroit way, subtler than I can set forth, that he deprecated his temerity in addressing ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane
... another form of misery. But Amy would be tranquil, pure and good, whatever became of him, and he should always be able to think of her, looking like one of those peaceful spirits, with bending head, folded hands, and a star on its brow, in the "Paradiso" of Flaxman. Her serenity would be untouched; and though she might be lost to him, he could still be content while he could look up at it through his turbid life. Better she were lost to him than that her ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... even in their serenity always a little wild, widened with astonishment. "Claimed?" she repeated. "What do you mean? What could I have claimed? I ...
— Amabel Channice • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... loved this habit of expecting happiness, and looking forward to the joys rather than the sorrows of the future, which had all her life, been characteristic of Pixie O'Shaughnessy. They realised that it was to this quality of mind, rather than to external happenings, that she owed her cheerful serenity, but this morning it was impossible not to wonder how she would view the proposed change ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... quietly and composedly as if in his private office; he seemed perfectly oblivious to the angry storm which was raging about him. The cold-blooded, conservative New England Senator was as greatly amazed at the serenity of the clear-headed Western Congressman as he was distressed at the impending disaster. He went to Mr. Foster and talked very discouragingly respecting the situation. He said that the Senate was growing impatient at the dilatory ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... few, but everything is freely shown, there are no dark corners, and the spacious courts gay with flowers are full of charm. The sacred images which they contain are generally grotesque or hideous. Not often does one show a trace of the gracious serenity that marks the traditional representations of Buddha; on the other ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... take in them. The song of the bobolink to me expresses hilarity; the song sparrow's, faith; the bluebird's, love; the catbird's, pride; the white-eyed flycatcher's, self-consciousness; that of the hermit thrush spiritual serenity: while there is something military in the call of ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... a shrill shriek as the sleigh went over and then lay quite still in a heap by the side of the road, with Stephen across her feet. The automobile seemed to have recovered its serenity, for it now stood still like any well-behaved machine, quiet save for its noisy breathing, while the sleigh was being bumped, on its side, far up the road, at the heels of the ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... and she began to gather her primroses into a bunch with an air of the utmost serenity. She was a thin, agile, lightly made creature, apparently about eleven. Her piercing black eyes, when they lifted, seemed to overweight the face, whereof the other features were at present small and pinched. The mouth had a trick of remaining slightly open, showing a line of small pearly teeth; ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... three brigades of Ross, Stark, and Wirt Adams, which were scattered from the neighborhood of Yazoo City to Jackson and below; and Forrest's, which was united, toward Memphis, with headquarters at Como. General Polk seemed to have no suspicion of our intentions to disturb his serenity. ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... this occurred to us again; but the serenity of our thoughts was in some degree interrupted, a few days afterwards, by the north-easterly Trade-wind dying away, and a gentle south-wester springing up in its place. This occurred in latitude 25-1/2 deg. N., where, according to our inexperienced conception of these ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... Adair's two sisters were being waited on by Margaret, fair and innocent-looking as usual, in her pretty summer gown. Lady Caroline's white eyelids veiled a glance of sudden sharpness, as she noticed her daughter's unruffled serenity. Margaret puzzled her. For the first time in her life she wondered whether she had been mistaken in the girl, who had always seemed to reproduce so accurately the impressions that her teachers and guardians wished to make. Had it been, all seeming? and was Margaret mentally ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... to keep, and knows it, and is careful not to betray himself until he can do so with the most telling effect. I have known him to preserve his serenity even when caught in a steel trap, and look the very picture of injured innocence, manoeuvring carefully and deliberately to extricate his foot from the grasp of the naughty jaws. Do not by any means take pity on him, and lend a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... even at the commencement of decline, comes an interval, a renewal of all that former seasons had proffered of fair and sweet; the very tokens of decay are lovely—the skies are deep calm blue, the sunsets soft gold, and the exquisite serenity and tranquil enjoyment are beyond even the bright, fitful hopes of spring. There is a tinge of melancholy, for this is a farewell, though a lingering farewell; and for that very cause the enduring flowers, the brilliant eaves, the persevering singing birds, are even more prized ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... told her, and smiled with that serenity she had come to know so well. "Not even you, though I suppose I'd about annihilate anyone else if he ever hinted at it." He chose to be didactic in tone. "No, you're not perfect; you've too much ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... before whom we are ashamed, whose claims upon us we fear. If, on doing wrong, we feel the same tearful, broken-hearted sorrow which overwhelms us on hurting a mother; if, on doing right, we enjoy the same seeming serenity of mind, the same soothing, satisfactory delight, which follows on one receiving praise from a father,—we certainly have within us the image of some person to whom our love and veneration look, in whose ...
— A Candid Examination of Theism • George John Romanes
... of the Trinity fell benignity that was—awesome; the tiny flames in the jet orbs vanished, leaving them wells in which brimmed serenity, hope—an extraordinary joyfulness. The woman sat upright, tender gaze fixed upon the man and girl. Her great shoulders raised as though she had lifted her arms and had drawn to her those others. The three faces pressed together for a fleeting moment; raised again. The woman bent forward—and ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt
... They are devoured by their thirst for blood, and equity is not the basis of their judgments. All the injurious imputations which have been levelled against me vanish. An invisible hand imprints on my forehead the serenity of innocence. An inward sentiment tells me that, having lived free from crimes, I shall not be confounded with the guilty. Unhappy is the man whose conscience gives a contrary testimony. He endeavours in vain to shun the stroke that threatens him. The history ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... and sat down under the cottonwoods to wait for Euchre. The night was intense and quiet, a low hum of insects giving the effect of a congestion of life. The beauty of the soaring moon, the ebony canons of shadow under the mountain, the melancholy serenity of the perfect night, made Duane shudder in the realization of how far aloof he now was from enjoyment of these things. Never again so long as he lived could he be natural. His mind was clouded. His eye and ear ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... Thorndyke continued, with unmoved serenity, "consider these relics in more detail, and we will begin with this pair of spectacles. They belonged to a person who was near-sighted and astigmatic in the left eye and almost certainly blind in the right. Such a description ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman
... harmony, serenity into our lives. It sounds very fine. But can we? I doubt it. We may put beautiful objects, dignified manners, harmonious colours and shapes, but can we put dignity, harmony, or beauty? Can we put them into an individual ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee
... a feverish light, a scarlet flush burned on his hollow cheek, and the breath came slowly from his parted lips, but over his whole countenance there lay a beautiful serenity which filled his friend with ...
— On Picket Duty and Other Tales • Louisa May Alcott
... and at the dinner-table she had resumed all her usual cheerfulness; nor did she make the least difference in her manners to her nieces, but chatted with them both, as if nothing had occurred to disturb her serenity. ...
— Aunt Mary • Mrs. Perring
... handsome man, with a long, fair face, and dreamy eyes; his wife, Josephine, in the days when she thought she was in love with him, used to call him Melanchthon—that was not many years ago, and he still resembled in appearance the poet of the Reformation. But his features had now lost their fine serenity, and he was glad when his bitter and troubled thoughts on the doctrine of justification—a subject he had chosen for its bearing on his brother-in-law's conduct—were interrupted by his wife. Josephine burst into his study in ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... persecutions and robberies of the rabble. The little quarter was enclosed by strong walls with gates, and if the Jews were required to be within them at night, on pain of a fine, they and their property were at least in safety. This fact has never been noticed, and accounts for the serenity with which they bore their nightly imprisonment for three centuries. Once within the walls of the Ghetto they were alone, and could go about the little streets in perfect security; they were free from the ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... the trees; the chirping of the birds, which already began their matin song; the joyous voice of the cock, which crowed in a most satisfactory and majestic manner in the paddock of her hostess; all these sights and sounds, to which she was so little accustomed, restored her serenity of mind once more. She dwelt more on the attractions of her love—so adventurous, so romantic. Love's ways, like those of wickedness, are strewed at first with roses, and Daphne was only at the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... trousers, and silk stockings, and to complete his finery, he wore Turkish slippers and a turban. Although his limbs pained him extremely, in consequence of their recent forced march, he constrained himself to assume the utmost serenity of countenance, in order to meet, with befitting dignity, the honours they lavished on him as the humble representative ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... down into the face upturned in the firelight and almost gasped at its serenity. There was not a trace of anger in the eyes lifted to her own—nothing but kindness—and that look, somehow, made it harder to proceed than any ...
— Blue Bonnet in Boston - or, Boarding-School Days at Miss North's • Caroline E. Jacobs
... good-nature, are of daily use: they are the bread of mankind, and staff of life; neither sighs, nor tears, nor groans, nor curses of the vanquished, follow acts of compassion and of charity, but a sincere pleasure and serenity of mind, in him who performs an action of mercy, which cannot suffer the misfortunes of another without redress, lest they should bring a kind of contagion along with them, and pollute the happiness ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... St. Dunstan's story, the serenity of the legend of St. Brandan, are examples rarely met with in this literature. Under the light ornamentation copied from the Celts and Normans, is usually seen at that date the sombre and dreamy background of the Anglo-Saxon mind. Hell and its torments, remorse for irreparable crimes, ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... at once, but in the girl's breast a new pulse beat; a new instinct stirred, blindly importuning her for recognition; a new confusion threatened the ordered serenity of her mind, vaguely menacing it with ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... anxieties aside in deference to the growing terror in the eyes of his young hostess. He had known her but a short time, meeting her only as his St. John's-in-Paradise duties gave him opportunity; but from the first she had stood to him as a type of womanly serenity and fortitude. Yet now she was visibly terrified and distressed, and the clergyman wondered. She had never before given him the impression that she belonged to the storm-fearing group ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... town knew that he was a genuine "detective," a member of the great organisation known as the New York Imperial Detective Association; and that fresh honour had come to Tinkletown through the agency of a post-revolution generation. The beauty of it all was that Anderson never lost a shred of his serenity in explaining how the association had implored him to join its forces, even going so far as to urge him to come to New York City, where he could assist and advise in all of its large operations. And, moreover, he had been obliged to pay ...
— The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon
... as from a great brightness. He was of mighty stature, and yet so nobly proportioned, so exquisitely slender and graceful, that no idea of gravity or bulk went with his height. His face was kingly and youthful and of a terrifying serenity. The second man was of equal height, but broad to wonderment. So broad was he that his great height seemed diminished. The tense arm on which he leaned was knotted and ridged with muscle, and his hand gripped deeply into the ground. His face seemed as ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens
... I owe a duty!" she exclaimed, dropped the letter where she had found it, and fled,—fled, hurrying through all the bewildering garden-walks, down from the fragrance, the serenity, the bowery seclusion, from all this conspiring loveliness that tempted her to dally and commanded her to stay,—fled from this dream of passion, this region of joy,—fled forever, as she thought, out into the wide, chill, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... staring wildly from Stanton's amazed face to the perfectly calm, perfectly accustomed air of poise that characterized every movement of the pink-shrouded visitor. The amazement in fact never wavered for a second from Stanton's blush-red visage, nor the supreme serenity from the lady's whole attitude. But across the Doctor's startled features a fearful, outraged consciousness of having been deceived, warred mightily with ...
— Molly Make-Believe • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... of his frown; the short craniological conversation, which had passed between him and Mr Escot, had softened his heart in his favour; and the copious libations of Burgundy in which he had indulged had smoothed his brow into unusual serenity. ...
— Headlong Hall • Thomas Love Peacock
... women, children and chickens, in the yard below. We ran to the window, and looked out. Women in bright-colored handkerchiefs, some carrying pails on their heads, were crossing the yard, busy with their morning work; children were playing and tumbling around them. On every face there was a look of serenity and cheerfulness. My heart gave a great throb of happiness as I looked at them, and thought, "They are free! so long down-trodden, so long crushed to the earth, but now in their old homes, forever free!" And I thanked God that I had lived ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... look from the window. The engine, tender, and luggage van were derailed. As the speed of the trains never exceeds twenty-five miles an hour, such little contretemps which occur from time to time do not ruffle the serenity of those concerned. Resigning myself to a delay of a few hours, I determined to alight and explore the country. But alas! I had no mosquito veiling, and to stand for a moment outside without this protection was to risk disfigurement for life. So ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding
... platform, its huge metallic ribs and broad, bulging sides glinting strangely in the unbroken sunshine—for, as if imitating the ominous quiet before an earthquake, the July sky had stripped itself of all clouds. No thunder-storms broke the serenity of the long days, and never had the overarching heavens seemed so spotless and motionless in ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... passed through a long winter, and the spring at length opened upon us with unusual sweetness. The soft serenity of the weather; the beauty of the surrounding country; the joyous notes of the birds; the balmy breath of flower and blossom, all combined to fill my bosom with indistinct sensations, and nameless wishes. Amid the soft seductions of the season, I lapsed ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... Kumara-Sambhava, Madana, the God Eros, enters the forest sanctuary to set free a sudden flood of desire amid the serenity of the ascetics' meditation. But the boisterous outbreak of passion so caused was shown against a background of universal life. The divine love-thrills of Sati and Shiva found their response in the ...
— Creative Unity • Rabindranath Tagore
... heart shall share The strong sweet loveliness of all things made, 10 And the serenity of inward joy Beyond the storm ...
— Sappho: One Hundred Lyrics • Bliss Carman
... be to little purpose to dwell upon the mere beauty of a countenance in which the expression of an extraordinary mind was so conspicuous. What serenity was seated on the forehead, adorned with the finest chestnut hair, light, curling, and disposed with such art, that the art was hidden in the imitation of most pleasing nature! What varied expression in his eyes! They were of the azure colour of the heavens, from ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... conceal his real motives for excavating. The officials and soldiers were handsomely rewarded for their trouble, and Lady Hester set out on her homeward journey, minus her tents, palanquin, military escort, and other emblems of grandeur, but with no loss of dignity or serenity. ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... at its full height. The gray columns, perfectly straight and parallel, supported a dark roof of leaves, gray underneath, and reflecting above, from their broad fans, sheets of pale glittering-light. Such serenity of grandeur I never saw in any group of trees; and when we rode up to it, and tethered our horses in its shade, it seemed to me almost irreverent not to kneel and worship in that temple ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... line of jaw and sharp incisive profile. His face had power as well as intellect, yet there was a hint of weakness somewhere. Possibly the lips of his well-cut mouth were a trifle too firmly set to be unselfconscious. And his broad forehead lacked serenity. There was ...
— Sleeping Fires • Gertrude Atherton
... last but half-pronounced, expired:—such a smile, such a charming serenity overspreading her sweet face at the instant, as seemed to manifest her ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... arose between these honoured personages was of a double character, for they were Norman and Saxon, and, moreover, differed in opinion concerning the time of holding Easter. This, however, was but a slight gale to disturb the general serenity of Eveline; for with her unhoped-for union with Damian, ended the trials and sorrows of ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... But within the safety of her kitchen she exploded into execrations, muttering prophecies of evil, with lamentations that a Mad Thing from the mountains had broken into the serenity of their lives. ...
— The Dragon Painter • Mary McNeil Fenollosa
... star! Their beauty and serenity pervaded Lenore's soul. Surely there was a life somewhere else, beyond in that infinite space. And the defeat of earthly dreams ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... was a plump, bright-eyed woman who adored her four children, and enjoyed them, with happy serenity, except at infrequent intervals, when she worried herself "distracted" over them. At such times she always ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott
... off, while Sanin asked for an inexpensive room for himself; and after setting his attire to rights, and resting a little, he repaired to the immense apartment occupied by his Serenity (Durchlaucht) Prince von Polozov. ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... embarrassment was extreme. Her cheeks were crimson, and she trembled like a leaf. Still her attitude was proud, generous enthusiasm glowed in her dark eyes, and her tone of voice revealed the serenity of a lofty soul ready to dare anything for a just and noble cause. This striking contrast—this struggle between girlish timidity and a lover's virgil energy, endowed her with a strange and powerful charm, which the photographer made no attempt ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... I had done my best to conceal all traces of the effect produced on me by the strange and terrible news from Gleninch. But who could read what I had read, who could feel what I now felt, and still maintain an undisturbed serenity of look and manner? If I had been the vilest hypocrite living, I doubt even then if my face could have kept my secret while my mind ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... thoughts of evil, awakening in their hearts, new spiritual impulses, feelings of worshipful adoration; emotions of the highest and purest order. Than this, nothing could prove more helpful in maintaining perfect conditions of mental and spiritual serenity. ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... had ceased, and I had again become habituated to reverence the Deity in all my thoughts and feelings, I for some time enjoyed the most unbroken serenity and peace. The examinations to which I was every two or three days subjected by the special commission, however tormenting, produced no lasting anxiety, as before. I succeeded in this arduous position, in discharging all which integrity and friendship required ...
— My Ten Years' Imprisonment • Silvio Pellico
... pleasant, and we cannot refuse our affection to Gavroche, although we may make a mental reservation of our profound disbelief in his existence. Take it for all in all, there are few books in the world that can be compared with it. There is as much calm and serenity as Hugo has ever attained to; the melodramatic coarsenesses that disfigured "Notre Dame" are no longer present. There is certainly much that is painfully improbable; and again, the story itself is a little too ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the weak hours' hopeless horoscope, Leaving the heavens a melancholy calm Of quiet colour chaunted like a psalm, In mildly modulated phrases; thus Your life shall fade like a voluptuous Vision beyond the sight, and you shall die Like some soft evening's sad serenity... I would possess your dying hours; indeed My love is worthy of the gift, I plead For them. Although I never loved as yet, Methinks that I might love you; I would get From out the knowledge that the time was brief, That tenderness, whose pity grows to grief, ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... knightly and kingly—a man earnest in the redress of wrong, and who yet holds a subtle authority over the forces that make for wrong; a man burdened with the cares and sorrows of many others, and yet conducting his own life with serenity, enthusiasm, dignity, and hope; a man to whose keen yet tender gaze a life-history is revealed by a word or tone, but whose own eyes receive their light from God. A prophet and a father, a priest and a counsellor, a brother, friend, ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown
... all these and beyond them all. I turn my head and see it, in its beautiful serenity, beside me. So may thy face be by me, Agnes, when I close my life; and when realities are melting from me, may I still find thee ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... was elegant; her aspect was attempered with a pensive mildness, which in her cheerful moments would light up into sprightliness and vivacity. Though on first impression, her countenance was marked by a sweet and thoughtful serenity, yet she eminently ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.
... drawing to a close. He knew that he must soon die; yet never a word of fear escaped his lips; nor was his serenity of mind disturbed. He made his preparations for departure with as much tranquillity and happiness, as on the days when he was about to start on ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... The endless strife, The discord in the harmonies of life! The love of learning, the sequestered nooks, And all the sweet serenity of books; The market-place, the eager love of gain, Whose aim is vanity, and whose ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... an inveterate borrower An obedient creature enough where he must be Bound to assure everybody at table he was perfectly happy Confident serenity inspired by evil prognostications Enamoured young men have these notions Gossip always has some solid foundation, however small He kept saying to himself, 'to-morrow I will tell' I always wait for a thing to happen first I never see ...
— Quotations from the Works of George Meredith • David Widger
... fathers. Mr. Rawlinson seized his recovered little treasure in his arms and Pan Tarkowski long clasped his heroic boy to his bosom. Their misfortune disappeared as pass away whirlwinds and storms of the desert. Their lives were filled anew with serenity and happiness; longing and separation had augmented their joy. But the children were surprised that the hair of their "papas" had whitened ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... past. Noon came and went; mid-afternoon was upon him. His watch showed a few minutes past four when he decided on another smoke. From the corner of his pocket he raked the loose tobacco into the bowl of his pipe, and pressed it down. Presently he was again puffing in pleasant serenity. ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... giant, in his deep, musical tones, "know there's one. It takes more than men to make me believe there ain't. I know it when I look at them!" He waved his hands at the starlit mountains surrounding them, and towering in serenity high up ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... rainy. It was that sort of light steady rain which falls so softly and brings to one's spirit such serenity and peace. About ten o'clock D'Alencon, the Bastard of Orleans, La Hire, Pothon of Saintrailles, and two or three other generals came to our headquarters tent, and sat down to discuss matters with Joan. Some ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain
... I dared not try to raise; My Lady's beamed on me In fixed serenity of gaze, And were what old sunshiny days ...
— My Beautiful Lady. Nelly Dale • Thomas Woolner
... breakfast and I was just in time to hear Joan's grace, "Thank God for our b'ekfas'—and do make us good." The extremely sanctimonious tone in which this was delivered, combined with the melodramatic scowl which marred the usual serenity of Porgie's countenance, convinced me that the morning had commenced inauspiciously and that it would be well to gild the pill which I ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 1, 1920 • Various
... a hubbub that would have made on old-time Puritan laugh, even at the risk of being censured for levity. By and by they quieted down, and one of them began to whistle his pretty minor tune with as much serenity as if he had never been excited in his life. My winter outing proved that the Frost King and the hardy birds often go cheek by jowl, as if they were on terms ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... first entered Soda Springs Valley his companions had called him Buck Johnson. Since then his form had squared, his eyes had steadied to the serenity of a great authority, his mouth, shadowed by the moustache and the beard, had closed straight in the line of power and taciturnity. There was about him more than a trace of the Spanish. So now he was known as Senor Johnson, although in reality ...
— Arizona Nights • Stewart Edward White
... their friendship continued outwardly as before, but there was a difference. A tendency to nag and find fault appeared on both sides, and on several occasions they broke into actual quarrels. These always ended in reconcilations, but the old serenity had gone from their companionship, and each new misunderstanding left ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman
... violent, is treated rather contemptuously; so, in sage accord with the Philistines of the day, a new conception of classicality is evolved. In other departments of art, too, the Greeks are pressed into service, on the ground that Greece was the very home of "clear transparent serenity;" and, finally, such shallow meddling with all that is most earnest and terrible in the existence of man, is gathered together in a full and novel philosophical system [Footnote: Hanslick's "Vom Musicalish-Schoenen," and particularly ...
— On Conducting (Ueber das Dirigiren): - A Treatise on Style in the Execution of Classical Music • Richard Wagner (translated by Edward Dannreuther)
... some ruined temple In solitude decays, With carven walls still hallowed With prayers of bygone days, Here, where the coral outcrops Make "flowers of the sea," The olden Peace yet lingers, In hushed serenity. ...
— Last Poems • Laurence Hope
... infant child came to live with old Mr. Roscoe at Linlithgow. Happily for the young mourner, the household cares of the manse now devolved upon her, in addition to the charge of Margaret; and these occupations, no doubt, aided greatly in restoring the serenity of her spirit. She had little time to brood over her sorrows—those small solicitudes and minute attentions to the feelings and comfort of others, which fill up so large a portion of a true woman's time, were with her a double blessing, cheering both the giver and receiver. She realized ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... one has ever denied that from first to last Louis Napoleon was courteous, affable, gentle, patient, and kind, with a control over his feelings and thoughts absolutely marvellous and unprecedented in a public man,—if we except Disraeli. Nothing disturbed his serenity; very rarely was he seen in a rage; he stooped and coaxed and flattered, even when he sent his enemies ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord
... another, known and loved by all. He too never missed one of Felicia's days; and in very truth he displayed great patience, for all the sharp words of the artist and of the pretty woman as well were reserved for him alone. Without seeming to notice it, with the same smiling indulgent serenity, he continued to court the society of the daughter of his old friend Ruys, of whom he had been so fond and whom he had attended until ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... thousand times no," cried my uncle. "I do not wish to disturb the serenity of any man. I thank you, however, with all my heart. The presence of one so learned as yourself, would no doubt have been most useful, but the duties of your ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... it is in the common sense of the word "free." So far from being free, it must be as if it were fastened to an inflexible bar of steel. And yet it must move, under this necessary control, with perfect, untormented serenity ...
— The Queen of the Air • John Ruskin
... of children lift the shadows from the darkest day, and always there is the glorious scenery; the shadowed mystery of the mountains, a turquoise sky, the blossoms and bamboo. The brooding spirit of serenity soon envelops me, and in its irresistible charm is ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... first, and to play alone. I was teaching her, at the time, one of the Sonatas of Mozart; and I now tried to go on with the lesson. Never before, or since, have I played so badly, as on that day! The divine serenity and completeness by which Mozart's music is, to my mind, raised above all other music that ever was written, can only be worthily interpreted by a player whose whole mind is given undividedly to the work. ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... serenity of high resolve and of resignation. She had renounced the chance of ecstasy. She was sad, but she was not unhappy. The melancholy which filled the secret places of her soul was sweet and radiant, and she had proved the ancient truth ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... Italien without wonder, hatred, love, joy or sorrow. On consulting my inmost thoughts I found there an unimpassioned serenity, a something akin to ennui; I scarcely heard the noise of the wheels, the horses—the crowd ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... ending; the willows along the river-bank were yellow, the reeds in the ditches that ran beneath each fence were greying and withering. The successive profiles of wood and hill, down the valley of the river went from orange and brown to a reddish purple, until, in the large serenity of the autumn evening, they softened to the universal ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... constrained to both observe and forgive him—he reminded them so strikingly of the Nazarene as He must have looked while in solitary walks by the sea or along the highways of Galilee. Whatever the cause, it is very certain His Serenity, the Patriarch, from mere attention to the young Russian, passed speedily to interest in him, and manifested it in modes pleasant and noticeable. By his advice, Sergius attached himself to the Brotherhood of the Monastery of St. James of Manganese. This was the first ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... the credemnon, clothed in a long folded tunic, above which is an ample cloak, and holding a thyrsus. Under the form of a satyr, Comus, or the genius of the table, plays on the double flute and tries to excite to the dance two nymphs, the companions of Bacchus—Galene, Tranquility, and Eudia, Serenity. The first of them is dressed in a tunic, above which is a fawn skin, holding a tympanum or classic drum on which she is about to strike, while her companion marks the time by a snapping of the fingers, which custom the author of ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... anxiety never marred the haughty serenity of her face. She soon won a place as one of the queens of Parisian society; and plunged into dissipation with a sort of frenzy. Was she endeavoring to divert her mind? Did she hope to overpower ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... feelings, for a sweet serenity characterized her, but this time I fancied that our relative positions both puzzled and troubled her, and I regretted my own stupidity in not asking who the ladies were. Still, I managed to answer that Caesar should be proud ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... time rising, and moving towards the door of the inner room, that had been left ajar by the rude Seraphine, in her indignant exit. Pushing it slowly open, he beheld Amanda, with half-averted form, seated upon a chair, her head bowed, but her face wearing an expression of proud serenity mixed with grief. His first impulse was to retire; but pity, respect, admiration, and even awe, bound him to the spot, and he remained gazing till curiosity and commiseration alike combined to induce him to address a figure so incongruous with that mean place, and whose majestic sorrow ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... my friend, Sherlaw Kombs, to hear what he had to say about the Pegram mystery, as it had come to be called in the newspapers. I found him playing the violin with a look of sweet peace and serenity on his face, which I never noticed on the countenances of those within hearing distance. I knew this expression of seraphic calm indicated that Kombs had been deeply annoyed about something. Such, indeed, proved to be the case, ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... has been rudely jarred in his academic serenity," says she. "He can't bear up much longer; he has rats in his wainscoting right now. It makes me perfectly furious to see a man so helpless without a woman. Today I'll open his silly old trunk ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... allowed that they could be quiet and well-behaved in a sick room. It was a long time before old Principle regained his health, and he seemed to have grown much older and feebler since his accident; but his serenity of spirit was undisturbed, and some of the neighbors who had before voted him close and cranky, now offered to come and sit with him, and learned many a lesson from his sickbed. When he was at last able ...
— His Big Opportunity • Amy Le Feuvre
... the following day, Uncle Sheba had had time for many second thoughts, and when his wife opened the door he brought in plenty of kindlings and wood. Aun' Sheba accepted these marks of submission in grim silence, resolving that peace and serenity should come about gradually. She relented so far, however, as to give him an extra slice of bacon for breakfast, at which token of returning toleration Uncle Sheba took heart again. Having curtly told him to clear the table, Aun' Sheba proceeded to make from the ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... the courts either powerless to aid him or under the rule of bandits; and, on the top of all, a strike within two weeks after Jenkins left—such was the situation. Arthur thought it hopeless; but he did not lose courage nor his front of serenity, even when alone with Madelene. Each was careful not to tempt the malice of fate by concealments; each was careful also not to annoy the other with unnecessary disagreeable recitals. If he could have ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... More was the most accomplished, most learned, and most enlightened of the three. He was a Catholic, but very exemplary in his life, and charitable in his views. In moral elevation of character, and beautiful serenity of soul, the annals of the great men of his country furnish no superior. His extensive erudition and moral integrity alone secured him the official station which Wolsey held as lord chancellor. He was always ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... shortly before lunch, found that Daisy and Gladys had already gone, and that the hour for her consultation with her friend was come. For the situation admitted of no delay: in a sky that till yesterday had been of dazzling clearness and incomparable serenity there had suddenly formed this thunder-cloud, so to speak, hard, imminent, menacing. It was necessary, and immediately necessary (such was the image under which the situation presented itself to her mind), to put up ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
... himself, or dexterous compilations from his works by a loving pupil. Lord Lindsay has not done justice to the upper division—the Satan before God: it is one of the very finest thoughts ever realized by the Giotteschi. The serenity of power in the principal figure is very noble; no expression of wrath, or even of scorn, in the look which commands the evil spirit. The position of the latter, and countenance, are less grotesque and ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... that which was hindered." What is this but saying in other words that not in having lies our life, but in doing and being. Not even in succeeding, we must remember; and this is perhaps the hardest part of our lesson. It is one thing to bear with serenity those blows of fortune against which we are obviously defenseless; it is another thing, when there seems a chance for averting the disaster, when our whole heart and soul are thrown into that effort, to await the outcome with tranquility, to bear failure without complaint. The "might have ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... predominated for the time over every reflection and feeling that was opposed to itself. Her mind, indeed, resembled a fair autumn landscape, over which the cloud-shadows may be seen sweeping for a moment, whilst again the sun comes out and turns all into serenity and light. ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
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