"Benign" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... prize; we may take it as evidence of a spontaneous conviction in the depths of human nature a conviction sure to be brought out whenever the attempt is made to describe in life an opposite thought that death is benign for man as he is constituted and related on earth. The voice of human nature speaks truth through the lips of Cicero, saying, at the close of his essay on Old Age, "Quodsi non sumus immortales futuri, tamen exstingui homini ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... general truths which any Christian may accept and find comfort in. But the poem comes nearer to us than this. It is the real history of a brother man, of a tempted, purified, and at last triumphant human soul; it teaches the benign ministry of sorrow, and that the ladder of that faith by which man climbs to the actual fruition of things not seen ex quovis ligno non fit, but only of the cross manfully borne. The poem is also, in a very intimate sense, an apotheosis of woman Indeed, as Marvell's drop of dew mirrored ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... of the "Blaue Donau" has wooed his ear. No one has nailed him with sachet eggs. He has not been choked by quarts of confetti. His conscience is as pure as the brews of Munich. He is still in a beneficent state of primeval and exquisite prophylaxis, of benign chemical purity, of protean moral asepsis. He came prepared for deluges of wine and concerted onslaughts from ineffable freimaderln. But he might as well have attended a drama by Charles Klein for all the rakish romance he has unearthed. His evening has gone. His legs are weary. And ...
— Europe After 8:15 • H. L. Mencken, George Jean Nathan and Willard Huntington Wright
... generation, entertaining a due sense of our equal right to the use of our own faculties, to the acquisition of our own industry, to honor and confidence from our fellow-citizens, resulting not from birth, but from our actions and their sense of them, enlightened by a benign religion, professed indeed and practised in various forms, yet all of them inculcating honesty, truth, temperance, gratitude, and the love of man, acknowledging and adoring an overruling Providence, which, by ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... thence to practise every species of extortion on his defenceless subjects. The barons, whom a severe administration alone could have restrained, gave reins to their unbounded rapine upon their vassals, and inveterate animosities against each other; and all Normandy, during the reign of this benign prince, was become a scene of violence and depredation. [MN 1103. Attack of Normandy.] The Normans, at last, observing the regular government which Henry, notwithstanding his usurped title, had been able to establish in England, applied to him, that he might use his authority for the suppression ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... these signs is the fact that the same movement[80] which effected the elevation of what was called the lowest class in the state assumed in literature a very marked and as benign an aspect. Instead of the sublime and beautiful, the near, the low, the common, was explored and poetized. That which had been negligently trodden under foot by those who were harnessing and provisioning themselves for ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... room with its dainty bibelots, the Bible, the Madonnas, watching, benign. Poor little nun, waiting for the love that ...
— Frances Waldeaux • Rebecca Harding Davis
... child lying half-lifeless in her bed was the very young heroine of the quite favourite scandal. The knowledge gave him furiously to think. It was Coombe who had interested the Duchess in her. The Duchess had no doubt taken her under her protection for generously benign reasons. He pursued his ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... rhyme, occasionally of the Bedlam sort. Emerson's disciples were never accused of falling into the more perilous snares of antinomianism, but he himself distinctly recognizes the danger of it, and the counterbalancing effect of household life, with its curtain lectures and other benign influences. Extravagances of opinion cure themselves. Time wore off the effects of the harmless debauch, and restored the giddy revellers to the regimen of sober ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... likeness of a lighted torch. The head was not veiled. It was that of a man, long-nosed, thin-lipped, stern-visaged; the countenance pervaded by an awful and unutterable calm, as deep as that of Buddha only less benign. On the brow was a wreathed head-dress, not unlike an Eastern turban, from which sprang two little wings resembling in some degree those on the famous Greek head of Hypnos, lord of Sleep. Between the folds of ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... however, does not expand automatically, as it would had Providence intended humanity to be peaceful, but is only fitted to new conditions by those painful and conscious efforts which we call revolutions. Usually these revolutions are warlike, but sometimes they are benign, as was the revolution over which General Washington, our first great "Progressive," presided, when the rotting Confederation, under his guidance, was converted into a relatively excellent administrative system by the adoption of ...
— The Theory of Social Revolutions • Brooks Adams
... was available. Behind Margaret's forehead a monster crouched and crunched. That was nothing. It was in the tender places of her heart that the girl agonised and by comparison to the torture there, the monster was benign. ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... Khurood was cold, filthy, and swarmed with rats—an animal for which I have always had an especial aversion. Towards midnight a Persian gentleman arrived from Kashan—a mild, benign-looking individual, with a grey moustache and large blue spectacles. The new-comer, who spoke a little French, begged to be allowed to join us on the morrow, as he was in a hurry to get to Ispahan. Notwithstanding Gerome's protestations, ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt
... printed work of mine in English;" in 1575 he had 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, ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various
... that nature, had done no injury to any man. That was fortunate; but I could not much value myself upon what was so much an accident of my situation. Something, however, I might pretend to beyond this negative merit; for I had originally a benign nature; and, as I advanced in years and thoughtfulness, the gratitude which possessed me for my own exceeding happiness led me to do that by principle and system which I had already done upon blind impulse; and thus upon a double argument ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... 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, and tightly fastened at the back of her head in a knot whose circumference must have been ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... 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 near his majesty, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... organisms, and the general public has been educated to an adequate conception of the importance of the germ as the chief agency in the transmission of disease, with corresponding advantage to the efficiency of personal and public hygiene. At the same time knowledge of the benign bacteria and the enormous role they play in the industries and the arts has become much more widely diffused. Bacteriology is being studied in colleges as one of the cultural sciences; it is being widely adopted as a subject of instruction in high schools; and ...
— The Story Of Germ Life • H. W. Conn
... 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; for twenty years he had practised medicine at Clevedon, ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... 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, although ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... 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 god preserved him. ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... no misanthrope," said my aunt, taking off her spectacles to wipe away the pearly drop which meek-eyed pity gave to the recollection of scenes long passed. Horatio paused—the book dropped instinctively upon his knee, as his raised eye involuntarily caught the benign aspect of virtue and intelligence, softened by the crystal gems of feeling. "I wish I knew where he lived," said my aunt. "I'll find him out," said Horatio;-"Do," said my aunt, "and tell him an old friend of his father's, on whom fortune ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... and happiness, that threatened to mar the perfection of a heaven-born love —Divorce! And thus, having named it resolutely several times, the demon of salvation began gradually to assume a kindly aspect that at times became almost benign. In fact, this one was not a demon at all, but a liberator: the demon, she perceived, stalked behind him, and his name was Notoriety. It was he who would flay her for coquetting ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... she had her feet firm set upon the everlasting Rock. The teaching of her Church was to her divinest truth. The supernatural was real, the spiritual actual. The conflict between the powers of light and the powers of darkness, between good angels and evil angels, between benign influences and malefic forces, was no figure of speech with her, but a reality. In these last years of her life more especially the earthly veil seemed to have fallen over her eyes. She seemed to have grasped something of the vision of the servant of Elisha, for whom the prophet prayed: "Lord, ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins
... as Annunziata had predicted, it had grown markedly warmer.) "I shall fly away, if this continues; I shall fly straight to town, and set my house in order for the season. When do you come?" she asked, smiling on him from her benign old eyes. ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... deaden religion? Let us believe that it will rather vivify and quicken it; and that in time true poetry, such as this, of a character somewhat higher than probably can be yet felt, understood, and appreciated by the people, will come to be easy and familiar, and blended with all the other benign influences breathed over their common existence by books. Meanwhile the "Christian Year" will be finding its way into many houses where the inmates read from the love of reading—not for mere amusement only, but for instruction and a deeper delight; and we shall ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... had fallen heavily on her head in requital of even the unaccomplished purpose of disturbing the dust beneath, and that the "Old Player" had kept so quietly in his grave, on the night of her vigil, because he foresaw how soon and terribly he would be avenged. But if that benign spirit takes any care or cognizance of such things now, he has surely requited the injustice that she sought to do him—the high justice that she really did—by a tenderness of love and pity of which only he could be capable. What matters ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... time had been more actively employed, began to show symptoms of innovation—'the good wine did its good office.' [Footnote: Southey's Madoc.] The frost of etiquette and pride of birth began to give way before the genial blessings of this benign constellation, and the formal appellatives with which the three dignitaries had hitherto addressed each other were now familiarly abbreviated into Tully, Bally, and Killie. When a few rounds had passed, ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... daughter of Cronus and Rhea. She was the goddess of Fire in its first application to the wants of mankind, hence she was essentially the presiding deity {49} of the domestic hearth and the guardian spirit of man, and it was her pure and benign influence which was supposed to protect ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... larger; the food and clothing of the people were becoming ampler and better. Nor was the cause which, about 1840 or 1850, began to retard the growth of population here to be found in the climate which Mr. Clibborne stigmatizes so severely. The climate of the United States has been benign enough to enable us to take the English shorthorn and greatly to improve it, as the re-exportation of that animal to England at monstrous prices abundantly proves; to take the English race-horse ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... air benign Speed nimbler messages, That waft the breath of grace divine To hearts in sloth and ease. So nigh is grandeur to our dust, So near is God to man, When Duty whispers low, 'THOU MUST,' The ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... the 'Reign of Law' in polemical science may be ushered in with the joyful acclamations of an enlightened and united people, and its benign influence extend from the throne of the monarch and the council-chamber of his ministers to the hearth of the cottager. Politicians will rule by law; policies be calculated by laws; people vote by law; and then methinks I see in my mind (to use the words of the blind old poet) a noble and ...
— The Romance of Mathematics • P. Hampson
... seemed a special messenger sent by a benign Providence. He waited for a moment until he perceived the two friends in earnest conversation, and seizing his brother by the arm, he took advantage of an approaching crowd of sight-seers to get away from the gossiping soldier. The boys ran down the nearest street ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... man, with a face which Jake, in a rage, had once described as that of "a pig with the measles." But this was, without doubt, a gross perversion of the truth. Benjamin Tresco's countenance was as benign as that of Bacchus, and as open as the day. Its chief peculiarity was that the brow and lashes of one eye were white, while piebald patches adorned his otherwise ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... regret 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 had returned to the drawing-room, ...
— Clara Maynard - The True and the False - A Tale of the Times • W.H.G. Kingston
... been to a cupboard and mixed a glass of whisky and soda. He brought it to Beaumaroy and put it on a small table by him. Beaumaroy regarded his squat paunchy figure, red face, small eyes (a squint in one of them), and bulbous nose with a patient and benign toleration. ...
— The Secret of the Tower • Hope, Anthony
... not help coloring at that benign pleasantry. It was all the more painful to him because it was at once true and untrue. How should he explain the sort of literary alchemy, thanks to which he was enabled to affirm that he never drew portraits, although ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... legends, which of course are not above reproach, reigned in the twenty-seventh century B.C.). In this ancient literature there are numerous references to the dragon, and not merely to the legends, but also to representations of the benign monster on garments, banners and metal tablets.[161] "The ancient texts ... are short, but sufficient to give us the main conceptions of Old China with regard to the dragon. In those early days [just as at present] he was the god of water, thunder, clouds, and rain, the harbinger ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... 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 ...
