"Benign" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... source of that patronage, we look up with affectionate gratitude to the benign and flattering attention of our most gracious Sovereign, to whose regard for the elegant arts, and munificent disposition to cherish every enlargement of science, and improvement of the human mind, his people ...
— The Life, Studies, And Works Of Benjamin West, Esq. • John Galt
... apparently in haste to get forward, by watching for little breaks in the ranks and dodging swiftly through them. His crutch was under his arm, he was not using it. His hat-brim had been lowered over his face, his coat collar pulled high about his ears and securely buttoned. There was none of that benign appearance about him now which had so won Dorothy's sympathetic heart and if he were lame he admirably ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond
... suff'rer. Tidings none Of the returning host I have received, Which here I would divulge, nor bring I aught Of public import on a different theme, But my own trouble, on my own house fall'n, And two-fold fall'n. One is, that I have lost A noble father, who, as fathers rule Benign their children, govern'd once yourselves; 60 The other, and the more alarming ill, With ruin threatens my whole house, and all My patrimony with immediate waste. Suitors, (their children who in ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... enriched beyond any other subject of the realm, said to the king: "Give me, I pray, thy wonderful mirror, so that when absent out of thine august presence I may yet do homage before thy visible shadow, prostrating myself night and morning in the glory of thy benign countenance, as which nothing has so divine splendor, O Noonday ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... there is an undertone of defiance, as if the sufferer were contending with a hostile force, and a constant tendency to extol and almost deify the energy of soul which the good man displays in fighting with a hard destiny. If, on the other hand, physical evils are regarded as wise and benign appointments of the Divine love and fatherhood, the spirit in which they are borne and struggled against is characterized by tenderness, meekness, humility, trust, and hope. It is instructive in this ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody
... sit down at the table, on the opposite side of which he himself was seated. His majesty was too weak to hold any conversation, but his spirits seemed soothed and comforted by the presence of the archbishop, on whose venerable, benign countenance his majesty's eye reposed with real pleasure. The king at this interview stretched his hand across the table, and taking that of the archbishop, pressed it fervently, saying in a tone of voice which was only audible to the queen, who was seated ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... be careful to fix them upon right objects, to confine them within proper bounds, and never permit them to exceed the limits assigned by nature. It is the part of reason to sooth the passions, and to keep the soul in a pleasing serenity and calm: if reason rules, all is quiet, composed, and benign: if reason rules, all the passions, like a musical concert, are in unison. In short, our passions, when moderate, are accompanied with a sense of fitness and rectitude; but, when excessive, inflame the mind, and hurry us on to action without due ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... the benign air of the Alchemist who has just imparted to a favorite disciple the recently discovered secret ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill
... hand and a troubled expression on his face. There was something incongruous in the appearance of the deep frown that puckered the curate's brows; for his countenance, in its normal aspect, was chubby and plump and bland, and his little grey eyes were wont to shine with a benign and even a humorous twinkle. He was not remarkably young, as curates go; but he was quite young enough to be a subject of absorbing interest to the lady members of the S. Athanasius congregation, and to find himself the frequent recipient of those marks ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III., July 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... to the Hemlock Farm at stated periods during the summer. He had, to be plain, sat down before Jane's heart to besiege it with the same ponderous benign calm with which he ate an egg or talked of death. There was a bronze image of Buddha in the hall at the Farm, the gaze of the god fixed with ineffable content, as it had been for ages, on his ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... exempt from the ordeal, laughed unrestrainedly at the melee. One danced entirely with his arms; his feet had very little to do with the time. One hopped through with a most dolorous expression of intense absorption in the arduous task. Another never changed a benign smile that had appeared on entering, but preserved it unimpaired through every accident. One female, apparently of the tender age of thirty, wore a yellow muslin, with her hair combed rigidly a la chinoise, ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... were the glow of a vast, warm heart, that embraced all mankind in its affections, and had room for more. It was an education only to look at it. According to the belief of many people, the valley owed much of its fertility to this benign aspect that was continually beaming over it, illuminating the clouds, and infusing ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... of the chaplain peculiarities in many other States, if in N. H. Nor are they original with him. Other minds had brought out such ideas and pushed them somewhat widely into public acceptance, and he was only attempting to introduce something of their benign influence here. ...
— The Prison Chaplaincy, And Its Experiences • Hosea Quinby
... presences, rare apprehensions, exquisite memories, mysterious invitations, once again obtained possession, coming forth, passing lightly to and fro, filling all the place. In aspect and sentiment they were benign, all fearfulness having gone from out them—they telling of fair things only, of human relations unbroken by treachery or self-seeking, unsullied by lust; telling, too, of godly endeavour faithfully to travel the road which leads to the ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... fortunae," continued the Doctor, gazing upward, "rejoices in a benign aspect with Venus. Fame, true love, and immortality will be yours, Jumonville de Villiers; but you will die young under the flag of your country and for sake of your King! You will not marry, but all the maids and matrons of New ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... the black And hideous structure of the guillotine; Beside the haloed countenance of saints There hangs the multiple and knotted lash. The Christ of love, benign and beautiful, Looks at the torture-rack, by hate conceived And bigotry sustained. The prison cell, With blood-stained walls, where starving men went mad, Lies under turrets matchless ...
— The Englishman and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... for it seemed the committee could not proceed until this fact had been ascertained. Various technicians were sent for, and the doctor, tall, solemn and benign, looked over his stiff, turned-down collar and the black string tie drooping around it, as though searching for some profound truth which would be ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... had not been gazing so intently into his hat, trying at the same time to look cherubically benign he might have seen a quick and painful scarlet sweep the face of the boy, coupled with a certain tense look of the muscles ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... of Pius VII. is placid and benign, and a kind of calmness and tranquillity pervades his address and manners, which are, however, far from being easy or elegant. The crowds that he must have been accustomed to see since his present elevation have not lessened a timidity the consequence of early ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... Lady Rythdale was pleased. She was even gracious. She sent Eleanor to her dressing-room to refresh herself, not to change her dress this time; and received her when she came into her presence again with a look that was even benign. ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume I • Susan Warner
... time since he began his tale he looked the professor full in the face. He started with amazement as he did so: for now he saw not a benign, smiling old scientist, beaming good nature and affability through his spectacles, but a stern-faced, iron-mouthed man, whose jaw was set with grim inflexibility, and whose eyes seemed actually to ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... drop off," cried Dick, savagely, shaking his head to facilitate matters. "Yes, I do, every single one of 'em!" he added, with an expression that seen under the brown bits was anything but benign. ...
— Five Little Peppers And How They Grew • Margaret Sidney
... Yi-Foy, emerging from his benign stupor, made a sign that he would gaze upon the cause of his distress, it was a bone that Dr. Yen Li-Shen showed him—an authentic bone, ovoid and evil-looking—and lately the knee cap of one Ho Kwang, brass maker in the street of Szchen-Kiang. Dr. Yen carried ...
— A Book of Burlesques • H. L. Mencken
... of the North—the North as it is tonight; soft air, balmy with the incense of growing things; illusive dark, half concealing, half revealing, blurring distant outlines. A placid North, whose black waters flowed silent, smooth, deep. A benign and harmless North, upon its surface; and yet, withal, portentous ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... apparently about twenty-eight years of age. When you came to study him closely, some sense of time and experience in his look told you that he might be thirty-eight, though his few grey hairs seemed but to emphasise a certain youthfulness in him. His eye was full, singularly clear, almost benign, and yet at one moment it gave the impression of resolution, at another it suggested the wayward abstraction of the dreamer. He was well-figured, with a hand of peculiar whiteness, suggesting in its breadth more the man of action than of meditation. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... desperate estate. Between-whiles I had found the time to hover at some half a dozen jewellers' windows; and my present, thus intemperately chosen, was graciously accepted. I believe, indeed, that was the last (though not the least) of my concerns, before the old minister, shabby and benign, was routed from his house and led to the office like a performing poodle; and there, in the growing dusk, under the cold glitter of Thirteen Star, two hundred strong, and beside the garish glories of the agricultural engine, Mamie and Jim were made one. The scene was incongruous, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... sadness, the ugliness, out of which Millet's consummate skill made pictures that affect us like strange music, were to Wordsworth not the real part of the thing. They were all absorbed in the thought of nature as a whole, wonderful, mighty, harmonious, and benign. ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... April skies Went forth in raiment strange apparelled, And by kind fate was led Unto the spot where stayed my soul's desire. The beauteous nymph who feeds my soul with fire, I found in gentle, pure, and prudent mood, In graceful attitude, Loving and courteous, holy, wise, benign. So sweet, so tender was her face divine, So gladsome, that in those celestial eyes Shone perfect paradise, Yea, all the good that we poor mortals crave. Around her was a band so nobly brave Of beauteous dames, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... that she was the last branch of her house—a house to which the tutelage and protection of the miraculous Image, and the enmity and evil influence of the revengeful Vanda, had been peculiarly attached for ages. It seemed to her as if she were the prize, for the disposal of which the benign saint and vindictive fiend were now to play their last and ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... agent of this transformation that gradually renders the bacteria benign, for in cultures made under the same circumstances as the preceding, but with the absence of air, the activity of these algae is preserved for days or weeks, and they will then cause death just as surely as they would have done at ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 447, July 26, 1884 • Various
... definitions. Second, in their cross-examination of Finnell, the plaintiffs offered screen shots of a number of Web sites that, according to Finnell, had been appropriately blocked, but that Finnell admitted contained only benign materials. Finnell's explanation was that the Web sites must have changed between the time when he conducted the study and the time of the trial, but because he did not archive the images as they existed when his ...
— Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) Ruling • United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
... to you my sentiments as they have been awakened by the occasion which brings us together, I shall take my present leave; but not without resorting once more to the benign Parent of the Human Race in humble supplication that, since He has been pleased to favor the American people with opportunities for deliberating in perfect tranquillity, and dispositions for deciding with unparalleled unanimity on a form of government for the security of their union ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... tendering. Celsus could never have spoken it as a physician, had he not been a wise man withal, when he giveth it for one of the great precepts of health and lasting, that a man do vary, and interchange contraries, but with an inclination to the more benign extreme: use fasting and full eating, but rather full eating; watching and sleep, but rather sleep; sitting and exercise, but rather exercise; and the like. So shall nature be cherished, and yet taught masteries. Physicians are, some of them, ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... up, as though startled. When he saw who it was he immediately commenced to grin after his usual custom. Somehow Hugh no longer saw anything to condemn in that broad smile that covered the face of the ex-hobo; just then, in the light of the new revelation, it seemed most kindly and benign; for circumstances alter cases, and a great deal depends upon one's view-point as to whether an expression can be classed as ...
— The Chums of Scranton High Out for the Pennant • Donald Ferguson
... subject, described it as a violent irregular bilious fever. Others regarded it as a mucous discharge, or a depurative; and others, as a salutary crisis, removing from the constitution that which oppressed the different organs. Others had recourse to inoculation, in order to give it a more benign character; and others, and among them Chabert, considered that it possessed a character of peculiar malignity, and he gave it a name expressive of its nature and situation—'nasal catarrh'. It exhibited the ordinary symptoms of coryza: it was a catarrhal affection in its early ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... then nothing, in the fortunes of Tacitus to make him trenchant, biting and cynical; but, on the contrary, most gentle, as he was, and most placid and benign. Such being his character, a kind interpretation and a candid sense of actions and individuals meet us on every page of his History. Still in enumerating the virtues of eminent persons he does not omit their vices or failings: his way of doing this is peculiar. He tells us Sabinus ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... rewritten. Every foremost scholar of the world, kindling his own personal lamp at that central sunlike radiance, retired straightway into his laboratory of whatsoever kind and found it truly illuminated for the first time. His lamp seemed to be of two flames enwrapped as one; a baleful and a benign. Whenever it shone upon anything that was true, it made this stand out the more clear, valuable, resplendent. But wherever it uncovered the false, it darted thereat a swift tongue of flame, consuming without mercy the ancient rubbish ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen
... yard were cooking their evening meal over a few little fires, squatting over them, eyeing anxiously the brewing tea or frizzling bacon. It was impossible to feel nervous or discontented. The very atmosphere was benign. It seemed as if "God was in His Heaven," and all was well ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... state of Denmark. I purchase the dingy volume, and bring it in triumph to the publisher, the perspiration running down my brow. The publisher takes the dingy volume in his hand, he examines it attentively, then puts it down; his countenance is calm for a moment, almost benign. Another moment and there is a gleam in the publisher's sinister eye; he snatches up the paper containing the names of the worthies which I have intended shall figure in the forthcoming volumes—he glances rapidly over it, and his countenance once more ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... eyes, which were large and rather round also, made her look like a nice baby of singularly serious and observing mind. She looked at one as certain awe-inspiring things in perambulators look at one— with a far and clear silence of gaze which passes beyond earthly obstacles and reserves a benign patience with follies. Tembarom felt interestedly that one really might quail before it, if one had anything of an inferior quality to hide. And yet it was not a critical gaze at all. She wore a black dress with a bit of white collar, and she had so much soft, red hair that he could not ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... evening, with no settled plan of action in mind save to do about as they liked for the succeeding three hours. Clint Thayer had a strip of plaster across the saddle of his nose, which gave him a strangely benign expression. Tom walked a bit stiffly and confessed to "a peach of a shin," which probably meant something quite different from what it suggested. Only Tim, of the three first team fellows, had emerged unscathed, and he ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... benign, O goddess, wear, Thy milder influence impart; Thy philosophic train be there To soften, not to wound, my heart; The generous spark extinct revive, Teach me to love and to forgive, Exact nay own defects to scan, What others are to feel, ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... Friend! whose presence in the house, Whose gracious word benign, Could once, at Cana's wedding feast, Change ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... pattern. "I hope they are," said Dr. Johnson, fixing his eyes upon me. "You see nothing extraordinary in these stockings as stockings, I trust, sir?" "Certainly not; oh, certainly not," I replied, and my revered friend's countenance assumed its customary benign expression. ...
— Pickwickian Manners and Customs • Percy Fitzgerald
... frequently it awards more than justice, when the appeal is made, as despots love to have it made, entirely to its generosity. Interpreting Hester Prynne's deportment as an appeal of this nature, society was inclined to show its former victim a more benign countenance than she cared to be favored with, or, perchance, ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... eyes as she caught the hand of Stevens in her own, and kissed it—kissed HIS hand—could William Hinkley have seen THAT, how it would have rankled, how he would have writhed! She kissed the hands of that wily hypocrite, bedewing them with her tears, as if he were some benign and blessing saint; and not because he had shown any merits or practised any virtues, but simply because of certain professions which he had made, and in which she had perfect faith because of the professions, ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... skilful as he who invents and creates. The man who loves his people, plans and labors for their good, will not peril their welfare by his experiments, disdaining the help of those who have wrought before him, and the guidance of his contemporaries in examples, the benign results of which he may have had opportunity to witness. The truth appears to be that Lycurgus had respect to the reverence of the people for the ancient ways, and retained as far as he was able the suitable elements of the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... forgotten; and as the family interest was only enough for one, it was decided that I should be put in what is called a 'learned profession,' and let push my fortune. 'Take your choice, Dick,' said my father, with a most benign smile,—'take your choice, boy: will you be a lawyer, a parson, ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... a convert to the Protestant mission; how he was kidnapped or exiled from his native land, served as cook aboard a whaler, and was shown, for small charge, in English seaports; how he returned at last to the Marquesas, fell under the strong and benign influence of the late bishop, extended his influence in the group, was for a while joint ruler with the prelate, and died at last the chief supporter of Catholicism and the French. His widow remains ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... tricks of fate which awake in us a whole world of painful thoughts, which suddenly unclose to us the mysterious door of moral suffering, complicated, incurable; all the deeper because they appear benign, all the more bitter because they are intangible, all the more tenacious because they appear almost factitious, leave in our souls a sort of trail of sadness, a taste of bitterness, a feeling of disenchantment, from which it takes a long ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... platform has been surprised by an untimely outburst of applause and has turned to discover the cause in the entrance of the beloved founder. Often the subject of the evening was beyond his experience or knowledge, but that made no difference in his respectful attention, or in the benign satisfaction with which he contemplated the attentive audience, and realized that they were receiving benefit. I have often felt that the scene exhibited almost every Saturday night for many years during the latest period of his life could be equaled only by the spectacle ...
— Peter Cooper - The Riverside Biographical Series, Number 4 • Rossiter W. Raymond
... smooth shrug—expressive of a sort of border-land between contempt and charity: which had made him wear in her sight all the superiority which the former implies, with a considerable share of the benign complacency of the latter. This had gone. He had been sarcastic even to her; saying once, and harshly: "Have you a will?" Personally she liked the poor organist better than the poor baronet, though he had less merit. It was ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... of the room, calling Elinor by a look and slight movement of his head, but when he came out into the hall was met by a trim clerical figure and genial countenance, the benign yet self-assured looks of the Rector of the Parish: none other could this smiling yet important ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... but it would not have been ungentleman-like. This chaffering about little things was altogether at variance with his tastes,—and it would be futile. He must summon courage to tell her that he no longer wished for the match; but he could not do it on this morning. Then,—for that morning,—some benign ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... man approached them. He was very nice looking and astonishingly cheerful. The hopes of the twain went up with a bound. His expression was so benign, so bland that they at once jumped to the conclusion that he was coming to tell them that they were free to go, that it had all been a stupid mistake. But they were wrong. He smilingly introduced himself as an advocate connected with the court ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... teeth and eyeballs, their strange and varied rags lit up by the torches blazing where a gangplank lay ready for running out. And high and clear in the lovely June night sailed the moon, spreading a faint benign light upon hills and shores and glistening river, upon the graceful, stately mail steamer, now advancing majestically upon the wharf boat. Susan watched all, saw all, with quick beating heart and quivering ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... now, by duty urged, I lay this Book Before thy Majesty, in humble trust That on its simplest pages Thou wilt look With a benign ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... seriously and had not tried to apply too strictly to an empty continent the paternal administration of an older country; we might have been privileged to witness the development and operation of as complete and benign a system of colonial government as has been devised in modern times. The public initiative of the Spanish government, and the care with which it selected its colonists, compare very favourably with the opportunism of the English and the French, who colonized by chance ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring
... the Constitution, and Hamilton, Jay, and Madison 'poor antagonists' in combating their objections; if so, how does he account for the remarkable triumph of their dispassionate exposition and lucid arguments? In all political and literary history there are few more benign and distinguished examples of the practical efficiency of intelligent, patriotic, and conscientious reasoning against ignorance, prejudice, and partisan misrepresentation. And yet, in the face of this testimony, by the self-constituted editor of this national work, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... in effect, Jefferson's Ordinance of 1784, defeated by one vote in the old Congress, the loss of which he deplored so much. His benign purpose to restrict slavery was delayed seventy- eight years—until ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... incumbent, was a man of sterling integrity—a firm friend of his brother-in-law, Sir Thomas Seymour. Though a man of high birth, distinguished, and sought by the great and learned, he was gentle, unassuming, and benign. ...
— Lady Rosamond's Secret - A Romance of Fredericton • Rebecca Agatha Armour
... This benign whooping, however, failed to awaken the enthusiasm of the mass of novel-readers and brought but meagre orders from the circulating libraries. "Typhoon" came upon the heels of "Youth," but still the sales of the Conrad books continued small and the author remained in very uncomfortable ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... they were going to make the water of the river split the logs and hew them at the same time; it was claimed that this surrender on the part of the Indians, would be but a just offset against the self-denial, great expense, and severe labor of the whites, in establishing so benign an institution as a saw mill, in these western wilds. This is one among many instances of the benevolence of the white ...
— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard
... rather than the sturdy English judgment and antiquarian knowledge of the Warden. Slowly following after her came the pensioner himself, leaning on his staff and looking up at the old roof and around him with a benign composure, and himself a fitting figure by his antique and venerable appearance to walk in ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... first evening, an unwonted cloud hung over the brow of the host, which yielded not to the benign influence of four cups of tea, and eatables in proportion; withstood the sedative consolations of a meerschaum of the best "Navy," and scarcely gave way when, with the two eldest of the party, he sat down to a steaming glass of "something hot," ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... flattered by the confidence reposed in her, for Dr. Madden, reticent by nature, had never been known to speak in the domestic circle about his pecuniary affairs. He seemed to be the kind of man who would inspire his children with affection: grave but benign, amiably diffident, with a hint of lurking mirthfulness about his eyes and lips. And to-day he was in the best of humours; professional prospects, as he had just explained to Alice, were more encouraging than hitherto; ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... planet—for I will ne'er believe that thou canst take a perverse pleasure in distorting the brains of us, poor mortals. Lunatics! moonstruck! Calumny invented, and folly took up, these names. I would hope better things from thy mild aspect and benign influences. ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... are to reign; for those who reign now are wicked, and so will be their successors, and, for their iniquity shall lose many things. However, kings of England shall come, and shall be anointed with this unction, and shall be benign and obedient to the Church, and shall not possess their lands or lordships until they are so anointed. The first of these shall recover, without violence, the countries of Normandy and Aquitaine, which their ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... drop science has its microscope. Of the host of yon azure Infinite magic gains sight, and through them gains command over fluid conductors that link all the parts of creation. Of these races, some are wholly indifferent to man, some benign to him, and some deadly hostile. In all the regular and prescribed conditions of mortal being, this magic realm seems as blank and tenantless as yon vacant air. But when a seeker of powers beyond the rude functions by ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... led me through a dark passage that fronted the gate. When we came to a little door at the end, he tapped. A boy, still younger than himself, opened it to receive us. Mountford entered with a look in which was pictured the benign assurance of a superior being. I followed in ...
— The Man of Feeling • Henry Mackenzie
... handsome—our knowledge of it is derived mainly from Cicero's letters. Perhaps this magnanimity was dashed with a tinge of kindly contempt for his fellow-citizens; but whatever its motives, it was certainly wise and benign at the beginning of the new era he was inaugurating. He was no vulgar destroyer, and did not desire to ruin in order ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... Peabody [not a near connection of Mrs. Hawthorne's, but of Mr. George Peabody's, the philanthropist] yesterday, and cannot delay responding to it. We talk a great deal about the reality of Heaven and the shadowiness of earth, but no one acts as if it were the truth. It seems as if the benign and tender Father of men, in whose presence we rejoice and confide, became suddenly changed into a dark power, and curtained Himself with gloom, the instant death laid its hand upon our present bodies, and freed the soul for another condition. And this, too, ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... there in tormenting and killing an enemy, and what good is won by not releasing an enemy in our power? Therefore, O thou of benign countenance, why should we not forgive this serpent and try to earn merit by ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... springs up in the pathway of the Reconciled the olive or the myrtle. How sweet is the sight of human goodness, struggling to surmount the petty passions which discolor its beauty, and bending to the benign suggestions of that pure and gentle principle, peace with man! Doubtless there are many severe strivings with natural pride, before these ends can be reached; but the new year awakens such throngs of conciliatory sentiments, ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... Indian aspect of nature, one wonders, be the true explanation of the fierceness of her goddesses as contrasted with her gods, and the offering of bloody sacrifices to goddesses only? Mother Nature is malignant, not benign. ...
— New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century - A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments • John Morrison
... George Tucker!" exclaimed the benign spinster, "you dew beat all for sass out o' season! Kep 'em down ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... like wildfire. Edition after edition was sold, and Benjamin Crane found himself famous. The benign old gentleman took his notoriety calmly, and refused to see the people who thronged to his door unless they were personal acquaintances. He had to engage secretaries and other assistants, but his methodical and efficient mind easily coped ...
— The Come Back • Carolyn Wells
... two, who is usually distinguished by the title of Pius, is thus described by one of his biographers:—"He was externally of remarkable beauty; eminent for his moral character, full of benign dispositions, noble, with a countenance of a most gentle expression, intellectually of singular endowments, possessing an elegant style of eloquence, distinguished for his literature, generally temperate, an earnest lover of agricultural pursuits, mild in his deportment, bountiful in ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... weak surmises of the gods or fond opinion about things after death to disorder themselves with; nor have they as much as imagination or notion that there is anything in these to be dreaded. I confess, had they left us the benign providence of God as a presumption, wise men might then seem, by reason of their good hopes from thence, to have something towards a pleasurable life that beasts have not. But now, since they have made it the scope of all their discourses of God that they may not fear him, but may be eased ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... conquest cannot be rightly based upon the sole desire to spread any particular religion, more especially when we treat of Christianity, the benign radiance of which was overshadowed by that debasing institution the Inquisition, which sought out the brightest intellects only to destroy them. But whether conversion by coercion be justifiable or not, one is bound to acknowledge that ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... Evolution has had its tragedies, hasn't it, as well as its triumphs; and well should the elephant know it. He had the best chance of all. Wiser even than the lion, or the wisest of apes, his wisdom furthermore was benign where theirs was sinister. Consider his dignity, his poise and skill. He was plastic, too. He had learned to eat many foods and endure many climates. Once, some say, this race explored the globe. Their bones are found everywhere, in South America even; so the elephants' ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day Jr.
... friend of Dav's, are you?" quoth he, looking with benign patronage from one young man ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens
... tablet and pencil once more to the summerhouse. It was unusually beautiful out there—just the kind of evening to harmonize with her uplifted mood. Day was ending in still and brilliant serenity. The western sky an immensity of benign light, and draped with ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... in the face. He was a dark-eyed, square-browed, serious man, with black hair falling below his white band. His mouth had a sweet benign expression, even when he quizzed me about my dauphinhood. A New England pastor was a flame that burned for the enlightenment of the nations. From that hour it was settled that I should be his pupil, and go with him to Longmeadow to ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... lichen, into the blue spring air, where flocks of white pigeons were soaring and careering in the soft, warm sunshine. Brightness and warmth and flowers seemed to be the only idea natural to that charming weather, and Elsie, sad-hearted and foreboding as she was, felt the benign influence. Rome, which had been so fatal a place to her peace, yet had for her, as it has for every one, potent spells of a lulling and soothing power. Where is the grief or anxiety that can resist the enchantment of one of Rome's ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... plurality of kingdoms.—Hence a very common petition of pious but ignorant people,—"That the kingdoms of this world may soon become the kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ," neither will, nor ever can be answered.—Under the righteous and benign administration of the saints, "kings shall be nursing-fathers, and their queens nursing-mothers to the church:" for "the nations and kingdoms that would not serve her, have perished; yea, those nations ...
— Notes On The Apocalypse • David Steele
... difference between the two men. The political and ecclesiastical ideal of both in all probability was pretty much the same. Mr. Arnold chooses to describe Hampden as "seeking the Lord about militia or ship- money," and he undertakes to represent Jesus as "whispering to him with benign disdain." Sceptics, to disprove the objective reality of the Deity, allege that every man makes God in his own image. They might perhaps find an indirect confirmation of their remark in the numerous lives and portraitures of Christ which have appeared ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... upon the hint of Columbus by decreeing that all the courts in Spain should condemn to the mines a portion of the criminals who would in the course of nature have gone to the galleys.[23] Thus a new country, which invited the benign organization of law and religion, and held out to pure spirits an opportunity richer than all its crops and mines, was poisoned in its cradle. What wonder that its vigor became the aimless gestures of madness, that a bloated habit simulated ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... founder of the monarchy. Several children were pointed out to us, heretical strangers, as living proofs of the continuance of miracles in the Catholic church. They had been cured on the preceding anniversary; for it is only on Saint Clotilda's day that her benign influence is shed upon ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. II. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... published with Tallis "Cantiones Sacrae." From the title one would gather that Byrd's first English collection was mainly of a sacred character, but in an epistle to the reader he hastens to set us right on that point:—"Benign reader, here is offered unto thy courteous acceptance music of sundry sorts, and to content divers humours. If thou be disposed to pray, here are psalms; if to be merry, here are sonnets." There is, indeed, fare for all comers; ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various
... penetrate; The mirror you describe so small, so great, So priceless, so benign, "the eye" must be, A heaven 'twill show if thine speak love ...
— Turandot: The Chinese Sphinx • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
... more unselfishness, more union—if you would buckle on your armour for fresh conquests in the outlying wastes of heathenism, it will be by a fresh baptism of the Holy Ghost! Another Pentecost will usher in the Millennial morning. The showers of His benign influences will form the prelude to the world's great Spiritual Harvest. "Pray ye, then, the Lord of the Harvest," that His Spirit may "come down like rain upon the mown grass, and as showers that water the earth," and that the promise regarding ...
— Memories of Bethany • John Ross Macduff
... sent you no heavy words, but words of great comfort; willing your brother to shew you how benign and merciful the prince was; and that I thought it expedient for you to write unto his Highness, and to recognise your offence and to desire his pardon, which his Grace would not deny you now in ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... second time. From the role of prisoner Neil had advanced himself to the position of honored guest. For after the first consternation, bewilderment, and mortification had passed, his captors philosophically accepted the situation, and under the benign influence of cold chicken and hot soda biscuits found themselves not only able to display equanimity, but to join in the laugh against themselves and to admire the cleverness displayed in their out-witting. Of the four sophomores Cowan's ...
— Behind the Line • Ralph Henry Barbour
... the farmers were filing into the bank to put their money into your hands." The girl, turning back to smile at Madeira, was the cause of Steering's turning back, too, and he was surprised to see a patriarchal, benign expression on Madeira's face, as though a reflection of the girl's illusions about his character lay warm ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... president with frayed coat-sleeves, has more standing in society and has more paragraphs written about him in the papers than many a millionaire. This is due, perhaps, to the malign influence of money-getting and to the benign effect of purely intellectual pursuits. As a rule every great success in the money world means the failure and misery of hundreds of antagonists. Every success in the world of intellect and character is an ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... coast, state dignitaries from Sacramento, city dignitaries and nature's noblemen from all over the country at large. The amiable and heavily bearded countenance of Governor Irwin was conspicuous in one of the boxes. The buxom and benign countenance of Mayor Bryant, his person clad in a rigorously accurate full dress costume, was not less noticeable. But the ladies! Oh, there began the tempest of the soul of any man who tried to pick out any one who was more pre-eminently attractive than the other. The eye could travel on forever ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson
... Love, and Entire Charity, Fervent Will, and Entalented Courage, All thewis good, as sitteth well to be, Have women ay, of custom and usage. And well they can a manis ire assuage, With softe wordis, discreet and benign. What they be inward, they ...
— Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse • Various
... benign art which he calls, with his own natural modesty and simplicity, the Art of Tradition, this art which grows so truly noble and worthy, so distinctively human, in his clear, scientific treatment of it,—in his scientific clearance of it ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... which revolve with never-varying courses. Below this are seven other spheres, which revolve in a contrary direction to that of the heavens. One of these is occupied by the globe which on earth they call Saturn. Next to that is the star of Jupiter, so benign and salutary to mankind. The third in order is that fiery and terrible planet called Mars. Below this, again, almost in the middle region, is the sun—the leader, governor, and prince of the other luminaries; the soul of the world, which it regulates ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... which shone upon me at Stuttgart, has continued to shine with the same benign lustre at this place. "[Greek: Heureka Heureka]"!—the scarcest and brightest of all the ALDINE GEMS has been found and secured by me: that gem, for which M. Renouard still continues to sigh and ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... of the middle latitudes of this continent has no data to picture to himself what a snowstorm in the north may be. To him snow is something benign that comes soft-footedly over night, and on the most silent wings like an owl, something that suggests the sleep of Nature rather than its battles. The further south you go, the more, of course, snow loses of ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove
... what a poor and paltry tone did these benign fabricators of legal artifices denounce the cruel iniquity which they had themselves perpetrated in due form! Among them was the Usher, Jean Massieu, a dissolute priest,[2725] of scandalous morals, but a kindly ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... curiosity, And worthy the cost and the toil of a visit— Like Barnum's astonishing creature—'What is it?' (A good advertisement for Phineas, that is, And kind of the author to put it in gratis: I hope he'll observe my benign disposition, And send for the season a card ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... that of Mahaprajnyaparamita-sutra[FN108] also express the same opinion. The Scripture is no more nor less than the finger pointing to the moon of Buddhahood. When we recognize the moon and enjoy its benign beauty, the finger is of no use. As the finger has no brightness whatever, so the Scripture has no holiness whatever. The Scripture is religious currency representing spiritual wealth. It does not matter whether money be gold, or sea-shells, or cows. It is a mere substitute. ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya
... that approaches the nearest of all others to true deism, in the moral and benign part thereof, is that professed by the Quakers; but they have contracted themselves too much by leaving the works of God out of their system. Though I reverence their philanthropy, I cannot help smiling at the conceit, that if the taste of the Quaker could have been ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... a troubled night, on his way to a conference with Elizabeth at the Fair Harbor office, he met Mr. Egbert Phillips. The latter, serene, benign, elegant, was entering at the gateway beneath the swinging sign which proclaimed to the other world that within the Harbor all was peace. Of late Captain Kendrick had found a certain flavor of irony in the wording ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... it," said the vicar. "I must not longer intrude on you, but I am bound to tell you, Captain Maynard, that I consider your soul in imminent danger, and I earnestly pray that another day, ere it be too late, a benign influence may induce you more willingly to receive my ministrations. Farewell." And Mr Lerew, rising with a frowning brow, walked to the door, while the captain, sinking back on his pillow, rang his bell. Soon after Mr Lerew ...
— Clara Maynard - The True and the False - A Tale of the Times • W.H.G. Kingston
... Jews the same privileges were accorded as to the Macedonians. In consequence of this considerate treatment, vast numbers of their compatriots and many Syrians voluntarily came into Egypt. To them the designation of Hellenistical Jews was given. In like manner, tempted by the benign government of Soter, multitudes of Greeks sought refuge in the country, and the invasions of Perdiccas and Antigonus showed that Greek soldiers would desert from other Macedonian generals ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... had dispersed by the time Ford reached the Nadia, and the president, benign from the reactionary effect of his own early-morning eloquence, ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... carriage, his soft, cultivated voice, and his attitude of absolutism, he might have been Leopold, King of the Belgians, a great ambassador, a man of power in finance. Nevertheless, I thought of the death by the Stinking Springs. How could one explain his benign, open-souled deportment and his cheery laugh, with such damnable appetites and actions? Yet generals send ten thousand men to certain and agonized death to gain a point toward a goal; that is the custom of generals, by which they gain honor ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... that I had been mingling with it in this manner for some time past or that I repudiated the suggestion of its benign influence. I entered the tram meekly. As soon as we ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... favours in his own way, and neither Bert nor Nancy ever felt that it was inadequate. When his sober fat face wrinkled into a smile of welcome to his father, Bert was moved almost to tears. When she wheeled him through the streets, royally benign after a full bottle, rosy-cheeked in his wooly white cap, Nancy felt almost too rich. Junior filled all the gaps in her life, it mattered not what she lacked ...
— Undertow • Kathleen Norris
... house, and had received from Cousin Maud, besides many a bright coin, likewise sundry worn but serviceable garments as "remembrances." And Herdegen foremost of us all had been ready to make sport of her; but it had come to his knowledge that she was ever benign to lovers, and had helped many a couple ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... would, I think, have been frightened out of his wits at the position in which he found himself; but August was brave, and he had a firm belief that God and Hirschvogel would take care of him. The master-potter of Nuernberg was always present to his mind, a kindly, benign, and gracious spirit, dwelling manifestly in that porcelain tower whereof ...
— The Nuernberg Stove • Louisa de la Rame (AKA Ouida)
... away from some very white teeth. Dr. Sandford rarely laughed. And there was nothing mocking about his smile now, though I have used the word "curl;" it was merely what Daisy considered a very intelligent and very benign curve of the mouth. Indeed she ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... generic life process. At its best, in its direct economic bearing, it is a conversion of the economic substance of the collectivity to a growth alien to the collective life process—very much after the analogy of what in medicine would be called a benign tumor, with some tendency to transgress the uncertain line that divides the benign from the malign growths. The two barbarian traits, ferocity and astuteness, go to make up the predaceous temper or spiritual attitude. They are the expressions of a narrowly self-regarding habit ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... born leader, unconscious of his powers for lack of opportunity, instinctively craving their exercise for his own spiritual and moral evolution, and employing them in the benign mastery ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... [C programming] A variety of {fandango on core} produced by scribbling past the end of an array (C implementations typically have no checks for this error). This is relatively benign and easy to spot if the array is static; if it is auto, the result may be to {smash the stack} — often resulting in {heisenbug}s of the most diabolical subtlety. The term 'overrun screw' is used esp. of scribbles beyond the end of arrays allocated with 'malloc(3)'; this typically ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... from our better selves we have too long Been parted by the hurrying world, and droop, 355 Sick of its business, of its pleasures tired, How gracious, how benign, is Solitude; How potent a mere image of her sway; Most potent when impressed upon the mind With an appropriate human centre—hermit, 360 Deep in the bosom of the wilderness; Votary (in vast cathedral, where no foot Is treading, where no other face is seen) Kneeling at prayers; ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... with her eye, noted the short trunks that seemed so useless, the tusks, the old scar marks got in battle and the splendour of their strength and mass and muscle. Like the land elephants there was something about them terrible yet benign. ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... and a broad, bull-necked man of about forty vaulted lightly into the ring and took his place in the opposite corner. He was stripped to the waist; his jaws moved mechanically about a piece of chewing gum, and an expression of benign good-humour and enjoyment ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... altogether in vain. The king will give him four for the sum he offers, but no more. He would not dare thus to displease the shade of his father, and the white chief may choose whom he will. The victims gaze anxiously at his countenance. It is merciful and benign they think—unlike any they have before seen. Which ...
— Tales of the Sea - And of our Jack Tars • W.H.G. Kingston
... Rivals Philomel's refrain, And with varied line Through the night benign Frees mortality ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig
... quite pale with one grey lock, girt with a narrow band of flowers, usually violets, from which floated down long veils, a lilac parasol in her hand, on her lips an ambiguous smile in which I read only the benign condescension of Majesty, though it was pre-eminently the enticing smile of the courtesan, which she graciously bestowed upon the men who bowed to her. That smile was, in reality, saying to one: "Oh yes, I do remember, quite well; it was wonderful!" ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... exports of home products and industries may pay for our imports—the only sure method of returning to and permanently maintaining a specie basis; to the elevation of labor; and, by a humane course, to bring the aborigines of the country under the benign influences of education and civilization. It is either this or war of extermination. Wars of extermination, engaged in by people pursuing commerce and all industrial pursuits, are expensive even against the weakest people, and are demoralizing and wicked. Our superiority of ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson
... who viewed him with favour, he was flattered by an attention which he could not impute to extrinsic qualities. "She certainly pities me," observed he, on perceiving an unnoticed tear steal down her cheek, when with unguarded confidence, momentarily excited by the benign manners and calm happiness of his host, he inveighed against the treachery of courts and the weakness of Kings. "Can she love me?" was his next thought; "or why this lively interest in my sorrows?" This doubt, or rather ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... conversation to place my patient in a condition of absolute calmness and quiescence. I also try to win his confidence by appealing to his own volitional effort to aid me in obtaining the desired clad. I impress upon him that hypnosis in his condition is a benign agency, and far from subjugating his mentality, it becomes intensified to so great an extent as to ...
— Complete Hypnotism: Mesmerism, Mind-Reading and Spiritualism • A. Alpheus
... the return to earth of various benign spirits has caused much trouble among the red men, and incidentally to the white men who are the objects of their fanatic dislike. The New Mexicans believed that when the Emperor Montezuma was about to leave the earth he planted a tree and ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... his orders to the inferior officers and to his domestics, placed him in a very amiable point of view. He was a very fine old man of seventy-eight years of age, of low stature, with small sparkling eyes, a benign aspect, a long silver beard, and the whole of his appearance calm, venerable, and dignified. The manners of Sun-ta-gin, a relation of the Emperor and one of the six ministers of state, were no less dignified, easy, and engaging; and Chung-ta-gin, the new viceroy ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... land, in wildness ev'n benign, The glorious past is ours, the future thine! As in a cradled Hercules, we trace The lines of empire in thine infant face. What nations in thy wide horizon's span Shall teem on tracts untrodden yet by man! What spacious cities with their spires shall gleam. Where now the panther ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 388 - Vol. 14, No. 388, Saturday, September 5, 1829. • Various
... beneath facts rests truth, and the truth is that this is a story with the happiest kind of a happy ending. What facts would call the breeze from an electric fan was in truth the gracious breath of the pines. And when the nurse said "She's going," she was indeed going, but to a land of great spaces and benign breezes, a land of deep shadows and rushing waters. For a most wondrous thing had happened. She had called to the mountain, and the mountain had heard her voice; and because it was so mighty and so everlasting it drew ...
— Lifted Masks - Stories • Susan Glaspell
... from famine, was another of the benign reasons which had been assigned for continuing the trade. That famines had occurred there, he did not doubt; but that they should annually occur, and with such arithmetical exactness as to suit the demands of the Slave-trade, was a circumstance most ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson
... as though I were on a stormy sea. The ship in which we sailed tossed like a cork, while the waves, foam-crested, hurled themselves furiously on our bark. A great panic seized the ship's crew, and they gave themselves up for lost. But for myself I had no fear. A great benign influence was around me, and I felt as safe as a babe rocked on its mother's breast, while the wild winds that roared seemed as sweet as the lullaby of a mother to ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... the benign expression he had had when he came on Barbara alone in the drawing-room before dinner, a look so directed to her neck and shoulders that it told her how well her low-cut evening frock ...
— Mr. Waddington of Wyck • May Sinclair
... every thicket. There were dances, and mad revels, and love and laughter"—he paused, and the splendor died from his face. "And then one starry night—still and clear it was, and white with frost—fear stalked into the happy haunts, and an ontreading mystery, benign yet dreadful. And something, I know not what, drove me forth. Aie! Aie! There is but the moaning of doves when the glad hymns sounded, and cold ashes and dead drifted leaves on ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... frank gaiety died slowly away, and she fell into more than one long reverie, which did not escape the benign notice of her guardian. He grew serious, and made an attempt to remove from her his own ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... beautiful garden, and the happy children there, and then she looked away from us all with a smile, and I spozed, and I always shall spoze, that the Divine One a-walkin' in the cool of the evenin' in the garden, the benign Presence she saw there, happy in the children's happiness, drew nearer to her, and took her in ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley
... faith of abstractions and generalities. For them, heaven was very near to earth, touching and mingling with it at many points. On high, God the Father sat enthroned: and, nearer to human sympathies, Divinity incarnate in the Son, with the benign form of his immaculate mother, and her spouse, St. Joseph, the chosen patron of New France. Interceding saints and departed friends bore to the throne of grace the petitions of those yet lingering in ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... juncture aid was received from a most extraordinary source, according to the story Frederica told her wondering friends. With benign visage and extended hand, the spirit of her grandmother appeared to her for seven successive nights, mesmerized her, and taught her how to mesmerize herself. The results of this visitation, if not altogether fortunate, were at least ...
— Historic Ghosts and Ghost Hunters • H. Addington Bruce
... full upon him, on his glossy sides and grand head, from which the noble, lustrous brown eyes looked out with benign and gentle dignity on the great multitude, the sandy space, and the picadors who were ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... his back. 'Tamanous,' thought the old man. But chiefly he was conscious of a mental change. He was calm and content. Hiaqua and wealth seemed to have lost their charm for him. Tacoma, shining like gold and silver and precious stones of gayest lustre, seemed a benign comrade and friend. All the outer world was cheerful, and he thought he had never wakened to a fresher morning. He rose and started on his downward way, but the woods seemed strangely transformed since yesterday; just ...
— Oregon, Washington and Alaska; Sights and Scenes for the Tourist • E. L. Lomax
... the beasts, and will make him the hero of comic or repulsive adventures. This is the mythical or irrational element. Religion, in its moral aspect, always traces back to the belief in a power that is benign and works for righteousness. Myth, even in Homer or the Rig-Veda, perpetually falls back on the old stock of absurd and ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... in France. I cannot, however, equal your boast of breakfasting, dining, and supping on them. As for the civilians[80]—peace be with them, and may the dust lie light upon their heads—they deserve this prayer in return for those sweet slumbers which their benign influence infuses into their readers. I fear I shall too soon be forced to disturb them, for some of our family being now at Kelso, I am under the agonies lest I be obliged to escort them into town. The only pleasure ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... worldly lust, We will behold a brighter world than this, With less of curse and much of noble bliss; For God's kind hand in all our conflicts here Is clearly seen and doubts must disappear; The end He has in view is most benign; The fire will ...
— Gleams of Sunshine - Optimistic Poems • Joseph Horatio Chant
... about Cimabue and Jacopo Bellini . . . there was something not quite right with him. Jacopo Bellini! But even while thinking what to reply, he was conscious of having undergone a slight change of feeling lately. He was growing more tolerant and benign, even in trifles like this. Jacopo Bellini: why not? Meanwhile, he bethought himself ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... plant in the pillow of the sick and the heavenly 365:3 homesick looking away from earth, - Oh, did they know! - this knowledge would do much more towards healing the sick and preparing their helpers 365:6 for the "midnight call," than all cries of "Lord, Lord!" The benign thought of Jesus, finding utterance in such words as "Take no thought for your life," would heal 365:9 the sick, and so enable them to rise above the supposed necessity for physical thought-taking ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... was prepossessing. He was tall and spare, but with a benign expression of countenance. He was well dressed, wore gold spectacles, and his scant hair and a tuft of whiskers on either side of his cheeks were snowy white, while his features were regular. He must have been an unusually handsome man in his younger days, and would still ...
— Brave Tom - The Battle That Won • Edward S. Ellis
... offering are made, with a reiteration of the petition. A capacious porker with a bounteous supply of sugar-cane brew in big bamboo internodes is brought along occasionally to break down the obdurateness of the householder's heart, until one fine day, under the benign influence of "the cup that cheers," he yields, but intimating that his petitioners can never afford the marriage payments.[3] He will then probably recount the purchase price of this own wife, always with exaggerations; descant ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... dark brows, and drawn herself stiffly erect; Mollie was prepared to smile in benign patronage on less important guests. It was a trifle disconcerting to see no one at all but a little, black- robed lady, who came hurriedly forward as they approached the staircase and ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... not yet come. Ere he had quite sunk into insensibility, he was conscious of a feeling within him, as if some one were pulling—pulling at his heart, with a force benign and loving, yet strong as death itself. He staggered to his feet, and, stumbling as he walked, set his face against the cold and cheerless sky once more. The pulling at his heart-strings seemed to ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne |
