"Tenderness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... won by the half-hearted. Let us be faithful to our convictions, and shun paltering in a double sense. Truth, as Renan says, can dispense with politeness; and while we shall never stoop to personal slander or innuendo, we shall assail error without tenderness or mercy. And if, as we believe, ridicule is the most potent weapon against superstition, we shall not scruple ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... who, as she always wrote to Helen, was very, very happy, and never more so, perhaps, than while they were at Alnwick, where, as if he had something for which to atone, he was unusually kind and indulgent, caressing her with unwonted tenderness, and making her ask him once if he loved her a great deal more now than when they ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... dearest privileges of your corporation,—which the Common Law authorizes,—which your magistrates are compelled to grant,—which come duly authenticated into this court,—and are saved in the clearest words, and with the most religious care and tenderness, in that very act of Parliament which was made to regulate the elections by freemen, and to prevent all possible ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... and his heart swelled. An immense wave of tenderness seemed to flow from him, enfolding the little woman as she stood there, so neat and trim in her blue cashmere dress, her pretty head bent, the light playing in the ...
— The Wooing of Calvin Parks • Laura E. Richards
... disappointment. Probably not even her husband knew whether she felt her loss deeply or not. No one else was ever permitted to speak of it. Colonel Ogilvie's own disappointment was never expressed. He had too much tenderness for his wife to ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... thou art my sister; that it may be well with me for thy sake, and my soul shall live because of thee." The first is an instance of poetic amplification and abandon; we should contend, for the last, that it expresses poetic tenderness and delicacy. In the one case, passion is diffuse,—in the other, concentrated. Which is the more natural, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... as if he were surprised at such unwonted tenderness. There was even a slight smile on his lips for a few moments, but it quickly passed away with the fast ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne
... destruction. But on that occasion the great abilities of Louise, the regent, saved the kingdom which the violence of her passions had more than once exposed to the greatest danger. Instead of giving herself up to such lamentations as were natural to a woman so remarkable for her maternal tenderness, she discovered all the foresight and exerted all the activity of a consummate politician. She assembled the nobles at Lyons, and animated them, by her example no less than by her words, with such zeal in defence of their country as its present ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... lady was half ready to laugh in my face, at hearing this attempt at Germanic English; but the kindness, and delight, and benevolent tenderness of her still fine eyes, made me wish to throw myself in her arms again, and kiss her. Patt continued to bouder for a moment or two longer, but her excellent nature soon gave in, and the smiles returned to her countenance, as the sun ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... No one word could better designate the leading characteristics of Irving's nature and temperament. No man was ever more worthy to bear "the grand old name of gentleman," alike in the essentials of manliness, tenderness, and purity, and in the external accomplishment of manners so winning and cordial that they charmed alike men, women, and children. He had the delicacy of organization which is essential to literary genius, but it stopped short of sickliness or irritability. He was sensitive ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... long years that Leon spent away from her, Clementine scarcely knew that she was alone. She loved and felt that she was loved in return; she had faith in the future, and an inner life of tenderness and timid hope; and this noble and ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... going to die, my sister, and I bequeath you my son. I do not doubt that you will show him all a mother's tenderness and care. I beg you also to have all the firmness and vigilance that I should have had in forming ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre
... stress Of yearning notes that gush and stream, The lyric joy, the tenderness, And once ...
— Lyrics of Earth • Archibald Lampman
... doom of all who were caught in the act of escape from a penal settlement should be enforced. Yet if they got safe to land, the marvellous courage and ingenuity of the prisoner would tell strongly in his favour. The woman and child would bear witness to his tenderness and skill, and plead for him. As he had said, the convict deserved a pardon. The mean, bad man, burning with wounded vanity and undefined jealousy, waited for some method to suggest itself, by which he might ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... like one who would gladly be rid of any painful, because reproachful, emotion, he laid his hand calmly on the arm of his wife, and led her directly in front of Inez. Pointing to the sweet countenance that was beaming on her own, with a look of tenderness and commiseration, he paused, to allow his wife to contemplate a loveliness, which was quite as excellent to her ingenuous mind as it had proved dangerous to the character of her faithless husband. When he thought abundant ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... and his fellows lifted and carried Amber, gently and with puzzling consideration, some considerable distance through what he surmised to be an underground corridor. He suffered this passively, realising his impotence, and somewhat comforted if perplexed by the tenderness accorded him in return for his savage fight ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... soothing her, stroking her hair, and murmuring words of love and tenderness, realized that his labor and sacrifice had not been in vain, that here was his recompense; she would never misunderstand him again; ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... nothing in it, not a thing; it's the truth, the pure truth, mon ami! You are the first man for whose sake I have forgotten—all that I am now forgetting! Yes, the first! Never has any other man heard from my lips a single word of tenderness, never! And you do ...
— Led Astray and The Sphinx - Two Novellas In One Volume • Octave Feuillet
... poem a little recalls 'Cleon'; with less of harmonious grace and clear classic outline, it possesses a certain stilled sweetness, a meditative tenderness, all its own, and beautifully appropriate to the utterance ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... flushing of Kitty's face, that in Kitty's mind her father was not only suspected, but condemned. She was afraid lest she herself should in some moments of weakness betray him; and Kitty's strange unusual tenderness inspired her with terror. She shrank even from old Mrs. Palliser, Kitty's mother, with her soft trembling face and clinging hands. Their sympathy was poignant and unnerving, and she needed all her strength for the things she ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... of alarm, by this monitory sense, through the whole course of his life? What is likely to become of him, if he shall go hither and thither on the scene exempt from all sensible obstruction of the many interdictions, of a nature too refined for any sense but the vital tenderness ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... Tears of tenderness stood in her eyes. She had the sense of having found a rare treasure, worth any sacrifice. She was a little awed by it and lifted to a plane she had ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller
... asking yourself what is to be done with me," said Baldos easily. "The order is for my arrest. Only the princess can annul it. She has retired on a mission of love and tenderness. I would not have her disturbed. There is nothing left for you to do but to place me in a cell. I am quite ready, Colonel Quinnox. You will be wise to put me in a place where I cannot hoodwink you further. You do not bear me a grudge?" He laughed so buoyantly, so fearlessly that Quinnox forgave ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... near cautiously, and listened. It was a plaintive Moorish ballad, and he recognized in it the lamentations of one of the Abencerrages on leaving the walls of lovely Granada. It was full of passion and tenderness. It spoke of the delights of early life; the hours of love it had enjoyed on the banks of the Darro, and among the blissful abodes of the Alhambra. It bewailed the fallen honours of the Abencerrages, and imprecated ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... scruple? Fear you to stray where Hercules has wander'd? What heart so stout that Venus has not vanquish'd? Where would you be yourself, so long her foe, Had your own mother, constant in her scorn Of love, ne'er glowed with tenderness for Theseus? What boots it to affect a pride you feel not? Confess it, all is changed; for some time past You have been seldom seen with wild delight Urging the rapid car along the strand, Or, skilful in the art that Neptune ...
— Phaedra • Jean Baptiste Racine
... the Mothers of our race. No retarding mental or moral influences are ever permitted to reach her. On the contrary, the most agreeable contacts with nature, all that can cheer and ennoble in art or music surround her. She is an object of interest and tenderness to all who meet her. Guarded from unwholesome agitation, furnished with nourishing and proper diet—both mental and physical—the child of a Mizora mother is always an improvement upon herself. With us, childhood has no sorrows. We believe, and the present condition ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley
... was in some awful difficulty, some scrape so terrible as to make him lonely beyond the reach of help, that Max, who was a good-hearted fellow and a stanch friend, spoke with something which might almost be called tenderness: ...
— The Wharf by the Docks - A Novel • Florence Warden
... compliments, making the usual remarks upon each other's dress, and upon the company they expected to meet, when Charlotte stopped the carriage, and made her brothers get down. They insisted upon kissing her hands once more; which the eldest did with all the tenderness of a youth of fifteen, but the other in a lighter and more careless manner. She desired them again to give her love to the children, and we ...
— The Sorrows of Young Werther • J.W. von Goethe
... that most wonderful production in any language, "In Memoriam," which has enriched the English language by hundreds of quotations and which in its delicate sentiment, its deep sorrow, its reflective tenderness, has been the voice of many a soul ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 832, December 12, 1891 • Various
... another ten miles or so before Bland picked a spot that looked safe for landing. They had one ill-chosen landing still vivid in their memory, and Johnny carried a long, white scar along the side of his head and a tenderness of the scalp to assist him ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... tenderness of the Christ he speaks most sympathetically, having in mind again the lads that war has taken. In "The Master's ...
— Giant Hours With Poet Preachers • William L. Stidger
... I reached Roche-Mauprat. I waited in a moat until the gates were opened, and then slipped up to my room without being seen by anybody. As it was not altogether an unfailing tenderness that watched over me at Roche-Mauprat, my absence had not been noticed during the night. Meeting my Uncle John on the stairs, I led him to believe that I had just got up; and, as the artifice proved successful, ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... tired man was her father, and he used to sing those words while his hand wandered tenderly through the curls of her brown head, and patted softly the white forehead over which they fell; and all of love that there was in life, all that the word "tenderness" meant, all that was dear, or sweet or to be reverenced, was embodied in that one memory to Marion. Now you understand the flashing eyes. She did not believe it at all; she believed, or thought she did, that the "broad" and "narrow" roads were all nonsense; that go where you would, ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... adjoining his, eating with him, caring for his comfort in every way, thoughtful and affectionate, allowing no other person to do anything for him, she had to present a smiling face, in which the most suspicious eye could detect nothing but filial tenderness, though the vilest projects were in her heart. With this mask she one evening offered him some soup that was poisoned. He took it; with her eyes she saw him put it to his lips, watched him drink it down, and with a brazen ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... only reply was another awful fit of sickness, that made as if it would tear his chest asunder. While he was under the influence of it, his tutor entered, and set about ministering to him with a care and fatherly tenderness that even deceived me. I can see things more plainly now, on looking back at them, than I could then, but I must own that Baxter's behaviour towards the boy that morning was of a kind that would have hoodwinked the very Master of All Lies himself. I could ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby
... the Great Oak's face as he addressed his daughter. With a watchful tenderness seldom found in the breast of a warrior, the stern old Sagamore's voice grew soft ...
— Birch Bark Legends of Niagara • Owahyah
... been "to the manner born." His hair was dark, and almost silky fine; and the poise of his head would be a theme for the pen or the pencil of Rossetti. His eye was dark as night, but it revealed an immense range of expression; a capacity for great tenderness, and passion without bound. His nose approximated the aquiline type; his firm mouth was a bow of Cupid, and his skin was a light nut-brown. His dress was like that of a cow-boy, and was devoid of barbaric gauds. I suppose ...
— Annette, The Metis Spy • Joseph Edmund Collins
... noble tenderness). Eugene: listen to me. Some day, I hope and trust, you will be a happy man like me. (Eugene chafes intolerantly, repudiating the worth of his happiness. Morell, deeply insulted, controls himself with ...
— Candida • George Bernard Shaw
... she sprang round to face the newcomer. She saw it change, swift as lightning, from a look of horrified dismay to one of sudden transforming tenderness, as the girl recognized the intruder, that the hand already in the act of pushing open the door of the clock fell inert and limp to her side, and if she had been able to move she would have lost no time in retreating. She knew instinctively that she was seeing a secret laid bare which she had ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... minutes more before he said slowly, with a wistful tenderness coming into his dim old eyes as ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... similarity in the main elements of character with adaptable differences. Good qualities, such as strength and delicacy, may complement each other, but not evil and good qualities, such as brutality and tenderness. As Scott says in the quotation at the head of this chapter, a tender wife may suit the taste of a churlish husband, but only by not long surviving his unkindness. While such opposition may not result in actual death, it certainly leads to the demise ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller
... September twilight—not like the brunettes on this side, who are apt to have thick complexions, saving their presence. I say she is not a girl to flirt with, and yet, with that sensitive-cut mouth and those deep eyes, she could do awful things in the way of tenderness if she had a mind to. She's a puzzle, with her dove's innocence and her serpent's wisdom. All women are problems. I suppose every married man of us goes down to his grave with his ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... and then for once in her life she did a womanly act. She laid her head in the doctor's lap and cried, just as she had done the previous night. He understood the cause of her tears at last, and touched with a greater degree of tenderness for her than he had ever before experienced, he smoothed her glossy ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... winters added to your life, than your perpetual honour! Do you dare to die? The sense of death is most in apprehension, and the poor beetle that we tread upon, feels a pang as great as when a giant dies." "Why do you give me this shame?" said Claudio. "Think you I can fetch a resolution from flowery tenderness? If I must die, I will encounter darkness as a bride, and hug it in my arms."—"There spoke my brother," said Isabel; "there my father's grave did utter forth a voice. Yes, you must die; yet would you think it, Claudio! this outward ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... said, as the curtain fell on Peter Pan's flight through the window with the Darling Children—"that delicious first act! Of course Barrie can't keep it up—no one could. But the humor of it and the tenderness and the naivete! Only a grown-up with the heart of a child ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... and went back to bring the stranger to Balthasar. In the mean time she had been joined by the young lady of the house, an adopted child, but whom the old man loved with the same tenderness and treated just as if she had been his own. The stranger trembled, and when she reacht the old man's apartment was near fainting: Balthasar dried his tears, and was unable to find words, as he led the pale lady to a chair: he made a sign, and Edward left ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... feminine sentimentality, that superficial, whimsical, sensitiveness that made her friends look on her as a great artist. The music filled her with tenderness; she strove to keep back the tears that came to her eyes,—why, she ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... a little shyly into her husband's arms, as he turned back into the room. The tenderness in his own face, however, and a little catch in his voice, broke down at once the wall of reserve which ...
— The Zeppelin's Passenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... sacrificing rest and comfort that his children may be well provided for, a boy working to pay his way through college, are all persisting in courses of action, because of the driving power which the emotions, more or less mixed, of curiosity, or tenderness, or self-assertion have released. ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... lovely ladies most loved! Fair lady of hearts, sweet dame of tenderness, tender me thine ears, suffer one, hath sighed and suffered for sake of thee, to sightful sue. Lovely thou art and therefore to be loved, and day and night thou and Love the sum of my excogitations art, wherefore I, with loving art, am hither come to woo thee, since, lady, ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... not to suppose, because I speak lightly, that I do not feel deeply," said I. "Your kindness has quite conquered me; I lay myself at your disposition, I beg you to believe, with real tenderness; I pray you to consider me from henceforth as the most ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... he was, sometimes looked at the little fellow with sad tenderness, noticing how cleverly he learned to crawl and swing himself about by his arms, so that in his own awkward way he was as active in motion as most ...
— The Little Lame Prince - And: The Invisible Prince; Prince Cherry; The Prince With The Nose - The Frog-Prince; Clever Alice • Miss Mulock—Pseudonym of Maria Dinah Craik
... passed away, and with them my youthful character. The world was altered, too; and as I stood at my mother's grave, I could hardly realize that I was the same thoughtless, happy creature, whose cheeks she so often kissed in an excess of tenderness. ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... a loud applause was heard, Nor ceas'd till D——'s airy form appear'd. No common offering she seem'd to bear; Connubial tenderness,—the watchful care Which tender Infants from their Mothers claim, The sage demeanor, and the blameless name In which High Life should ever be array'd, Her steady hand upon the ...
— The First of April - Or, The Triumphs of Folly: A Poem Dedicated to a Celebrated - Duchess. By the author of The Diaboliad. • William Combe
... "The tenderness I had and have for her is not to be expressed nor compared save with the love of David for Jonathan. How have I been wounded! Yourself, my dear Miss P., is a witness to her ungoverned passions. Your delicacy will not prefer to entail the misery of explanation ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... please your mother who has waited so long for the day when you should be old enough to be considered a man among our people." For a moment his hand lay kindly upon the boy's shoulder; then, with a shrug as though to shake off any foolish tenderness for the son he loved so dearly, he passed out ...
— The New Land - Stories of Jews Who Had a Part in the Making of Our Country • Elma Ehrlich Levinger
... adore holding people with iron braces on their legs," she affirmed, and, leaning over the back of the seat, proceeded with absolutely perfect mechanical tenderness to gather the poor, puny, surprised little body into her own strong, shapely arms. Then dutifully snuggling her shoulder to meet the stubborn little shoulder that refused to snuggle, to it, and dutifully easing her knees to suit the stubborn little knees that refused to be eased, she settled down ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... around his couch, but ever changing in appearance. At first her head was invisible and veiled in mist, from which, at intervals, flashed features of resplendent loveliness, and eyes of heavenly blue, which beamed upon him with thrilling tenderness; and then the mist dispersed, and the beauteous phantom stooped down to kiss his cheek, when suddenly her blooming face darkened and withered into the death-like visage of that fearful stranger, and her long bright hair was converted into hissing sepents. Starting ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... the heroine of extremes. One of those natures gifted with all the tenderness that belongs to the angel idea— woman; yet soaring above her sex in the paralysing moments of peril and despair. Her feelings, in relation to her sister's cruelty to the gold-fish, proved the existence of the former principle; ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... shut. We put down the gas, and sat watching her. Suddenly she sat up in bed, and, taking a bed-gown which was lying on it rolled up, she held it eagerly to her breast,—to the right side. We could see her eyes bright with a surprising tenderness and joy, bending over this bundle of clothes. She held it as a woman holds her sucking child; opening out her night-gown impatiently, and holding it close, and brooding over it, and murmuring foolish little words, ...
— Rab and His Friends • John Brown, M. D.
... the Virgin and wearing the close head-dress which concealed all save her splendid face, she seemed the creation of some old painter, and the curious crowd of peasants was hushed into admiration by her beauty and her tenderness for the child. She, too, became a part of the strange miracle. The infant Christ had been born anew among them, and lay there in his very mother's arms, an object of mystery and worship. As the silence of wonder ensued, Donna Isabella seemed to collect her startled ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... hate, irony, the terrors of remorse, the bitterness of disappointment, were not the only dramatic means in the possession of that artist whom Madame Sontag proclaimed as "the greatest known singer." None could express as did Delsarte, contemplation, serenity, tenderness—the dreams of a sweet and simple soul, and even the divine silliness of innocent beings. Wit and malice were equally easy for ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... knew. And her embrace was so close, almost fierce in its tenderness, her voice so broken, that Lane could only hide his face over her, and shut his eyes, and shudder in an ecstasy. God alone had omniscience to tell what his soul needed, but something of it was embodied ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... ceasing, my lord woke up, looking about him, and his eyes lighting on Mr. Esmond, who was sitting opposite him, gazing with no small tenderness and melancholy upon two persons who had so much of his heart for so many years, Lord Castlewood, with a start, pulled at his mother's sleeve (her face had scarce been lifted from her book), and said, "Look, mother!" so loud, that Esmond ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... more at their own disposal. A clandestine marriage should be peremptorily declined. In too many cases it is a fraud committed by an elder and more experienced party upon one whose ignorance of the world's ways and whose confiding tenderness appeal to him for protection even against himself. In nearly all the instances we have known of such marriages, the results proved the step to have been ill-judged, imprudent, and highly injurious to the reputation of one party, and in ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... estimate the feeling of reverence and awe which rises spontaneously in presence of the vastness and grandeur of the universe, and of the power and glory of which the created universe is a symbol and shadow. He disregards that sense of an overshadowing Presence which, at least in seasons of tenderness and deep sensibility, seems to compass us about, and lay its hand upon us. He scarcely recognizes the deep consciousness of imperfection and weakness, and utter dependence, which prompts man to seek for and implore the aid of a Superior Being; and, above all, he takes no ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... forces women who are in the grip of a sound instinct to seek repeated abortions in order to follow that instinct? Are we not compelling women to choose between inflicting injury upon themselves, their children and the community, and undergoing an abhorrent operation which kills the tenderness and delicacy of womanhood, even as it may injure ...
— Woman and the New Race • Margaret Sanger
... Hence, while the greater part of Pennsylvania itself were conforming themselves to the acts of excise, a few counties were resolved to frustrate them. It was now perceived that every expectation from the tenderness which had been hitherto pursued was unavailing, and that further delay could only create an opinion of impotency or irresolution in the Government. Legal process was therefore delivered to the marshal against the rioters and ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 4) of Volume 1: George Washington • James D. Richardson
... sigh Crossed that dry falling dust and rifted it Through crevices of slate and door and casement. Perhaps the new moon's time was even past. Outside, the first white twilights were too void Until a sheep called once, as to a lamb, And tenderness crept everywhere from it; But now the flock must have strayed far away. The lights across the valley must be veiled, The smoke lost in the greyness or the dusk. For more than three days now the snow had thatched That cow-house roof where it had ever melted With yellow stains from the ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... near and whispered a few words in her ear, and immediately a change passed over her whole countenance. The sullen expression turned to a look of tenderness and concern. The harsh tones of her voice actually grew mellow, and rising up in haste she almost sprang over the fence, and said, "I'se been looking for you, if you's Northman you's mighty welcome," and she set before him her humble store ...
— Minnie's Sacrifice • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... Here the tenderness of affection returns again to the loved name, and the grief of the mourner repeats the word "dead." But this monotony of sorrow is the least part of the effect, which lies rather in the prominence given by either repetition to the most moving circumstance of all—the youthfulness of the dead poet. ...
— Style • Walter Raleigh
... that to be taxed is the highest privilege of an ornate civilisation. He pointed to the gunboat in the bay when it came, and called it the divine depository of beneficent power. For a time, no doubt, British "tenderness" will prevail. But I shall have wasted my thoughts, and in vain poured out my eloquence as to the Fixed Period, if, in the course of years, it does not again spring to the front, and prove itself to be necessary before ...
— The Fixed Period • Anthony Trollope
... up the trade of a soldier for pleasure or for personal ambition, but out of a stern sense of duty. Brave and resolute as he was, he was still more remarkable for the genuine kindness and even tenderness of his nature. Before going into the war, he was deeply concerned for his mother and for his wife and child. If his life were taken, there was no provision for these dear ones. The night, therefore, he volunteered, he took his mother's Bible and sat down to read, determined to let the voice ...
— The Story of Garfield - Farm-boy, Soldier, and President • William G. Rutherford
... (who) said to the padre who has just visited him in hospital, 'I hope the General was not disappointed with us.'" The General, I am sure, was not disappointed with these Lancashire men. No one could think of them without enthusiasm and tenderness, marvelling at their spirit and at the fight they made in the tragic hours—because it was a tragedy to them that, after gaining all the ground they had been asked to take, and not easily nor without losses, they should have to fall back and ...
— At Ypres with Best-Dunkley • Thomas Hope Floyd
... appeal is made to the pity of the gods. When their corn is being burnt up by the sun, the Zulus look out for a "heaven bird," kill it, and throw it into a pool. Then the heaven melts with tenderness for the death of the bird; "it wails for it by raining, wailing a funeral wail." In Zululand women sometimes bury their children up to the neck in the ground, and then retiring to a distance keep up a dismal howl ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... us sett her downe; And seate her easylie, doe not hurt my queene; The downie breathe that sweepes alongst the meads, Kissinge the gentyll flowers that sweeten hym, Are stormes and tempests to her tenderness: [They place the dead bodye in a chayre. No ayre shall blow uppon her. Happye soule! Indeede I dearelye love thee, for I see The rose and lyllie sprynginge in thy cheeks Fresher than ever. Deathes imortal sythe Dare not offend ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various
... things,' he says, 'at which I did sometimes marvel, considering what a blind ungodly wretch but just before I was; one a great softness and tenderness of heart, which caused me to fall under the conviction of what, by Scripture, they asserted; the other a great bending of my mind to a continual meditating on it. My mind was now like a horse-leech at the vein, still crying Give, give; ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude
... often coming back for a day or two at a time, and I promised to pass all my Sundays with them. This arrangement suited me perfectly. My Aunt Vera, my dead father's sister, was the sweetest and gentlest of women, an invalid, with an infinite tenderness for Serge and myself, the orphans of her favourite brother. The servants also, an old nurse and a gardener, were entirely devoted to my family and to me. I was therefore free, mistress of the house, of my time, of myself. Divided between my studies, a few visits paid and received, and my weekly ...
— The Idler Magazine, Vol III. May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... Langham threw up the sponge. He held out his hand to his companion, a momentary gleam of tenderness in his black eyes, such as on one or two critical occasions before had disarmed ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... thought passed through his mind, his lips curved with a smile of proud tenderness. The absurdity of the comparison! His own handsome, well-grown lad, with his fair, frank face and proudly carried head, and the poor little city clerk—the pallor of ill-health and confinement on the dusky face; the meagre ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... one thing my mind is certain, and that is that this country has not yet arrived at that high grade of official refinement and tenderness which Portugal has reached. ...
— Punchinello, Vol.1, No. 12 , June 18,1870 • Various
... by the circumstances of any particular case, and applicable to the general concerns and dealings of mankind. Is it not plain, then, that we have been guilty of no violation of duty towards the weaker party? Our duty, Sir, was discharged not only without any unfriendly bias against Spain, but with tenderness, with preference, with partiality in her favour; and, while I respect (as I have already said) the honourable obstinacy of the Spanish character, so deeply am I impressed with the desirableness of peace for Spain, that, should ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... behind, a meagre Fiend, Disciplin'd sorely. Here they entered in, And now arrived where, as in study tranced, She sat, the Mistress of the Dome. Her face Spake that composed severity, that knows No angry impulse, no weak tenderness, Resolved and calm. Before her lay that Book That hath the words of Life; and as she read, Sometimes a tear would trickle down her cheek, Tho' heavenly joy beam'd in ...
— Poems, 1799 • Robert Southey
... and verses is indifferent to no reader of poetry; but the chief recommendation of poetical language is certainly derived from those general associations, which give it a character of dignity or elegance, sublimity or tenderness. Every one knows that there are low and mean expressions, as well as lofty and grave ones; and that some words bear the impression of coarseness and vulgarity, as clearly as others do of refinement and affection. We do not mean, of course, to say anything in defence of ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... is simply superb," she said. "Nothing that I ever hear satisfies me so entirely. She has all the tenderness of an ...
— Stories By English Authors: Germany • Various
... and held. "Yes," he said, and smiled into her eyes with the words—a smile in which determination and tenderness strangely mingled. "You ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... Ayacanora the meaning of this her strange appearance. He wished her anywhere but where she was: but now that she was here, what heart could be so hard as not to take pity on the poor wild thing? And Amyas as he spoke to her had, perhaps, a tenderness in his tone, from very fear of hurting her, which he had never used before. Passionately she told him how she had followed on their track day and night, and had every evening made sounds, as loud as she dared, in hopes of their ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... he were already a man. How different to his usually hurried meal beside the horses, that worked like himself in the dark, close passages, but did not, like him, ascend each evening to the grassy fields and the pure air of the upper earth! Stephen had a true tenderness in his nature towards these dumb fellow-labourers, and they loved the sound of his voice, and the kindly patting of his hand; but somehow he felt as if they knew how he had left his faithful old Snip unburied on the open hillside, where Black Thompson had found him in his passion ...
— Fern's Hollow • Hesba Stretton
... able always to choose your words?" No, indeed! These letters, if truth is to be expected from them, have to be read with all the subtle distinctions necessary for understanding the frame of mind in which they were written. His anger boils over here, and he is hot. Here tenderness has mastered him, and the love of old days. He is weak in body just now, and worn out in spirit; he is hopeless, almost to the brink of despair; he is bright with wit, he is full of irony, he is purposely enigmatic—all of which require an Atticus who knew him and the people among whom he had ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... children they were, and with tenderness did Eva care for the little ones who were their father's joy and the ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... wondered at, therefore, if our simple-hearted, loving Mary strangely found all her indignation against him gone, and herself little disposed to criticize the impassioned tenderness with which Madame de Frontignac still ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... misery. And so for an instant he stood and suffered—until the sheer bigness of his soul began to reassert itself. All his love for her came back, and he forgot even his deadly hurt in the great wave of pity and tenderness ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... saw it reflected in the look with which he supplemented his failing words. Doubtless the fault was hers. She was too impenetrably healthy to be touched by the irrelevancies of disease. Her self-reproachful tenderness was tinged with the sense of his irrationality: she had a vague feeling that there was a purpose in his helpless tyrannies. The suddenness of the change had found her so unprepared. A year ago their pulses had beat to one robust measure; both had the same prodigal ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... to the boat with the utmost tenderness, the Prince walking by his side, and oft-times taking his hand. I followed behind them, more than a little sad to think that my troubles should have caused so good and true a man so dangerous a wound. For though in a young man ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... by a nurse and a doctor, lay on the white bed. I remember being kissed by her and then being led from the room by the nurse. My father doubtless lingered until all was over, and the dear associate of his life, whose tenderness and charity had made all who approached her grateful, whose genial and appreciative mind had supplied the stimulus of recognition he needed for his own studies, passed away. After that I seemed dimly to recall a period of extreme loneliness when I was left in charge of a private ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap
... creature. She had a head of beautiful form, perched like a bird upon a throat massive yet shapely and smooth as a column of alabaster, a symmetrical brow, black eyes full of fire and tenderness, a delicious mouth, with a hundred varying expressions, and that marvelous faculty of giving beauty alike to love or scorn, a sneer or a smile. But she had one feature more remarkable than all, her eyebrows—the actor's feature; they were jet ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... mine from the first. Aye, I told all, even to what had passed that day between the man and me, and in the days yet young. And as I spoke I saw the promise grow in her eyes, full and large like the break of dawn. And I read pity there, the tenderness of woman, the love, the heart and the soul of Unga. And I was a stripling again, for the look was the look of Unga as she ran up the beach, laughing, to the home of her mother. The stern unrest was gone, and the hunger, and ...
— The Son of the Wolf • Jack London
... his time had come, I was loath to see him go. I seem to remember carrying him that evening to the window with uncommon tenderness (following the setting sun that was to take him away), and telling him with not unnatural bitterness that he had got to leave me because another child was in need of all his pretty things; and as the sun, his true father, lapt him in its dancing ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... now tried her best to draw from her her history, whatever that might be. She spoke with tact and tenderness, and with the respect due from one human being to another; for my mother always held that every soul has its own inviolable private door which it has a right to keep closed, and at which even queens and duchesses, if they ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... in a moment he had her clasped to his bosom. How this was done, whether the doing was with him or her, whether she had flown thither conquered by the tenderness of his voice, or he with a violence not likely to give offence had drawn her to his breast, neither of them knew; nor can I declare. There was now that sympathy between them which hardly admitted of individual motion. They were one and ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... then, I have some foolish tenderness for my windpipe, and that when my uncle proposes the adventure to me I should say ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... With tenderness unending I cherished thee when small, In vain—thy bow is bending; On me thine arrows fall. My care for thee to such a plight Has brought me; and it serves ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa
... see Mrs. Murphy, and for a number of days thereafter. Norah was sinking, and clung to him with pathetic tenderness. He learned not much more about the will. She was sure that it had been concealed under the false bottom of a little traveling-desk which he remembered, but beyond that she knew nothing. Maurice wrote to Mr. Burnham, the family lawyer, and the question now was, what had become of the desk? ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... beautiful! No captious chronicler has ever denied that! and no one who knew her before, and who saw her again on this late summer's afternoon, could fail to mark the additional charm of her magnetic personality. There was a tenderness in her face as she turned her head to and fro, a joy of living in her eyes ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... excitements of the night, that for once she laid aside her company manners, which were both easy and correct, and in the most natural manner in the world leaned her head on Leon's shoulder. At the same time, fatigue suggesting tenderness, she locked the fingers of her right hand into those of her husband's left; and, half-closing her eyes, dozed off into a golden borderland between sleep and waking. But all the time she was not unaware of what was passing, and saw the painter's ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... did the other protest that she took pleasure in the task: Mrs. Pickle ascribed the assurance to her excess of complaisance; and expressed such tenderness of zeal for her dear sister's health and tranquility, that the reluctant maiden found herself obliged to resign her authority, without enjoying the least pretext for ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... close to him now. With his new spiritual vision he saw that in form it was One like himself, but One with eyes that were soft and mild and full of tenderness, with arms outstretched and nail-prints like glittering gems upon them, with a wounded side and out from it a flood pouring which cooled the parched sands, so that from them the flowers sprang up, full panoplied in color, form and beauty, and ...
— The City and the World and Other Stories • Francis Clement Kelley
... of grey. They thought her ill, and each had said so, but she answered so positively that nothing was the matter, that they were unable to do more than seem to accept her assurances. But to Lucia, when, with a tenderness which seemed to have grown both deeper and more fitful, she would implore to be told the cause of such evident suffering, Mrs. ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 1 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... fate which awaited his son, or to induce him, by any means short of force, to leave his own room. Besides, were a meeting to be effected, the idiotical father would probably not cease to abuse his son, and would certainly not comprehend his tenderness and affection. It was difficult to tell the son that his father had so utterly lost his intellects as to be unable to be brought to see him; but even this was better than allowing him to think that he was to see him, and then ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... finally concluded that my senses were impressed by a certain air of gravity, sadness, or, still more properly, of weariness, which took something from the youth and freshness of the countenance, only to endow it with a seraphic tenderness and majesty, and thus, of course, to my enthusiastic and romantic temperment, with an ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... time on his forgetfulness or tolerance. We knew he loved us, for he often took us to his knees of an evening and told us stories of marches and battles, or chanted war-songs for us, but the moments of his tenderness were few and his fondling did not prevent him from almost instant use of the rod if he thought either of us ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... that, whatever the thing he might desire, he would always absolutely bring it off. She knew at this moment, without a question, with the fullest surrender, how he had brought off, in her, by scarce more than a single allusion, a perfect flutter of tenderness. If he had come back tired, tired from his long day, the exertion had been, literally, in her service and her father's. They two had sat at home at peace, the Principino between them, the complications of life kept ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... partly lest it should be thought after what I have just told of Croisette that there was anything of the woman about him—save the tenderness; and partly to show that we acted at this crisis each after his manner. While Croisette turned pale and trembled, and hid his eyes, I stood dazed, looking from the desolate house to the face stiffening ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman
... kindness, and even tenderness, in the tone in which simple Dr. Walsingham spoke the appellative, brother; and it smote Devereux now, as sometimes happens with wayward fellows, and his better nature ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... Muldoon's voice, coming to him from quite near, from so near that he seemed presently to see her as kneeling on the ground before him while he lay looking up at her; himself not wholly on the ground, but half-raised and upheld—conscious, yes, of tenderness of support and, more particularly, of a head pillowed in extraordinary softness and faintly refreshing fragrance. He considered, he wondered, his wit but half at his service; then another face intervened, bending more directly over him, ...
— The Jolly Corner • Henry James
... Her talent, when mature, will turn to the charming rather than to the vigorous. There could be no greater contrast between such drawing and that of—say—Cimabue. Cimabue's Madonnas are not pretty women, but huge, solemn symbols. Their heads droop stiffly; their tenderness is universal. In Gauguin's "Agony in the Garden" the figure of Christ is haggard with pain and grief. These artists have filled their pictures with a bitter experience which no child can possibly possess. I repeat, therefore, that the analogy between Post-Impressionism and ...
— Concerning the Spiritual in Art • Wassily Kandinsky
... be he whom he may, who invented that plat, is second neither to Caramel nor to Ude—the exquisite juicy tenderness of the meat, the preservation of the gravy, the richness of the trail—by heaven! ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... and shook his head. "You have lost a great deal," he returned with unwonted tenderness: "you need much happiness, much private, individual contentment, to enable you to bear the troubles that have come upon you. Georgy was in a measure concerned in causing them: she ought to make full atonement for all the harm she has done. Ever since you came back I have felt that if ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... well. She was a bright child; yes, he would admit that. Maybe if she had looked a little more like the angel mother—and yet sometimes he could scarcely bear to look at the boy because in Tom's face he saw so often the warm tenderness that had endeared the mother to all who knew her, and the deep, soft brown eyes that always looked straight in one's face seemed to reproach him for his sternness and neglect. He had mourned because the boy had not inherited ...
— Tabitha at Ivy Hall • Ruth Alberta Brown
... nobleman. I was much more struck by the appearance of his companion. This was a tall young man, surprisingly handsome, with a dark, fierce face, and the limbs and chest of a Hercules. He had his hand under the other's arm as they entered, and helped him to a chair with a tenderness which one would hardly have ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... had before pictured to herself, as events passed by, and unlikely again to happen, was palpably displayed before her. She had scarcely recovered from the terrors of the the storm when her uncle came below, and, with unusual tenderness in his manner urged her not to be alarmed at the noise of the guns which were about to be fired; at the same time speaking with confidence of their ultimate success. Though she trembled with anxiety at what ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... supplied him with rags to wipe his brushes, and kept things in order in the studio. Seeing how much thought his mother gave to these little details, Joseph heaped attentions upon her in return. If mother and son had no sympathies in the matter of art, they were at least bound together by signs of tenderness. The mother had a purpose. One morning as she was petting Joseph while he was sketching a large picture (finished in after years and never understood), she said, as it were, ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... good news," Natalie said in a low voice. Her tones were soft, musical; her manner caressing. Happiness was in her whole bearing, tenderness in her eyes. Dread oppressed me. "Herbert ...
— The Crack of Doom • Robert Cromie
... Froggatt rivalled his guardian in his desire that it should not be too short. The first call was by appointment on the doctor. He was not used to have patients like Theodore brought by youths of Felix's age, and was touched by the care and tenderness of the young man, as he tried to overcome the alarm that was rendering the little one impracticable, when it was desirable to exhibit his slender store of accomplishments. His nearest approach to his natural state was when perched on his brother's knee, with his ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... hallucination was marked with an exquisite tenderness; no longer was it the dark mirages of the American author, but the fluid, warm, almost celestial vision; it was in an identical genre, the reverse of the Beatrices and Legeias, those gloomy and dark phantoms engendered by the inexorable ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... an only son called Celestinus, whom he loved with the utmost tenderness. He desired to have him well instructed; and sending for a certain philosopher, said, "Sir, instruct my son, and I will pay you bountifully." The philosopher agreed, and took the boy home with him. He diligently performed his duty; and it happened, ...
— Mediaeval Tales • Various
... suggested that Irish music was superior, he would doubtless have bidden him begone and dwell with other lyres. Such suggestion I did not dare to make. On the contrary, I smiled as he fondled his windy octopus, which he did with mysterious tenderness. Then he adjusted the creature to his lips, while I calmly braced ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... selected series of books for girls, written by popular authors. These are charming stories for young girls, well told and full of interest. Their simplicity, tenderness, healthy, interesting motives, vigorous action, and character painting will please all ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... compelled to receive this boon from Providence as it was offered. Nevertheless, a mother's love is not easily dissatisfied, or smothered; and, ere I left the house, I could see the old woman's eyes fixed on Marble with an expression of interest and tenderness they had not manifested previously to ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... Hearn is the real Lafcadio Hearn in these letters. Therein we discover the tenderness, the passion, the capacity for friendship, the genuine humanity absent in his books. His life, his art, were sadly misfitted with masks—though Nietzsche says: "All that is profound loves the mask"; and the symbolism of the Orient ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... to the well, Raoul, gets broken at last," said Ghita, a little reproachfully, though it surpassed her power to prevent the tones of tenderness ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... from her sin with a resentment tinged with disgust. But Ann Holland could feel no resentment or disgust. If it had been in her power she would have watched over her and cared for her night and day with unwearied tenderness. As far as she could she sought to keep alive within her all kinds of softening and pleasant influences. She went often to see Charlie at school, sometimes persuading Sophy to go with her, though more often the unhappy mother shrank from meeting her little son's innocent greetings ...
— Brought Home • Hesba Stretton
... playfulness was in his voice. And while John laid the fresh place for him (a thing on which he still insisted), he went and leaned on his father's chair and looked down upon him, and the old man turned about and looked upwards on his son, with such a pleasant mutual tenderness that I could have carried my hand to my head in ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of my father; he has been dead five years. Thy father did not know of his death when he sent thee to England. And my mother"—his voice trembled—"died when I was born. I was reared without a woman's love. Angel was too old to teach me tenderness. She has tried to guide me; but Kate—thy father calls thee so—I have had no one to love me like thee. I have lived a wild, boisterous life in Scotland most of the time, and after father died I went ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... of De Stancy's remark 'the other,' to look at him, seemed indeed securely shelved. He was sitting lonely in his chambers far away, wondering why she did not write, and yet hoping to hear—wondering if it had all been but a short-lived strain of tenderness. He knew as well as if it had been stated in words that her serious acceptance of him as a suitor would be her acceptance of him as an architect—that her schemes in love would be expressed in terms of art; and conversely that her refusal of him as a lover ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... belonging to men. Male designates sex and is used of animals as well as human beings. Manly (used of boys as well as men) implies the possession of qualities worthy of a man, as strength, courage, sincerity, honesty, independence, or even tenderness. Manlike refers to qualities, attributes, or foibles characteristically masculine. Manful suggests the valor, prowess, or resolution properly belonging to men. Mannish (a derogatory word) indicates superficial or affected qualities of manhood, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... lively idea of his sorrow, and then feel an impression of it, entirely over-looking that greatness of mind, which elevates him above such emotions, or only considering it so far as to encrease our admiration, love and tenderness for him. We find from experience, that such a degree of passion is usually connected with such a misfortune; and though there be an exception in the present case, yet the imagination is affected by the ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... purpose, and is not drawn with the minuteness or power which might justify its introduction. We notice this circumstance as explaining why this Introduction may possibly fail of a popularity more extended than that which its tenderness of thought and style at once claimed from the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... look as well as his words, and they knelt down together in the chancel. Mr. Masters prayed, not very long, but a prayer full of the sweetness and the confidence and the strength, of a child of God who is at home in his Father's presence; full of tenderness and sympathy for her. Diana's mind went through a series of experiences in the course of that short prayer. The sweetness and the confidence of it touched her first with the sense of contrast, and wrung tears from her that were bitter; ...
— Diana • Susan Warner |