— Brave Tom - The Battle That Won • Edward S. Ellis
... lop-sided moon swam in the zenith. For three days now that rare clarity had hung in the sky, and for three nights the moon had grown. Its benign, poisonous illumination flowed down steeply through the windows of the dark chamber where Christopher huddled on the bed's edge, three pale, chill islands spread on ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... standing again in the future as before, shoulder to shoulder, expecting with tranquil and exultant spirit the grander victory yet to come, the outcome of which shall be liberty to all the peoples of the world, and that benign and divine peace which is the sure and sovereign fruit of such ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... Gods, Man was given a punishment befitting such arrogance." He paused and took a breath, surveying the twenty-odd students in the classroom (and some, he told himself wryly, very odd) with a sort of benign boredom. ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett
... and its use: Its practice still mankind doth guide to all that's fair and fine." Wherefore fair patience look thou use, for sure 'tis praiseworthy; Yea, and its issues evermore are blessed and benign; And hope thou not for aught from me, who reck not with a folk To mix, who may with abjectness infect my royal line. This is my saying; apprehend its purport, then, and know I may in no wise yield consent ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... heard, Floating from tree to tree, Less beautiful to, me, The music of the radiant bird, Than artless accents such as thine Whose echoes never flee! Ah! how for thy sweet voice I pine:— For uttered in thy tones benign (Enchantress!) this ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... perceived, Rebelled a little at the diet. CARDENIO said discreetly, "Try it, Try it, my Own. You have no choice, What if you lose your charming voice!" She tried, it seems. And whether then Some god stepped in, benign to men; Or Modesty, too long outlawed, Contrived to aid the pious fraud, I know not:—but from that same day She talked in quite a ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson
... occasion for the benign interposition of divine providence; which, in companion to the frailty, the imperfection, and the blindness of human reason, hath been pleased, at sundry times and in divers manners, to discover and enforce it's laws by an ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... sanctuary showed that it was devoted to Roman Catholic worship. The red gleam of the tiny sentinel conveyed a curiously vivid impression of faith and spirituality. Though Helen was a Protestant, she was conscious of a benign emotion arising from the presence of this ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... objects of contemplation, all the reveries of the traveller, must have a reference to ancient generations, and to very distant periods, clouded with the mist of ages.—Here, on the contrary, everything is modern, peaceful, and benign. Here we have had no war to desolate our fields: [Footnote: The troubles that now convulse the American colonies had not broke out when this and some of the following letters were written.] our religion does not oppress the cultivators: we are strangers to those feudal institutions ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... Beneath a pine was his resting-place, To the land of Spain hath he turned his face. On his memory rose full many a thought Of the lands he won and the fields he fought; Of his gentle France, of his kin and line; Of his nursing father King Karl benign; He may not the tear and sob control, Nor yet forgets he his parting soul. To God's compassion he makes his cry: "O Father true, who canst not lie, Who didst Lazarus raise unto life again, And Daniel shield in the lions' den; Shield my soul from its peril, due ...
— Song and Legend From the Middle Ages • William D. McClintock and Porter Lander McClintock
... fair-haired woman, with a benign but puzzled smile, appeared in the passage, holding a ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... immensely beneficial to the country. India's prosperity on the whole is now comparable with that of any civilised nation on the globe. And a people that once, because of repeated conquest and spoliation, had lost all sense of honour and self-respect, are now, under the benign influence of peace, law, order, and security, rapidly becoming honourable, self-reliant, and enterprising, and ambitious to possess all the rights and ...
— Up To Date Business - Home Study Circle Library Series (Volume II.) • Various
... character of the Andalusians in general, we shall find little to surprise us in this predilection for the Gitanos. They are an indolent frivolous people, fond of dancing and song, and sensual amusements. They live under the most glorious sun and benign heaven in Europe, and their country is by nature rich and fertile, yet in no province of Spain is there more beggary and misery; the greater part of the land being uncultivated, and producing nothing but thorns and brushwood, ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... the forenoon, the heats of midday, in the warm season, the slanting light of the descending sun, or the sobered translucency of twilight have subdued the vivacity of the early day. Yet under the influence of the benign stimulant many trains of thought which will bear recalling, may suggest themselves to some of our quiet circle and prove not uninteresting to a certain number ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... detained among her "auld wives" a little longer than usual, she came softly into the room, to find, not Dickson, but an old man with clear, keen eyes and soft white hair sitting beside the bed. His hands were clasped together on the top of his staff, and his face, benign and grave, was turned ...
— Allison Bain - By a Way she knew not • Margaret Murray Robertson
... gentleman before the blaze began to outrival the kettle in steaming; from his coat-tails a thin veil of mist ascended, his face beaming through the vapor with benign felicity. Then he turned and toasted the other side and the kettle reigned supreme until he thawed once more and the clouds ascended, surrounding him like Jupiter on the celestial mount. At that the kettle hummed ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... occasion for any,—nothing but kindness, forbearance, mutual confidence, and attention to each other's happiness. And that we may be less unworthy of so great a blessing, may we be assisted to cultivate all the benign and charitable affections and offices, not only toward each other, but toward our neighbors, the human race, and all the creatures of God. And in all things wherein we have done ill, may we properly repent our error, and may God forgive us, and dispose ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... shine upon 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 in ...
— Poems of Sentiment • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... Deity—if there was a Deity. Despite the frequent laughter on her tongue and in her eyes, she doubted bitterly at times that there was a Deity. For how should happen the awful tragedies which encompassed men and peoples, if there was a Deity. No benign Deity could allow His own created humanity to be crushed in bleeding masses, like the grapes trampled in the vats of a vineyard. Whole cities swallowed up by earthquake; islands swept of their people by a tidal wave; a vast ship pierced by an iceberg and going down with its thousand souls; ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... 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
... INSECTS, Of benign insects such as butterflies there are singularly few. Both mosquitoes and flies are very troublesome during the hot weather in the valley. Visits to native huts will probably lead to an introduction to other insects. ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... eighty-two feet long, and is built of brick and mortar, down to the tiniest figures carried on the persons of individuals. There is no pagoda or shrine in Burma around which is not found a large number of these images. They have not the hideous deformity of Hindu idolatry; but present either the benign and complacent, or the calm and contemplative, expression which cannot fail to impress itself upon the national character of the people. And one may say, with confidence, that in this matter the truth of the proverb ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... been laid in the middle of the bed, and covered with a sheet. Superintendent Galloway quietly drew the sheet away, revealing the massive white head and clear-cut death mask of a man of sixty or sixty-five; a fine powerful face, benign in expression, with a chin and mouth of marked character and individuality. But the distorted contour of the half-open mouth, and the almost piteous expression of the unclosed sightless eyes, seemed to beseech the assistance of those who now bent over ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees
... on board the yacht. For some reason or other we did not begin that game of dominoes. We felt meditative, and fit for nothing but placid staring. The day was ending in a serenity of still and exquisite brilliance. The water shone pacifically; the sky, without a speck, was a benign immensity of unstained light; the very mist on the Essex marshes was like a gauzy and radiant fabric, hung from the wooded rises inland, and draping the low shores in diaphanous folds. Only the gloom to the west, brooding over the upper reaches, became more somber ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... with his benign smile, "you're the first woman lawyer that's ever been in Westville. It's almost a bigger sensation than your fath—you see, it's ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... Lusitania we read this panegyric of the Teuton in Die Welt: "Clad in virtue and in peerless nobility of character, unassailed by insidious enemies either within or without, girded about by the benign influences of Kultur, the German, whether soldier or civilian, pursues his destined way, ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch
... years, her eyes were bright; her smile was winsome, and I thought her face one of the loveliest I had ever looked upon. The voice was singularly sweet and clear, and the manner had such naturalness and grace as a queen might envy. I have forgotten the words, forgotten even the subject, but the benign presence and gracious smile I ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton
... reverence," shouted the spokesman, taking it carefully in his hands and turning it over with a benign smile. "Many a time has 'Mazuka' done good service for this frat! You will understand," the freshmen heard him say, "that an indecorous smile on any of your faces will immediately call for three strokes from 'Mazuka,'" ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... Still sounds in our ears as of yore, And thy motherly counsel we hear, wisdom-fraught, As we push our frail barks from the shore. From the foam-crested waves of the mountainous sea As backward our glances we strain, We see the dear face of our mother benign, And bless her again ...
— Ballads • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... the greetings of the day; wreaths of holly were in her own windows and in those of her neighbors; and the influences of the hour—half poetical, half religious—held the unlovely and the evil within her in benign though temporary thrall. The good angel was dominant within her, while the ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... had now passed since Heartfree's first confinement, and his affairs had begun to wear a more benign aspect; but they were a good deal injured by this attempt on Wild (so dangerous is any attack on a GREAT MAN), several of his neighbours, and particularly one or two of his own trade, industriously endeavouring, from their bitter animosity against ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... level ground. Whatever his rank, he was a most magnificent figure, his whole bearing being serenely dignified, majestic and impressive; whilst the expression upon his radiantly glowing countenance was benign and intelligent beyond anything I had imagined or anticipated, ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... himself to be led without a question, like one in a dream. There seemed some faint reminiscence from the past of this man, with his harsh features, and kindly, genial expression, the deep-set eyes, beaming with a benign light from under the rugged eyebrows, and the firm yet friendly pressure of his guiding arm; and his mind was groping about the dark labyrinth of memory to seize his former knowledge of him, if there ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... 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 of Canton, ...
— 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
... been wont to bring honey to our 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 to ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... broke forth—a benign and balmy Sabbath. He was the earliest at church, and lingered the latest in the church-yard. The subject of Mr. Manners' discourse was charity; but when the people came out, they passed by Jones with a scowl, and went on their several ways, talking mysteriously ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... awful surmise comes to him; his divine patroness moves there as death, surely. Still, however, gratefully putting away suspicion, he seized even in these ambiguous imageries their happier suggestions, satisfied in thinking of his new mother as but the giver of sound sleep, of the benign night, whence—mystery of mysteries!—good things are born softly, from which he awakes betimes for his healthful service to her. Either way, sister of Apollo or sister of Persephone, to him she should be a power of sanity, sweet as the flowers he ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... and take up with America, Germany, Switzerland—anybody so long as they did not interfere with his gigantic scheme for providing tramps in Cromarty with motor cars and dissolute Welsh shepherds with champagne. As for India, why not give it up to a benign native government which would depend upon the notorious brotherly love between Hindoo and Mussulman? If Russia, foolish, unawakened Russia, took possession of it, what would it matter to the miner of Merthyr Tydvil? As for England, provided such a country existed, ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... you!" she said from the bottom of her heart; "O how kind you are!" Then as she glanced again at David's benign face, she half exclaimed, "Did ...
— Trading • Susan Warner
... 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 stage; ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... them is not agreeable to the legislative mind. Never did the old family fury between the gods and giants rage higher than at the present moment. The giants declared that every turn which they attempted to take in their country's service had been thwarted by faction, in spite of those benign promises of assistance made to them only a few weeks since by their opponents; and the gods answered by asserting that they were driven to this opposition by the Boeotian fatuity of the giants. They had no doubt promised their aid, and were ready ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... a habit of regarding people as human beings. You found her talking to chambermaids and delivery boys, and elevator starters, and gas collectors, and hotel clerks—all that aloof, unapproachable, superior crew. Under her benign volubility they bloomed and spread and took on color as do those tight little paper water flowers when you cast them into a bowl. It wasn't idle curiosity in her. She was interested. You found yourself confiding ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber
... most of all when comes the Spring, Again to lay (as now) Her hand benign and quickening On meadow, hill and bough, Should speed's enchantment lose its power, For "None who would exceed [The Mother speaks] a mile an hour, My heart ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... to Europe, Asia, Africa, or America, the prospect appears the same—Look up to the throne, and behold your king, if I may now call him by that soft title—Where is the wisdom, the justice, the religion, that once adorn'd that throne, and shed the benign influence of their bright rays thro' the four quarters of ...
— The Fall of British Tyranny - American Liberty Triumphant • John Leacock
... with whom she was most intimate. Firm, upright, and rigid, she exacted from others those inflexible virtues which in herself she found no obstacle to performing. Neglecting these softer attractions which shed their benign influence over the commerce of social life, she was content to enjoy the extorted esteem of her associates; for friends she had none. She sought in the world for objects to fill up the void which her heart could not supply. She loved eclat, and had succeeded in creating herself an existence ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... boisterous hand? I beseech thee, Lord, let not the Egyptians say that their God hath locked them out for to slay them in the mountains. I pray thee Lord that thy wrath may assuage, and be thou pleased and benign upon the wickedness of thy people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob thy servants, to whom thou promisedst and swaredst by thyself saying: I shall multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and the universal, land of which I have spoken I shall give ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells
... gracious, how benign Breathes through our troubled life that voice of thine, Filled with a sweetness born of happier spheres, That wins and warms, that kindles, softens, cheers, That calms the wildest woe ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... as though she desired to continue the conversation. But there was that in Cap'n Amazon's businesslike manner and speech that impressed Mrs. Baker—as it had Lawford Tapp—that here was a very different person from the easy-going, benign Cap'n Abe. Mandy sniffed, jerked her sunbonnet forward, and ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... heaven. Take any period of calm and rest in the life of the world or the history of the arts. Take that period which great historians have agreed to praise as the happiest of human ages—the age of the Antonines. How benign and unruffled it was! What bland and leisurely culture could be enjoyed in exquisite villas beside the Mediterranean, or in flourishing municipalities along the Rhone! Many a cultivated and comfortable man must have wished that reasonable peace to last ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... words belied her voice and her benign face. She was really one of those delightful women who are "easily persuaded," and who readily accept whatever is, as right. For she had naturally one of the healthiest of human souls; besides which, years had brought her that tender sagacity and gentleness, which does not often come until ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr
... the other people in the neighborhood had contracted for his services and our reputation belied us if we were unwilling to secure at a paltry financial outlay what would contribute to our comfort and health. This persuasive gentleman assured us that, under the benign influence of his sprinkling cart, Clarendon Avenue would presently become one of the most popular of suburban driveways. Hither would equipages come from every quarter, and the thoroughfare eventually would ...
— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field
... opposed to 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, Hamilton is described ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... delicate veil of misty blue; blue were the myriads of delicate campanula that peeped from their rocky ledges; silvery blue was the smoke that curled from the forest's green from a dozen camp fires; and out of that mysterious all-pervading blue lifted the benign countenance of the Great ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... either malignant or benign. The essential difference between the two classes is that while benign tumors depend for their ill effects entirely upon their situation, malignant neoplasms wherever located inevitably destroy life. The clinical features of each group are in many ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... The golden cross was gone; the red curtain had disappeared; the old picture, now but a ragged canvas, had been removed, and in its place was a beautiful painting. It represented the Lord Jesus, sitting with a glory round His benign countenance, welcoming a penitent, weary pilgrim from afar, who knelt to receive His blessing. Below was the legend, "Him that cometh to Me I will ...
— Little Tora, The Swedish Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Mrs. Woods Baker
... kings and queens to do his instant bidding. The excitement reached its climax when an aged bishop descended the stairway, which was under some circumstances as perilous as a ladder. The bishop's quaint hat and gown and hood of various colors made him seem like a benign figure in comic opera; and perhaps because of his dignity or his multiplicity of luggage, all the boats ardently desired him as a passenger. Two green boxes, carrying much information painted in white on the ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... were still industriously circulated, and their benign authors reproached the different powers with treating me too mildly. For my part, I let them say and write what they pleased, without giving myself the least concern about the matter. I was told there was a censure from the Sorbonne, but this I could not believe. ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... essay— "O would he sing, or would he play?" I looked, my thought would make its way— "Fair is your child of face and limb, The round blue eyes full sweetly shine." He answered me with glance benign— "Ay, Sir; but he is none of mine. Although I ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow
... do coarse crocheting without spectacles. All her skin, especially round about the eyes, was yellowish brown and very deeply wrinkled indeed; a decrepit, senile skin, which seemed to contradict the youth of her pose and her glance. The cast of her features was benign. She had passed through desolating and violent experiences, and then through a long, long period of withdrawn tranquillity; and from end to end of her life she had consistently thought the best of all men, refusing ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... with benign aspect, seems now the predominant star of the zenith: A friendly intercourse succeeds suspicion. The difference of sentiment, that once created jealousy, now excites a smile; and the narrow views of our forefathers ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton
... which lives, living himself benign, Compassionate, from arrogance exempt, Exempt from love of self, unchangeable By good or ill; patient, contented, firm In faith, mastering himself, true to his word, Seeking Me, heart and soul; vowed unto Me,— That man I love! Who troubleth not his ...
— The Bhagavad-Gita • Sir Edwin Arnold
... the benign influence exerted by this spring, we all for a time forgot our troubles: even Patsey so far forgave Hal for the "thricks he had put upon him," that I saw them sitting together, waist-deep in the water; the Irish boy utterly oblivious of the fact that ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens
... they placed her behind the screens like a princess, and allowed no one to see her, waiting upon her themselves. It seemed as if she were made of light, for the house was filled with a soft shining, so that even in the dark of night it was like daytime. Her presence seemed to have a benign influence on those there. Whenever the old man felt sad, he had only to look upon his foster-daughter and his sorrow vanished, and he became as happy as when he ...
— Japanese Fairy Tales • Yei Theodora Ozaki
... rude wooden huts and the towering forest beyond. He tried to tell himself it was all a lie. Such things couldn't be. But he could feel it now with increasing strength, as if all his senses were quickening—the benign aura, the indefinable wash of power that seemed to lap at the edge of ...
— Cubs of the Wolf • Raymond F. Jones
... Careful and a Strict Enquiry into the Freedom of the Will, "if such things are the offspring of a distempered brain, let my brain be possessed evermore of that blessed distemper! If this be distraction, I pray God that the whole world of mankind may all be seized with this benign, meek, beneficent, beatific, glorious distraction! The peace of God that passeth all understanding; rejoicing with joy unspeakable and full of glory; God shining in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of God ...
— Bunyan Characters (Second Series) • Alexander Whyte
... this church the principal of our school was pastor. With how deep a spirit of wonder and perplexity was I wont to regard him from our remote pew in the gallery, as, with step solemn and slow, he ascended the pulpit! This reverend man, with countenance so demurely benign, with robes so glossy and so clerically flowing, with wig so minutely powdered, so rigid and so vast,—-could this be he who, of late, with sour visage, and in snuffy habiliments, administered, ferule in hand, the Draconian ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... 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 ...
— Peter Cooper - The Riverside Biographical Series, Number 4 • Rossiter W. Raymond
... 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
... flesh about his ribs. Among them, too, looking on the scene as if it was something in which he had no inherited share, as if these were not men and women to whom he was sib on Adam's side, but cunningly contrived machines whose movements he contemplated with benign indifference, was to be seen the mild philosophic occupant of Lionnet—that Mr. Gryce of whom no one knew more than that he studied dead languages through the day and caught moths and beetles in the twilight, had come without letters of introduction and was never seen ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... 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 which man plies the clockwork that measures his hours, and stops ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... 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 ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... jurisdiction over the Philippine Islands and consequently the inhabitants are entitled to the benign protection of this provision of the Constitution. There cannot be any form of involuntary servitude imposed upon any American citizen without a violation of this fundamental law. Hence it is that the administration is forced to deny citizenship ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2 • George S. Boutwell
... admitted among these, happy is he to merit by his wonderful voice to sing their raptures. Here is no humiliation in ready-made lendings; their ecstasy becomes him. He is glorious with them, and we can imagine this benign and indulgent Nature confounding together the sons she embraces, and making her poets—the primary and the secondary, the greater and the lesser—all equals in her arms. Let us see him in that company where ...
— Hearts of Controversy • Alice Meynell
... of September—benign planets shiver; Serene round the hamlet are ocean and river; Not easy for men and for steeds is endeavour; Trees full of fruit, as of arrows the quiver. A Princess was born to us, blessed for ever, From slavery's shackles our land's freedom-giver. Saith St. Berned the Saint, ...
— A Celtic Psaltery • Alfred Perceval Graves
... Evening-Post, who in the old stile of the hackney'd writers in Bernard's administration, tells us that FACTION is now at an end; and with an awkward air of gravity insinuates, that the people, after having nobly struggled for their freedom, are, under the benign influence of the present administration, "returning to their right senses ". A firm and manly opposition to the attempts that have been made, and are still making, to enslave and ruin this continent, has always been branded by writers of this stamp, with the name of a FACTION. Governor Bernard ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... 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 ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... accepted by the majority of the people in the spirit in which it was offered, and the licence afforded them was but little abused. Perfect success, indeed, must have attended the benign measure, had it not been for the efforts of the Puritanical and Popish parties, who made common cause against it, and strove by every means to counteract its beneficial influence: the first because in the austerity of their faith they would ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth |
