"Benignant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in dress and bodily well-being, between the feminine and the masculine portion of the procession; many of the heavy matrons, wide-hipped, well-corseted, benignant and commanding of mien, were ominously suggestive, followed as they were by their fragile husbands, of the female spider and her doomed, inferior, though necessary, mate. The young girls of the happier type resembled Imogen Upton in grace, in ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... find the proof of the contrary?—at least, if the position had been worded thus: The moral and spiritual obligation of keeping the Lord's Day is grounded on its manifest necessity, and the evidence of its benignant effects in connection with those conditions of the world of which even in Christianized countries there is no reason to expect a change, and is therefore commanded by implication in the New Testament, ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... The benignant expression of old Van Quintem's face vanished instantly, and a just rage gleamed on every feature. "Unnatural son! monster! fiend!" he cried, raising his hands aloft; "at last you have gone too far. Leave my presence, sir, and never—never—let me see your ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... a glimpse of these silent memorials of our race, whether as Nymphs half-shaded at noon-day with summer foliage in a garden, or as Heroes gleaming with startling distinctness in the moonlit city-square; as the similitudes of illustrious men gathered in the halls of nations and crowned with a benignant fame, or as prone effigies on sepulchres, forever proclaiming the calm without the respiration of slumber, so as to tempt us to exclaim, with the enamored gazer on the Egyptian queen, when the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... more blest, whom Summer's heat, Whom Spring's impulsive stir and beat, Have taught no feverish lure; Whose Muse, benignant and serene, Still keeps his Autumn chaplet green Because ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson
... the vast realm where tender memories brood O'er sacred haunts of time, That woo his spirit to a nobler mood And more benignant clime,— ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... Sorrow lours, Not sullenly excludes Hope's smiling rays; Nor, when soft Pleasure boasts of lasting powers, With boundless trust the Promiser surveys. It is the same dread Jove, who thro' the sky Hurls the loud storms, that darken as they fly; And whose benignant hand withdraws the gloom, And spreads rekindling light, in ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... flatteries, contrasting strangely with the bitter language of intense hatred and scathing contempt which Seneca poured out on the memory of Claudius after his death, were penned with the sole purpose of being repeated in those divine and benignant ears. No doubt the superb freedman, who had been allowed so rich a share of the flatteries lavished on his master, would take the opportunity—if not out of good nature, at least out of vanity,—to retail ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... all the lives Thy mercy spares, for all the tears thy ruth Stops at the source. Behold this poor old man, Last of a line of princes, stricken in years, As thy dead father would have been to-day. Was that white beard a rag for obscene hands To tear? a weed for lumpish clowns to pluck? Was that benignant, venerable face Fit target for their foul throats' voided rheum? That wrinkled flesh made to be pulled and pricked, Wounded by flinty pebbles and keen steel? Behold the prostrate, patriarchal form, Bruised, silent, chained. Duke, such is Israel!" "Unbind these men!" commanded Vladislaw. ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus
... Temple of Vesta to proffer their last hurried vows, before speeding away to Capua, their refuge; Fabia stood all day beside the altar, stately, gracious, yet awe-inspiring, the fitting personification of the benignant Hearth Goddess, who was above the petty passions of mortals and granted ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... for the night's rest, she used to say; imagining herself to be not inviting the bolt of sudden death, in her attitude when seated by day:—and often at night the poor woman had to sit up for the qualms of her dyspepsia!—But I 'm bound to think humanely, be Christian, be kind, benignant, he thought, and he fetched the spirit required, to behold her face emerge from a pale blue silk veiling; as it were, the inanimate wasted led up from the mould ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... benignant sway of the "good Duke James," perhaps Fleurs was the happiest place of all Scotland to live in;—not a happier could be in the wide world. To have been born and brought up there, and in one's childhood to have had such a taste of the "golden age," I have always ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... that the benignity of your piety has arrived at imperial supremacy, shall speedily be confirmed. "Let the heavens rejoice and let the earth be glad" [Psalm 96:11], and let the whole people of the republic, hitherto afflicted exceedingly, grow cheerful for your benignant deeds. Let the proud minds of enemies be subdued to the yoke of your domination. Let the sad and depressed spirit of subjects be relieved by your mercy. Let the power of heavenly grace make you terrible ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... Mrs. Portheris, with benignant humour. "I suppose we must condone them now!" and she waved her hand, rolling away, as if she gave us ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... right together and their thoughts drifted into a region of benignant aspirations. Then came Jenny and presently the detective followed her into a garden of flowers behind ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... receive us. We were welcomed by a lady with a most sweet, benignant countenance, and by her companion, some years younger. The first was Mrs. Morrison—the other, Miss Elizabeth Dodge, daughter ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... the stars were paling, And the dawn whitened, and the east was clear, Strange peace and rest fell on me from the presence Of a benignant spirit standing near; ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... worth was never known until he was appointed Chief Justice." And Sedgwick is further confuted by the portraits of the Chief Justice, which, with all their diversity, are in accord on that stubborn chin, that firm placid mouth, that steady, benignant gaze, so capable of putting attorneys out of countenance when they had to face it overlong. Here are the lineaments of self-confidence unmarred by vanity, of dignity without condescension, of tenacity untouched ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin
... Martin's wide-open door first, but finding the kitchen empty, went quickly across to the other house, where Mrs. Jake was propped up in her rocking-chair and began to groan loudly when she saw Nan; but the tonic of so gratifying a presence soon had a most favorable effect. Benignant Mrs. Martin was knitting as usual, and the three women sat together in a friendly group and Nan asked and answered ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... eight bells, Captain Cullen ordered the royals on. The men went aloft faster than they had gone in weeks. Not alone were they nimble because of the westing, but a benignant sun was shining down and limbering their stiff bodies. George Dorety stood aft, near Captain Cullen, less bundled in clothes than usual, soaking in the grateful warmth as he watched the scene. Swiftly and abruptly ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London
... moment a horrible idea crossed his mind. He believed that what he saw was Rosarita's spirit, and he would rather a thousand times have known her living, though pitiless and disdainful, than behold her dead, though she appeared in the form of a gentle and benignant apparition. ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... sweets, Her melodies of woods, and winds, and waters, Till he relent, and can no more endure To be a jarring and a dissonant thing Amid the general dance and harmony; But, bursting into tears, wins back his way, His angry spirit healed and harmonised By the benignant touch ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 442 - Volume 17, New Series, June 19, 1852 • Various
... explosions, and conflagrations, and sudden death. About ten o'clock some twenty ladies were sitting around about the ladies' saloon, quietly reading, sewing, embroidering, and so on, and among them sat a sweet, benignant old dame with round spectacles on her nose and her busy knitting-needles in her hands. Now all of a sudden, into the midst of this peaceful scene burst that slim-shanked boy in the brief shirt, wild-eyed, erect-haired, and shouting, "Fire, fire! JUMP AND RUN, THE BOAT'S AFIRE AND THERE AIN'T ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... A benignant mo'o, or water-nymph, sometimes taking the form of a woman, that is said to have haunted the lagoon of Uko'a, Waialua, Oahu. There is a long ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... demons of the night mutter and moan; but the divine song rises clearer and more clear. It is the voice of faith, silver-toned and sweet; and the very heavens themselves seem to listen; and the thunders rumble away into the valleys; and the stars, shining, and calm, and benignant, come out again over the mountain-peaks. And lo! once more she can descry the faint red rays above the snow; and she can almost see the choristers within the little building; and she listens to the silver-clear ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... earthly life in the same spirit in which I often assume burdens not imposed upon me from without, for the more than preponderant benefit which I hope to derive from them. But if I have this faith in a benignant Providence which will not afflict me uselessly, I am under obligation not to let my faith, if real, remain inactive in my seasons of pain, loss, or grief. I am bound so to ponder on my assured belief, and on such proofs of it as may lie in my past experience, that it shall give its hue to my ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody
... be perfect, it would be better not to try to be good at all?" the bishop asked, restored to equanimity by what he chose to consider an unqualified apology, and resuming his favorite attitude of benignant adviser. ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... room, friends," said Mr. Jollyboy with a benignant smile. "My principal clerk engages men and pays wages. His office is just opposite; first ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... and washed his brushes, and seated himself upon the sofa opposite the easel. There was no picture, of Diana or of Endymion any longer. In the place of Diana there was a full summer moon shining calmly in a cloudless heaven. Its benignant light fell upon a solitary grave upon a hill-top, which filled the ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... of human empire. Nor is it less our destiny to build up a moral and social power and a political organization, which shall shed abroad a new and glorious light, beaming with immortal hopes, and penetrating to the farthest verge of the habitable globe. Nature, in every form of benignant usefulness and unequalled grandeur, invites us to this tremendous task. The loyal people of the nation have not been insensible to these mystic calls and the noble anticipations growing out of them, fraught as they are with the happiness and progress of the human race. They have projected ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... Lucy, as her eyes sparkled, "you do remember her; that is exactly a sketch of her—gentle, benignant, and affectionate, with a fixed sorrow mingled with resignation in her face. Yes, you ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... treated her with a benignant fatherliness, and looked upon her with an evident fondness and pride that threw heavy weight in the scale of his son's chances. And Madam Rushleigh, as she began to be called, since Mrs. Philip had entered the family, petted her in the old, graceful, gracious fashion; ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... putting the enemy to flight, delivered the Romans. When Porsenna saw the maidens returned, demanding who was the author and adviser of the act, and understanding Cloelia to be the person, he looked on her with a cheerful and benignant countenance, and, commanding one of his horses to be brought, sumptuously adorned, made her a present of it. This is produced as evidence by those who affirm that only Cloelia passed the river or. horseback; those who deny it call it only the honor the Tuscan did to her courage; a ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... the ships going and returning look to the westward to judge by the varied splendours of his sunset mantle the mood of that arbitrary ruler. The end of the day is the time to gaze at the kingly face of the Westerly Weather, who is the arbiter of ships' destinies. Benignant and splendid, or splendid and sinister, the western sky reflects the hidden purposes of the royal mind. Clothed in a mantle of dazzling gold or draped in rags of black clouds like a beggar, the might of the Westerly Wind sits enthroned upon the western horizon with the whole North Atlantic ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... those transitory sleeps I lie, I oft his beauteous, bleeding form review; A mild, benignant lustre lights his eye, As come to bid ...
— Elegies and Other Small Poems • Matilda Betham
... Congregational Society extended its benignant patronage over all the people of such town; or, if a stray Episcopalian or Seven-Day Baptist were here and there living under the wing of the parish, they were regarded with a serene and stately gravity, as necessary exceptions to the law of Divine Providence,—like scattered ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... she returned, bland and benignant as before; but I thought she had forgotten to give the "poor ittie doggie" anything to eat, judging by the avidity with which he swallowed down chance pieces of cake. The tea-tray was abundantly loaded—I was pleased to see it, I was so hungry; ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... especially benignant in the faces of the two Apostles, that encouraged the poor creature to hail them as he saw them "about to go into the Temple"? They were willingly detained. "Peter, fastening his eyes on him, with John, said, 'Look on us.'" A gift was bestowed ...
— A Life of St. John for the Young • George Ludington Weed
... necessity of the age. Hitherto, the municipal laws and institutions of this country have been defective; inasmuch as they have made little or no provision for the adequate instruction of the people. Much, no doubt, has been already done, and education, even now, diffuses her benignant light over a large portion of the population; among whom, the children of the ignorant are able to instruct their parents, and impart, to those who gave them being, a share in the new-found blessing of modern times. Much, however, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... throughout the country that I stopped to examine it. I was amply repaid. In place of the painful-looking Christ on the Cross,—too often a mere caricature,—the image was that of the Youthful Saviour,—mild, benignant, forgiving. In his left palm, which was not extended, but held near his person, rested a globe, which he seemed to regard with a heavenly love and compassion, and the effect on me was so impressive that the words came impulsively to my lips,—"I am the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... of Fear, I care not for you; ye too are all shadows and a lie. Let me rest here: for I am way-weary and life-weary; I will rest here, were it but to die: to die or to live is alike to me; alike insignificant.'—And again: 'Here, then, as I lay in that CENTRE OF INDIFFERENCE; cast, doubtless by benignant upper Influence, into a healing sleep, the heavy dreams rolled gradually away, and I awoke to a new Heaven and a new Earth. The first preliminary moral Act, Annihilation of Self (Selbst-toedtung), had been happily accomplished; ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... humanity, and he showed the natural effect of abandoning belief in another life by his energetic interest in arrangements for improving the lot of man in this life. But it would be far better to share the superstitious opinions of a virtuous and benignant priest like the Bishop in Victor Hugo's Miserables, than to hold those good opinions of Chaumette as he held them, with a rancorous intolerance, a reckless disregard of the rights and feelings of others, and a shallow forgetfulness of all that great and precious ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley
... thou dost wear The Godhead's most benignant grace; Nor know we anything so fair As is the smile upon thy face: Flowers laugh before thee on their beds, And fragrance in thy footing treads; Thou dost preserve the Stars from wrong; And the most ancient Heavens, through thee, are ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... whose flashed faces and suffused eyes bore witness to their deep emotion. There were noble gentlemen whose arms still waved in the air as they cheered for Italy. And there, high above all others, rose a familiar figure—the massive shoulders, the calm, shrewd, square face, the benignant glance and smile, which could ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille
... foreshadowing of mortal illness, and the wise counsellors of his childhood vainly strove to fathom his mood. But those who know us best are ever the Unseen, and about the young monarch hovered the benignant influences that had watched his infancy, and now rightly interpreted the sorrow of his heart. In sooth, that this sorrow was matter of rejoicing in the Air, I gather from the joyous mien of that river-sprite ...
— Atma - A Romance • Caroline Augusta Frazer
... it all to you," replied Tavender. Traces of the old Quaker effect which had been so characteristic of him still hung about his garb and mien, but there shone a new assurance on his benignant, rubicund face. Prosperity had visibly liberalized and enheartened him. He shook Thorpe's hand again. "Yes, sir—it must have been all through you!" he repeated. "I got my cable three weeks ago—'Hasten to London, urgent business, expenses and liberal fee ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... to consider, Miss P.," said the benignant Queen, "is how best to hint this news to Miss Burney so that her mind may be gradually accustomed. It is to be remembered that, in her confined home circle, she can have met but few so distinguished and eligible as Colonel Digby. I am perhaps not wholly free of blame ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... ugly, and time had certainly not improved his physiognomy. His hair, once of a light color, was now white with age, close-clipt and bristling; his beard was gray, coarse, and shaggy. His forehead was spacious and commanding; the eye was dark-blue, with an expression both majestic and benignant. His nose was aquiline but crooked. The lower part of his face was famous for its deformity. The under lip, a Burgundian inheritance, as faithfully transmitted as the duchy and county, was heavy and hanging; the lower jaw protruding ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... strayed into an Italian Arcadia. But, as a matter of fact, Brian was probably less worldly in thought and aspiration at that moment than the serene-browed priest who stood before him and looked him in the face with such benignant ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... and commonplace they seemed! It was the first time I had ever ventured to reveal to others the talent hidden with all a miser's vigilance in my bosom casket. I had lisped in rhyme,—I had improvised in rhyme,—I had dreamed in poetry, when the moon and stars were looking down on me with benignant lustre;—I had thought poetry at the sunset hour, amid twilight shadows and midnight darkness. I had scribbled it at early morn in my own little room, at noonday recess at my solitary desk; but no human being, save my mother, knew of the ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... decisive battle, thank God is past—and so the last of the humiliations has been endured," he wrote his wife. "Preston King met me at the depot and conveyed me to my home. It seemed sad and mournful. Dr. Nott's benevolent face, Lord Napier's complacent one, Jefferson's benignant one, and Lady Napier's loving one, seemed all like pictures of the dead. Even 'Napoleon at Fontainebleau' seemed more frightfully desolate than ever. At the Capitol the scene was entirely changed from my entrance into the chamber last winter. ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... an apparition of the spirit of Creusa, which rose before him in a solitary part of the city, and arrested his progress. The apparition was of preternatural size, and it stood before him in so ethereal and shadow-like a form, and the features beamed upon him with so calm and placid and benignant an expression, as convinced him that the vision was not of this world. AEneas saw at a glance that Creusa's earthly sorrows ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... upon this most interesting piece of devotion by Johnson, we are not informed; but I, whom it has pleased GOD to afflict in a similar manner to that which occasioned it, have certain experience of benignant ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... older man than the Fielding of Tom Jones. The robust and irrepressible vitality, the full veined delight of living, the energy of observation and strength of satire, which characterise the one, give place in the other to a calmer retrospection, a more compassionate humanity, a more benignant criticism of life." Murphy's Irish tongue declares a similar feeling in his comparison of the pages of this, the last of the three great novels, to the calm of the setting sun; a sun that had first broken forth in the ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... prospect, but I believe that their behaviour gained them general approbation. As dogs are not allowed on the poop or in the saloon, a well-conditioned baby is rather a favourite in a ship; gentlemen of amiable dispositions give it plenty of nursing and tossing, and stewards regard it with benignant smiles, and occasionally offer it "titbits" purloined ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... hair, for her sun-bonnet lay on the turf beside her, her wistful eyes looking far away seaward, one could have compared her to a Norman or a Druidical priestess under the shadow of the sacred oak; there is at once something so benignant and strong, so full of pathos, in ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... Sir Morgan Walladmor was sitting in his library, and reviewing the case of Captain Nicholas. Many noble traits of character, which had come to Sir Morgan's knowledge in past years,—his talents,—and his youth,—all pleaded for him powerfully: the benignant old man felt concerned that he should in any way have been made instrumental to his condemnation: for of that he had not much doubt; and he was considering through what channel he could best exert his influence in obtaining some mitigation of his sentence; when a door opened; a person, ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. II. • Thomas De Quincey
... had a walking gentleman, A leading juvenile, First lady in book-muslin dressed. With a galvanic smile; Thereto a singing chambermaid, Benignant heavy pa, And oh, heavier still was the heavier vill- Ain, with his ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... should tread. Through some sweet magic common in the skies, The rosy banners are with saffron tinct; The saffron grows to gold, the gold is fire, And led by silence more majestical Than clash of conquering arms, He comes! He comes! He holds His spear benignant, sceptrewise, And strikes out flame from the ...
— ANTHOLOGY OF MASSACHUSETTS POETS • WILLIAM STANLEY BRAITHWAITE
... resented the insult, and gave the traitor a box on the ears in the courtyard of the castle. Maddalo and his brothers, after this, attacked Tasso on the piazza, but ran away before they reached him with their swords. They were outlawed for the outrage, and the duke of Ferrara, still benignant to his poet, sent him a kind message by one of his servants. This incident weighed on Tasso's memory. The terror of the Inquisition blended now with two new terrors. He conceived that his exiled foes were plotting to poison him. He wondered whether Maddalo's revelations had reached ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... silence of foregone dissent!" To Concord come many kindred spirits, drawn by Emerson's magnetic attraction. Thither came, from Connecticut, Amos Bronson Alcott, born a few years before Emerson, whom he outlived; a quaint and benignant figure, a visionary and a mystic even among the transcendentalists themselves, and one who lived in unworldly simplicity the life of the soul. Alcott had taught school at Cheshire, Conn., and afterward at Boston on an original plan—compelling his scholars, for example, to flog him, when ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... him, at least at first sight, and till you have become familiar with his features, which are of a cast at once refined and aristocratic, yet full of goodness—an air of hauteur, which is very—very far from his real nature. He has in truth the soft heart and benignant temper of his mother, joined with the masculine firmness of character which belonged to his father; which, however, is in danger of being seriously impaired by inaction. Sensitive he is, perhaps to a fault. There is a tone of melancholy in his composition, which has probably increased ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... landscape of Yorkshire moors, with its touches of stern and tender memory, 'The mute bird sitting on the stone,' 'A little and a lone green lane,' has a quality more thrilling than that of Wordsworth. There is none of his observation, and none of his sense of a benignant 'presence far more deeply interfused'; but there is the voice of the heart's roots, crying out to its home ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... age; his hair was very dark, and curled in short, thick clusters; his whiskers were large and bushy, and met beneath his face; his upper lip was short, his mouth was beautifully formed, and there was a deep dimple on his chin; but the charm of his face was in the soft benignant expression of his eyes; he looked as though he loved his fellow-creatures—he looked as though he could not hear, unmoved, a tale of woe or oppression—of injuries inflicted on the weak, or of unfair advantages assumed by the strong. It was ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... society's attempt to remember the little ones in bonds. Fulfilling the same law Xavier, with his wealth and splendid talents, remembered bound ones and journeyed through India, penetrating all the Eastern lands, being physician for the sick, nurse for the dying, minister for the ignorant; his face benignant; his eloquence, love; his atmosphere, sympathy; carrying his message of peace to the farther-most shores of the Chinese Sea, through his zeal for "those who were in bonds." And thus John Howard visited the prisons of Europe for cleansing these foul dens and wiped from ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis
... what dost thou amidst this scene of desolation?" were the words which, uttered in a mild benignant tone, met ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... still in midstreet and brought his hat low. His Excellency graciously returned Mr Dedalus' greeting. From Cahill's corner the reverend Hugh C. Love, M.A., made obeisance unperceived, mindful of lords deputies whose hands benignant had held of yore rich advowsons. On Grattan bridge Lenehan and M'Coy, taking leave of each other, watched the carriages go by. Passing by Roger Greene's office and Dollard's big red printinghouse Gerty MacDowell, ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... is in the smoking-room," was the answer, and she went there at once. He was leaning back in an easy-chair, with his feet on the fender, a cigar between his lips, and an unusually benignant ...
— Enter Bridget • Thomas Cobb
... son of our excellent and valued friend Sir James Scarlett[3], dined here yesterday. He is a fine young man, clever, well-informed, and amiable, with the same benignant countenance and urbanity of manner that are ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... the candlesticks were filled with lighted candles, an American flag was draped across the top of the clock, and the little schooner that rocked behind the pendulum seemed fired with the determination to get somewhere to-night if it never did again. Even the owls on each end of the mantel wore a benignant look, and seemed to beam a welcome on the ...
— Mr. Opp • Alice Hegan Rice
... that reciteth the Holy Name, shall Brahma and Chakra the great king bring homage, and about him shall heavenly beings and benignant deities keep watch throughout the days ...
— Buddhist Psalms • Shinran Shonin
... There was a density to the darkness that almost excluded the penetration of thought. The mind could pass no farther than the immediate vicinity. Since the sun had set a thick layer of clouds had lined the canopy of heaven, veiling the winks of the brightest stars and the benignant light of ...
— Bamboo Tales • Ira L. Reeves
... children!" was his somewhat incongruous salutation to the blood-thirsty mob; and then turning his bright but benignant eyes ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... in billows of gold, and the corn was husked, and the labours of the season were done, and the warm, late days of Indian summer came in, dreamy and calm and still, with just frost enough to crisp the ground of a morning, but with warm trances of benignant, sunny hours at noon, there came over the community a sort of genial repose of spirit—a sense of something accomplished, and of a new golden mark made in advance on the calendar of life—and the deacon began to say to ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... whisper, in a whisper when none heareth, when the sun is low: "What doeth MANA-YOOD-SUSHAI?" Roon is no god that thou mayest worship by thy hearth, nor will he be benignant to thy home. ...
— The Gods of Pegana • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... bright rosy tinting; indeed, when not excited he was decidedly pale, and his eyes and hair were a little lighter than those of the rest. It was a refined, delicate, thoughtful face, pretty rather than handsome, and its only fault was a certain melancholy superciliousness or benignant pity for every one who did not belong to ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... misconception to be easily made by candid minds. The fact is that the community of spiritual goods was vividly realized by him, and in good faith he credited all men with a longing like his own to see things as they really are. As he had by nature a very kindly manner, benignant and cheerful, the average man readily submitted to his influence. In his prime he was always a most successful and popular preacher and lecturer, from the combined effect of this earnestness of conviction and his personal magnetic quality. Men whose mental characteristics resembled his became, ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... in its delivery that women fainted and strong men clung in agony to the pillars of the church. Obviously, we do not believe in that kind of God any more, and as always in reaction we swing to the opposite extreme, so in the theology of these recent years we have taught a very mild, benignant sort of deity. One of our popular drinking songs sums up this aspect of our ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick
... eye, whose philosophy was hated and feared because of its subtle denial of the God in high heaven, to Baruch Mendoza the universe had seemed empty with an emptiness from which glared no divine Judge—his own people's Jahveh—no benignant sufferer appeared on the cross. He saw no future life except in the commingling of his substance with the elements; and for this contumacious belief, and his timidly bold expression of it, he had been waylaid and apprehended in the gloomy ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... house in Heaven— But all I left of my own act, and fled Below, and dost thou hate me even here? Balder upbraids me not, nor hates at all, Though he has cause, have any cause; but he, When that with downcast looks I hither came, Stretch'd forth his hand, and with benignant voice, Welcome, he said, if there be welcome here, Brother and fellow-sport of Lok with me! And not to offend thee, Hermod, nor to force My hated converse on thee, came I up From the deep gloom, where I will now return; But earnestly I long'd to hover near, Not too far off, when ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... lineaments. But when the thought of 'You ought' melts into 'For my sake,' and through the dissolving face of the cold marble goddess there shine the beloved lineaments of Him who 'wears the Godhead's most benignant grace,' the smile upon His face becomes a motive that touches all hearts. Transmute obligation into gratitude, and in front of duty and appeals to self put Christ, and all the harshness and difficulty and burden and self-sacrifice of obedience ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... another day or so, and I may be able to do something for you." He moved with a certain conspirator-like caution to a corner of the room, and, lifting to one side a pile of canvases, revealed a stout barrel, which, he regarded with a fatherly and benignant eye. "I don't mind telling you that, in the fullness of time, I believe this is going to spread a good ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... further India takes form and colour from the idiosyncracy of Java, and the goddess Parvati, or Kali, worshipped under these different names according to her attributes of glory or terror, becomes Lora Jonggran, the benignant goddess of Java, popularly known as "the maiden of the beauteous form." Four lofty stairways ascend to the hoary chapels within each sculptured pyramid, every dusky vault containing the broken image ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... indeed a most active fancy, has no understanding: otherwise, among the innumerable conjectures with which my brain has been busied within this hour, the truth would certainly have suggested itself. But, instead of supposing I was transported to the benignant regions of science, I thought myself certain of being in the purlieus of the damned; in the ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... that there is Fear, and Grief, and Pain, Strange foes, though stranger guardian friends of Pleasure: I know that poor men lose, and rich men gain, Though oft th' unseen adjusts the seeming measure; I know that Guile may teach, while Truth must bow, Or bear contempt and shame on his benignant brow. ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... his forehead and above his ears with a neatness which was not observable in his moments of excitement. To-day he had no work to do: one job was finished and he was only on the threshold of another. As he stood at the bar he looked over the members of the House of Lords with a grave and benignant expression which reminded one of a fond father regarding erring children. I thought of the studious expression which usually characterized the face of that daredevil boy down at Llanystumdwy all those years ago. I am quite sure that the peers who observed him surveying them did not think ...
— Lloyd George - The Man and His Story • Frank Dilnot
... have cheered long hours of solitude, and taken me out of a world, which has averted its once benignant face from me, to one glowing with imagination and power. Will my readers ask how I could find solace from the narration of misery and woeful change? This is one of the mysteries of our nature, which holds full sway over me, and from ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... repose of a finished work before the first mellow touch of decay has come. The full, rich foliage still shelters the paths upon which the leaves have not yet fallen; the meadows are green; the skies soft and benignant. The conquest of summer is still intact, but here and there one sees slight but unmistakable evidence that the garrison, under cover of night, is beginning its long retreat. In such a moment one feels a sudden sense of loneliness, as if a friend ...
— Under the Trees and Elsewhere • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... stiff in the parlour until the Pennimans came rustling down the stairway. He could exult in a long look at the benignant lion back of real bars, but, of course, he could not now reach up to touch the bars. It would do something to his clothes, even if the watchful and upright Merle had not been there to report a ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... the soul whose sullen creed can bind In chains like these the all-embracing Mind; No! two-faced bigot, thou dost ill reprove The sensual, selfish, yet benignant Jove, And praise a tyrant throned in lonely pride, Who loves himself, and cares for naught beside; Who gave thee, summoned from primeval night, A thousand laws, and not a single right,— A heart to feel, and quivering ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... already been said that Grace Crawley was at this time living with the two Miss Prettymans, who kept a girls' school at Silverbridge. Two more benignant ladies than the Miss Prettymans never presided over such an establishment. The younger was fat, and fresh, and fair, and seemed to be always running over with the milk of human kindness. The other was very thin and very small, and ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... a tempter prowls malignant, The cruel Nidhug from the world below. He hates that asa-light whose rays benignant On th' hero's brow and glitt'ring ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... persistent winds that, for purposes of exploration, would prove equally serviceable and sure. From time immemorial the dweller on the Nile has been led to regard his river in the light of a benignant deity. If he wished to travel down its course he had but to entrust his vessel to the stream, and this would carry him. If, again, he wished to retrace his course, he had but to raise a sail, and the prevalent wind, conquering ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... strange to see, amidst the peaceful, benignant faces, this woe-begone old man, with his thick white hair and his deeply furrowed placid cheeks, looking wistfully from one to the other, and listening anxiously, hoping some day to hear the words which should ...
— Skipper Worse • Alexander Lange Kielland
... seen And have known, Benignant eyes, nobility of mien, A scarf from off a perfect shoulder blown, Solicitude, white ardor in a face, Motions like water under the moon's grace,— I wonder much how men can be so base, ...
— Perpetual Light • William Rose Benet
... back head bent meekly down; a look of devout inspiration was visible on the thin lips and in the veiled eyes; the whole figure of the man seemed to have grown smaller, the shoulders contracted, the breast receded; he had now the air of a gracious and benignant missionary. ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... the other proceeded to arrange the empty cot. In the same cot, the same sheets, and on the very pillow from which the dead had just been removed, they laid the helpless woman. Upon her fair hands and face still rested the dust that had been gathering upon her from the street. But under our benignant Common Council, the largest hospital in America contained no bath for its patients, though the Croton water gushed everywhere around the building. There was a shower bath for punishment of the penitentiary women, but for ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... temple; pillars rear on high, "In place of crotchets; yellow turns the straw, "The roof seems gilded; sculptur'd shine the gates; "And marble pavement covers all the floor. "Then Saturn's son, in these benignant words "The pair address'd;—O, ancient man, most just! "And thou, O woman! worthy of thy spouse, "Declare your wishes.—Baucis spoke awhile "With old Philemon; then their joint desire "The latter to the deities declar'd.— "To be your ministers, your sacred fane "To keep ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... morning's drive. By her side stood an infirm old man, M. La Marche. He was pale and trembling, and his fainting heart, in view of the approaching terror, almost ceased to beat. She sustained him by her arm, and addressed to him words of consolation and encouragement, in cheerful accents and with a benignant smile. The poor old man felt that God had sent an angel to strengthen him in the dark hour of death. As the cart heavily rumbled along the pavement, drawing nearer and nearer to the guillotine, two or three times, by her cheerful words, she even caused a ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... Linwood, at this time were not robed in any other than their ordinary attire; perhaps that was one reason why their maintenance of their characters was not quite so perfect as that of the principal two. Hamilton stretched forward his wooden sceptre to the queen with benignant haste and dignity. Daisy, only too glad to shrink away, closed her eyes and lay back in the arms of her attendants in a manner that was really very satisfactory. But the attendants ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... listened quietly to the enumeration of all our leader's admirable qualities and perfections without moving a muscle of his face; but finally, when the interpreter had finished, he rose slowly, walked up to the Major with imperturbable gravity, and with the most benignant and patronising condescension, patted him softly on the head! The Major turned red and broke into a laugh; but he never tried again to ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... wholly regained its normal beat. Not only was she to see Pete again, and see him under the gaze of her united family, but she was to see this mother of his, whom he loved and admired so much. She pictured her as white-haired, benignant, brooding, the essential mother, with all her own mother's grace and charm left out, yet with these qualities not ill replaced by others which Mathilde sometimes dimly apprehended were lacking in her own beautiful parent. She ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller
... act of public good-will, and prepared to respond in a fitting manner. He was standing on the prow at the time, and drawing his tall form to its full height, he regarded the crowd for a moment with a benignant smile; after which he removed his hat and bowed ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... Lower Chaldaea. The latter country, or, at least, a certain portion of it, would thus be a kind of holy-land where those Semites whose earliest traditions were connected with its soil would think themselves assured of a more tranquil repose and of protection from more benignant deities. The soil of Assyria itself would receive none but the corpses of those slaves and paupers who, counting for nothing in their lives, would be buried when dead in the first convenient corner, without epitaph ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... calculated to make Edward or Elinor more easy, nor to conciliate the good will of Lucy, who looked up at Marianne with no very benignant expression. ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... personality, in contact with which the soul of the hearer or spectator may be heated. A personality of any sort is asked for in this case; its moral significance is excluded: let it be sad or glad, enthusiastic or distrustful, sentimental or sarcastic, benignant or malign, but it must be a soul. Art criticism would seem to consist altogether in determining if there be a personality in the work of art, and of what sort. A work that is a failure is an incoherent work; that is to say, a ...
— Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic • Benedetto Croce
... risen to its customary sonority; his eyes were twinkling; all the hard lines had become benignant wrinkles of Olympian charm. "Yes, yes! You and this funny tourist! What a desert it is! I wonder—now, I wonder if he will go aboard the Pullman in that stage costume. But come, come, Mary! It's bedtime for all pastoral ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... in her turret, serene and benignant, Sat in the midst of her children and maidens, a household mother; Want, and the sons of penury dwell not among her neighbours; Full is her heart of love: her hands wipe the tears of another, Yet brings she the gold and the pearls of her ...
— The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems • Kate Seymour Maclean
... of use; aid &c. 707. Adj. benevolent; kind, kindly; well-meaning; amiable; obliging, accommodating, indulgent, gracious, complacent, good-humored. warm-hearted, kind-hearted, tender-hearted, large-hearted, broad- hearted; merciful &c. 914; charitable, beneficent, humane, benignant; bounteous, bountiful. good-natured, well-natured; spleenless[obs3]; sympathizing, sympathetic; complaisant &c. (courteous) 894; well-meant, well-intentioned. fatherly, motherly, brotherly, sisterly; paternal, maternal, fraternal; sororal[obs3]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... so, Eliza! on that face of thine, On that benignant face, whose look alone (The soul's translucence thro' her crystal shrine!) Has power to soothe all anguish ...
— Poems of Coleridge • Coleridge, ed Arthur Symons
... antohs and attract benignant ones is the problem in the life philosophy of the Dayaks. The evil ones not only make him ill and cause his death, but they are at the bottom of all troubles in life. In order to attract the good ones sacrifices are ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... withdraw himself and his forces peaceably. These thoughts flashed through Don Sebastian's brain while George was still speaking; and by the time that the latter had finished, His Excellency had formulated his plans and was ready to reply. Hence his benignant smile, which was intended to suggest also a tinge of sarcasm ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... ever occur to you that he was in some points like Ben Franklin? a kind of rhymed Ben Franklin? The practical tendency of his mind was the same; his love of science was the same; his benignant, philosophic spirit was the same; and a vast number of his little poetic maxims and sooth-sayings seem nothing more than the worldly ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... rounded. At the same time Miss Mattock exchanged a smile with her hostess, of whose benignant designs in handing her to the entertaining officer she was not conscious. She felt bound to look happy to gratify an excellent lady presiding over the duller half of a table of eighteen. She turned slightly to Captain ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... delay at Mudros; Major Hardy told us that he had been appointed Brigade Major to our own brigade, his predecessor having been killed on Fusilier Bluff by the whizz-bang gun; and the M.L.O. shone over all like a benignant angel. ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... down some swart abysm he had gone, Had not a heavenly guide benignant led To where thick myrtle branches, 'gainst his head Brushing, awakened: then the sounds again 380 Went noiseless as a passing noontide rain Over a bower, where little space he stood; For as the sunset peeps into a wood So saw he panting ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats |
