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Edifying   /ˈɛdəfˌaɪɪŋ/   Listen
Edifying

adjective
1.
Enlightening or uplifting so as to encourage intellectual or moral improvement.  Synonym: enlightening.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Edifying" Quotes from Famous Books



... another doctrine of this holy maid, the which she used to say to herself in edifying ...
— The Cell of Self-Knowledge - Seven Early English Mystical Treaties • Various

... converted character, ain't he, Doctor?" sarcastically remarked Quick, who had been watching this edifying scene. "Nasty Eastern temper all gone; no Hebrew talk of eye for eye or tooth for tooth, but kisses the fist that smote him in the best Christian spirit. All the same, I wouldn't trust the swine further than I could kick him, especially in the dark, which," he added meaningly, ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard

... night-time were absolutely in the dark. Not a single ray of gaslight illuminated them. The doers of evil liked such places; and the courts at nightfall were often full, and sounds the reverse of edifying were apt to ...
— A Girl of the People • L. T. Meade

... telephone-message sent to the bank to announce the murder of M. d'Ormeval, which stops all payments. The upshot of all this is that the police, if you persist in your schemes of revenge, will have in their hands all the proofs that are wanted against you and your brother. I might add, as an edifying piece of evidence, the story of the conversation which I overheard between your brother and yourself in a dining-car on the railway between Brest and Paris, a fortnight ago. But I feel sure that you will not drive me to adopt these extreme measures and that we understand ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc

... more. When the study of the Irish literary records is revived, as it certainly will be revived, the old history of each of these raths and cromlechs will be brought again into the light, and one new interest of a beautiful and edifying nature attached to the landscape, and affecting wholly for good the ...
— Early Bardic Literature, Ireland • Standish O'Grady

... [Footnote 1: The edifying correspondence between the Porte and its commissary Vorgorides regarding the arrangements for the Rumanian elections fell into the hands of Rumanian politicians, and caused a great sensation when it appeared in L'Etoile du Danube, published ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth

... of the relative value of "national character" as compared with the precious metals, will be very edifying to the creditors ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various

... subjection of individual feeling to mechanic rules. If he finds any one flying in the face of these, or straggling from the beaten path, he thinks he has them at a notable disadvantage, and falls foul of them without loss of time, partly to soothe his own sense of mortified self-consequence, and as an edifying spectacle to his legitimate friends. He takes none but unfair advantages. He twits his adversaries (that is, those who are not in the leading-strings of his school or party) with some personal or accidental defect. If a writer has been punished for a political ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt

... amateur was so lucky as to discover the MS. book of prayers of Julie's noble mother, the Marquise de Rambouillet. The Marquise wrote these prayers for her own devotions, and Jarry, the illuminator, declared that he found them most edifying, and delightful to study. The manuscript is written on vellum by the famous Jarry, contains a portrait of the fair Julie herself, and is bound in morocco by Le Gascon. The happy collector who possesses the volume ...
— The Library • Andrew Lang

... his goblet with satisfaction. And, rising to his firm and graceful height, he strolled away toward the salon where play progressed amid the most decorous and edifying of atmospheres. ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers

... great mistake to suppose that the money-gathering efficacy of Mr. Booth's fiscal agencies is exhausted by the foregoing enumeration of their regular operations. Consider the following edifying history of ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley

... a picturesque circle of tents and tepees around the town. It was a great occasion for them, an Indian powwow, for by the law all Indians who had lands in severalty were to be permitted to vote the following year. They were present, therefore, to study the ways of the white man, and an edifying exhibition of these was ...
— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw

... trustees sitting around a green baize table. That detestable class, however, who thrive on opening their hearts and dilating on their spiritual experiences, could talk to him, as he would say, in a "most edifying and godly manner," and through him, in consequence, reap all the pecuniary advantages within his ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe

... and gentlemanlike, his manners bland and pleasant. He was an honest man, and expressed himself decidedly and emphatically, but never bluntly or vulgarly.—Mr. Emerson was a man of good sense. His conversation was edifying and useful; never foolish or undignified.—In his theological opinions he was, to say the least, far from having any sympathy with Calvinism. I have not supposed that he was, like Dr. Freeman, a Humanitarian, though he may ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... snubbed home again for his pains. The Mother Superior, in fact, soon towered into a greatness far beyond the reach of ordinary persons. She kept her own tame chaplain, and she kept him in a very edifying subjugation. From a realm completely her own, the influence of woman began to tell upon the world without. Little colonies of Sisters, planted here and there, annexed parish after parish. Astonished congregations ...
— The True Woman • Justin D. Fulton

... Parson's Tale is believed to be a translation, more or less free, from some treatise on penitence that was in favour about Chaucer's time. Tyrwhitt says: "I cannot recommend it as a very entertaining or edifying performance at this day; but the reader will please to remember, in excuse both of Chaucer and of his editor, that, considering The Canterbury Tales as a great picture of life and manners, the piece would not have been complete ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer

... the first novelty, things seemed pretty much the same as before. Bessie Osbourne was not so different from Bessie Hall. She might have appreciated that as significant; but doubtless she had never heard the edifying jingle of the unfortunate youth who "wandered over all the earth" without ever finding "the land where he would like to stay," and all because he was injudicious enough to take "his disposition with him everywhere he went." It was as if she had been going in a circle from right ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden

... me! some newly put up, and others mossy and grey; it was a humbling yet an edifying sight, preaching, as forcibly as ever Maister Wiggie did in his best days, of the vanity and the passingness of all human enjoyments. Mouldered to dust beneath the tufts lay the blithe laddies with whom ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir

... everything that is said to them, without proving it by the word and Spirit of God, they believe that God "gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ"; and, like Cornelius, they are ready to hear these appointed ministers, and receive the word ...
— When the Holy Ghost is Come • Col. S. L. Brengle

... work which should chronicle the opposite course, which should trace out all the devious courses through which a man of the world, a man of ambitions, drags his conscience, just steering clear of crime that he may gain his end and yet save appearances, such a chronicle would be no less edifying ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac

... company agreed that this was extremely shocking, and piously denounced all evil-disposed persons in a style which Aubrey thought most edifying. As he walked back later, he meditated whether he should make those inquiries of Lady Oxford that night, and decided not to do so. No real Papist or traitor, thought the innocent youth, would be likely ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt

... temperance and moderation, the practice of the preacher, as sometimes happens, falls very short of his precept. The example of moderation presented to me by my clerical critic does not seem to me very edifying, his impartiality does not appear to be beyond reproach, and in his tone I fail to recognise any of the [Greek: epieikeia] which Mr. Matthew Arnold so justly admires. I shall not emulate the spirit of that article, and I trust that I shall not scant the courtesy with which ...
— A Reply to Dr. Lightfoot's Essays • Walter R. Cassels

... go to bid Jack good-by or not. I have no idea what I shall do, save that I must get away from here for a little while. But if you have any sense of the ordinary decencies of life you will lower your voice. I do not suppose you care to have either your mother or Katie overhear this edifying conversation." ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison

... of stale air. But really that suited them very well: they were afraid of the great modern draughts of air. And if they knew more than other people, they also denied more in art. Their music took on a doctrinal character: there was no relaxation: their concerts were history lectures, or a string of edifying examples. Advanced ideas became academic. The great Bach, he whose music is like a torrent, was received into the bosom of the Church and then tamed. His music was submitted to a transformation in the ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland

... old Ford in the centre of the room, and a couple of lank-haired hypocrites, one on each side of the reprobate, praying till the perspiration streamed down their foreheads, to pray the devil out of him. The ohs! and the groanings of the audience were terrible; and the whole scene, though very edifying to the elect, was disgraceful to any sect who lived ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard

... been heedless of mine affair, and had not God overcome me with His mercy and put this woman at my service, so she might adduce to me manifest instances and truthful cases and goodly admonitions and edifying traits, such as should restore me to the [right] road, [I had come to perdition!]. Wherefore to God be the praise for this and I beseech Him to make my end with her like unto that of the vizier and Shah Bekht." Then sleep ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne

... the shipwreck had been spoken of as particularly fine. I read it. Not long since several accounts of actual shipwrecks and disasters at sea were published[159:1]. Some of these accounts, are among the most interesting and edifying narratives, that I am acquainted with. They abound in instances of heroic courage, of unshaken endurance, of a noble disregard of self, of the warmest benevolence, and of the most exalted piety. Don Juan seems to have taken a wayward pleasure in culling from these ...
— Advice to a Young Man upon First Going to Oxford - In Ten Letters, From an Uncle to His Nephew • Edward Berens

... street was filled with a fashionable mob, including ladies of the highest rank. An admission by noble non-subscribers with notes, gold, and cheques in hands, was begged for with a polite insinuating humility that was quite edifying. A hatful of ten-guinea subscriptions was thrust upon the unwilling secretary at the door with as much eagerness as if he had been the allotter of shares in a ten per cent railway in the day of Hudsonian guarantees. And it must be observed ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey

... neglected no means for the furtherance of this good work, through the agency of missionaries exclusively devoted to it, who were to establish their residence among the natives, and win them to the true faith by their instructions, and the edifying example of their own lives. It was with the design of ameliorating the condition of the natives, that she sanctioned the introduction into the colonies of negro slaves born in Spain. This she did on the representation that ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott

... beholds you can be severe upon you, it is true; but remember, it is your duty to keep watch over your soul, that it may be ever in harmony with that of your wedded husband." "Soul!" cried Undine, laughing; "that sounds very fine, and for most people may be very edifying and moral advice. But if one has no soul at all, pray how is one to keep watch over it? And that is my case." The Priest was deeply hurt, and turned away his face in mingled sorrow and anger. But she ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various

... shall choose to take and to let other people take concerning things, and as to the way of expressing those views which shall give least trouble. If we express ourselves in one way we find our ideas in confusion and our action impotent: if in another our ideas cohere harmoniously, and our action is edifying. The convenience of least disturbing vested ideas, and at the same time rearranging our views in accordance with new facts that come to our knowledge, this is our proper care. But it is idle to say we do not know anything about things—perhaps ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler

... monthly volume for a pittance of L20: of him we need not speak. But the translator at his best, works, when reproducing the matter and the manner of his original, upon two distinct lines. His prime and primary object is to please his reader, edifying him and gratifying his taste; the second is to produce an honest and faithful copy, adding naught to the sense or abating aught of its especial cachet. He has, however, or should have, another aim wherein is displayed the acme of hermeneutic art. Every language can profitably ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus

... my debut because of its remoteness from home,—I looked in, the evening of my arrival, to see the performances at the theatre. It was a hall of humble dimensions, seating an audience of five or six hundred. The piece was a travesty of "Hamlet," neither edifying nor amusing. A little of the couleur-de-rose which had flushed my prospect faded that night; but the few friends at home to whom I had confided my plans had so pertinaciously assured me that I—the most diffident man in the world—could never appear before ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various

... maidens upon their lovers, and with them the portions allotted by the state, constituted the first, and in the eyes of the masses, the most agreeable part of the spectacle. The Doge, on this occasion, who was the thrice renowned Pietro Candiano, "did his spiriting gently," and in a highly edifying manner. The bishop bestowed his blessings, and confirmed by the religious, the civil rites, which allied the chosen couples. To these succeeded the voluntary parties, if we may thus presume upon a distinction between the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 5 November 1848 • Various

... State should conduct the education of all its citizens. To it, then, the church can appear only as a school, for the church instructs its own people concerning the nature of religion, partly by teaching proper, that of the catechism, partly in quite as edifying a way, by preaching. From this point of view, the State can look upon the church only as one of those schools which prepare for a special avocation. The church appears to the State as that school which assumes the task of educating the religious element. Just ...
— Pedagogics as a System • Karl Rosenkranz

... plain man on such matters as these are not very clear, and what he says about sensations and things is not always edifying. But it is clear that he feels strongly that the man who would identify them is obliterating a distinction to which his experience testifies unequivocally. We must not hastily disregard his protest. He is sometimes right in his feeling ...
— An Introduction to Philosophy • George Stuart Fullerton

... he was occupied in religious duties, in 'giving Francis, his servant, some directions for preparation to communicate; in reviewing his life, and resolving on better conduct.' The humility and piety which he discovers on such occasions, is truely edifying. No saint, however, in the course of his religious warfare, was more sensible of the unhappy failure of pious resolves, than Johnson. He said one day, talking to an acquaintance on this subject, 'Sir Hell is ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell

... is not quite becoming to speak thus of your dead husband. No doubt you speak the truth: there is no telling what sort of person you may have married in what still seems to me unseemly haste to provide me with a successor: but even so, a little charitable prevarication would be far more edifying." ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell

... with mingled reverence and terror. "A strange person, your master," observed I. "Signor," replied the faithful Sancho Panza, "e veramente grand uomo, ma da non potersi comprendere." "He is truly a great man, but quite incomprehensible." It was edifying to observe the awful importance with which Antonio bore the instrument nightly intrusted to his charge to carry to and from the theatre. He considered it an animated something, whether demon or angel he was unable to determine, but this he firmly believed, that it could speak in actual dialogue ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various

... to the city in the year 1686, by Duke Ernest of Brunswick. This excellent prince having sold a great part of his subjects to the Republic for use in its wars against the Turk, generously spent their price in the costly and edifying entertainments of which Venice had already become the scene. The Judgment of Paris, and the Triumph of the Marine Goddesses had been represented at his expense on the Grand Canal, with great acceptance. And now the Triumph of ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells

... Lorsch, for certain friends at Passau, and for other friends in Bohemia, for the monastery at Tegernsee, for the monastery at Preyal, for that at Obermunster, and for my sister's son. Moreover, I sent and gave at different times sermons, proverbs, and edifying writings. Afterward old age's infirmities of various kinds hindered me." Surely Othlonus was justified in retiring when his time came, and enjoying some respite ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison

... and to insist on analysis and verification. Evidently all forms of suggestion tend to create an atmosphere of delusion. Pathos increases the atmosphere of delusion. It introduces elements which corrupt the judgment. In effect, it continues the old notion that there are edifying falsehoods and useful deceits. The masses always infuse a large emotional element into all their likes and dislikes, approval and disapproval. Hence, in time, they surround what they accept with pathos which it is hard to ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner

... which he held in his hand, that he paid no attention to the objects which were passing around him. Deep thought appeared to reign on his brow, and his eye was of that piercing kind which seems designed to search and winnow the frivolous from the edifying part of human discussion, and limit its inquiry to the last. Raising his eyes slowly from the parchment on which he had been gazing, the look of Agelastes—for it was the sage himself—encountered those of Count Robert and his lady, and addressing them, with the kindly epithet of "my children," ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott

... work of Engrand le Prince, about 1570 or 1580, in whose branches, among the fourteen ancestors of the Virgin, three-fourths bore features of the Kings of France, among them Francis I and Henry II, who were hardly more edifying than Kings of Israel, and at least unusual as sources of divine purity. Compared with the still more famous Tree of Jesse at Chartres, dating from 1150 or thereabouts, must one declare that Engrand le Prince proved progress? and in what direction? ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams

... was accustomed to the feverish, football methods of American business life, all this was vastly edifying and instructive; it was even soothing, although he was vaguely offended to note that passers-by avoided him ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach

... a patriot of unquestioned zeal; but I am inclined to think his extraction was similar to that of Macfarlane, for he combined patriotism with profit in a most edifying manner. He shaved the German officers during the whole of their stay in St. Meuse; he accompanied them on their march to the frontier; he earned the last centime in Conflans; and then, driving forward to the frontier line, he unfurled the tricolour ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes

... command) unfold the leaves on which the destiny of that once powerful kingdom is inscribed." It is impossible not to regret that Mr. Hancock should thus have let "I dare not, wait upon I would." It would have been exceedingly edifying to have known beforehand all the terrible things the republic was about to ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope

... add a remark not so edifying. Pope went down to his grave soon afterwards, without exciting suspicion except among two or three people intimately concerned. A whisper of doubt was soon hushed. Even the biographers who were on the track of his former deception ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen

... brought yourself into this edifying state of fanaticism, "remove from the patient all persons who might be troublesome to you: keep with you only the necessary witnesses — a single person, if need be; desire them not to occupy themselves in any way with the processes ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay

... and convinced Whig might seem a little dubious, by the famous lampoons of the Plymley Letters, advocating the claims of Catholic emancipation, and extolling Fox and Grenville at the expense of Perceval and Canning. Very edifying is it to find Sydney Smith objecting to this latter that he is a "diner out," a "maker of jokes and parodies," a trifler on important subjects—in fact each and all of the things which the Rev. Sydney Smith himself was, in a perfection ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury

... wished to learn was, did the rector know of any family among his parishioners at whose table he could find his daily bread for a reasonable consideration. Loring, as has been seen, was a man to whom the converse of his fellow-men, as found upon our frontier, was neither edifying nor improving. He preferred the society of his own thoughts. The rector, the General (Colonel Newcome, it will be remembered, always accorded the head of column to the church), the adjutant-general of the new department ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King

... of the Museum shown to the general public. They are now in the more private room, and the reason of their withdrawal is, that, according to the Chaplain of Newgate, the practice of garroting was suggested to the English thieves by this representation of Indian Thugs. It is edifying, after what I have written in the preceding paragraph, to find that the only lesson known to have been inculcated here is that of a ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... the intrusion of many strangers, who came to look upon them from motives of curiosity. The universal Yankee nation is a self-elected Investigating Committee, which never adjourns its sessions. This is amusing, and perhaps edifying, to their own inquiring minds; but William and A-lee-lah had Indian ideas of natural politeness, which made them regard such invasions as ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various

... leaving a quarter of a million, made by selling soft goods and attending church, and with other books relating pathetic anecdotes of boys who died young and, before they died, delighted society with observations of the most edifying character on the shortness of life. We had rather have been a ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren

... advantage. But would anybody believe that it might equally be a sign of something wanting? In any case, only those could believe this who mistake the grotesque for the genial, and the formless for the sublime—is not that so, you dandling favourite of the Graces? We envy no one the edifying moments he may have, either in the stillness of his little private room or in a new heaven specially fitted out for him; but of all possible pleasures of this order, that of Strauss's is surely one of the most wonderful, for he is even edified by ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche

... my husband was introduced an hour afterwards, I will not trust myself to write. I was not, of course, in a very agreeable humor; and the record of what I said and did, and of how I looked, would be in no way flattering to my own good opinion of myself, nor prove particularly edifying to the reader. ...
— Trials and Confessions of a Housekeeper • T. S. Arthur

... cover of a slim parchment volume he deciphered the faded legend, hand-written, in rust-coloured ink, "De tintinnabulis by Jerome Magius, 1664"; then, pell-mell, there were: A curious and edifying miscellany concerning church bells by Dom Remi Carre; another Edifying miscellany, anonymous; a Treatise of bells by Jean-Baptiste Thiers, curate of Champrond and Vibraye; a ponderous tome by an architect named Blavignac; a smaller work entitled Essay on the symbolism of bells ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans

... understanding spiritually, by clear and crafty utterance of words, may be so well ordered and uttered: that these things corporeal may be coupled with things spiritual, and that these things visible may be conjoined with things Invisible. Excited by these causes to the edifying of the people contained in our Christian faith of almighty Christ Jesus, whose majesty divine is incomprehensible: and of whom to speak it becometh no man, but with great excellent worship and honour, and with an inward dreadful fear. Loth to offend, I purpose to say somewhat under the correction ...
— Mediaeval Lore from Bartholomew Anglicus • Robert Steele

... before the present disease had taken root in her constitution. In my visits to her, I went rather to receive information than to impart it. Her mind was abundantly stored with divine truths, and her conversation was truly edifying. The recollection of it will ever produce a ...
— The Annals of the Poor • Legh Richmond

... short-lived rapture, for the spruce young party in the next sketch is balancing lightly between thumb and forefinger what we take to be nothing more or less than a shepherd's crook. This is hardly an edifying prospect. Yet if we do not altogether mistake the two wing-shaped objects projecting from his person, it is not the only feature of gentlemen's fashions twenty years hence which will occasion a shock. Nor must we ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 30, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... am since more correctly informed, that Mr. Cleishbotham died some months since at Gandercleuch, and that the person assuming his name is an impostor. The real Jedediah made a most Christian and edifying end; and, as I am credibly informed, having sent for a Cameronian clergyman when he was in extremis, was so fortunate as to convince the good man, that, after all, he had no wish to bring down on the scattered remnant of Mountain folks, "the bonnets of Bonny Dundee." Hard that the speculators ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott

... and Holy Meditations," collected by the Reverend Henry Bull, when the real world, as Anthony knew it, laughed and rippled and twinkled outside in the humming summer air of the lawn and orchard; or to have to listen to godly discourses, however edifying to elder persons, just at the time when the ghost-moth was beginning to glimmer in the dusk, and the heavy trout to suck down his supper in the glooming pool in ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson

... shall examine is the moralistic or Platonic. According to this, art is an image of the good, and has value in so far as through expression it enables us to experience edifying emotions or to contemplate noble objects. The high beauty of the "Sistine Madonna," for example, would be explained as identical with the worth of the religious feelings which it causes in the mind of the beholder. The advantage of art over life is supposed to consist in its power to create ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker

... compositions by himself and other men, copied in the handwritings of both husband and wife. There are arias written apparently for Anna Magdalena, and when in an unusually domestic humour he wrote in a song, "Edifying Reflections of a Smoker" in D minor, she transposed it up to G minor in her own hand—doubtless that she might sing it to him while he puffed contentment in uxorious ease. Later on ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes

... husbands—God knows I'm not denying them that!—the state ought to see to it. But rights! Pshaw! They'll get so presently they won't know how to bear their wrongs with dignity. And I tell you, doctor, if there's a more edifying sight than a woman bearing her wrongs beautifully, I've never seen it. Why, I remember my Cousin Jenny Tyler—you know she married that scamp who used to drink and throw his boots at her. 'What do you do, Jenny?' I asked, in a boiling rage, when she told me, and ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow

... that Jones—capital company—full of anecdote!—and there they sat every night till just ten minutes before twelve, drinking their brandy-and-water, and smoking their pipes, and telling stories, and enjoying themselves with a kind of solemn joviality particularly edifying. ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens

... displays of learning relieve the general monotony, while considerable intellectual energy is displayed in the discussions; but to see a conclave of learned professors devoting their time to the examination and discussion of Aristotle's writings is about as edifying as to see a geographical society devoting its time to discussing ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887 - Volume 1, Number 7 • Various

... conceal the fact, that it is doubted, if not denied, that there ever was any Gessler in Uri to perform all the wicked things ascribed to him, and to get that arrow through him in such dramatic and effective manner in the Hollow Way; for has not Kopp published, with edifying explanation, "Documents for the History of the Confederation," (Lucerne, 1835,) in which, in the list of Bailiffs (Landvoigte) at Kuessnacht, we do not find the name of Gessler? Perhaps there was a mistake in the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various

... wife and her father were the only mourners among the concourse which followed the coffin to the cemetery. The Catholic pastor, who was often Abonyi's partner at his evening card parties, delivered an edifying address beside the open grave. He took for his text the verse (Matthew v. 44): "But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you," and said a great ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau

... surface-truth enough in these things to save a wiser man. And between whiles I had to look after the savage who was fireman. He was an improved specimen; he could fire up a vertical boiler. He was there below me, and, upon my word, to look at him was as edifying as seeing a dog in a parody of breeches and a feather hat, walking on his hind-legs. A few months of training had done for that really fine chap. He squinted at the steam-gauge and at the water-gauge with ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad

... another year or two, and watching you get changed into a parson. It would have been well worth my while, too. It isn't every sinner like myself that has the chance to see a saint in the making. I should have found it an edifying spectacle." Then suddenly he broke off, and spoke with obvious sincerity. "Hang it all, Scott! What's the use? Chuck theology, and come along with me and be some sort of an engineer, or else the chemist old Mansfield has set his heart on making ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray

... older men seemed to dwell upon these peculiarities of versification as being distinctively ecclesiastical and therefore spiritually edifying, and brought up the musical rear of such couplets with long-drawn and profoundly impressive "shy-un's" and "i-tee's;" but these irregularities found little favor in the eyes of the younger people, who had attended singing-school and learned to read ...
— The Wizard's Daughter and Other Stories • Margaret Collier Graham

... would not quite have relinquished their hold on the matter, but would have held themselves free to consider whether the district in which martial law was exercised was materially affected by the state of war or not. The legal controversy ended in a manner hardly edifying to the layman; in the course of 1865 the Supreme Court solemnly tried out the question of the right of one Milligan to a writ of habeas corpus. At that time the war, the only ground on which the right could ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood

... my peculiar privilege, is utterly unrelated in her mind to salt pork. And she is right about that. No man needs a pig to put in a barrel. Everybody knows that it costs less to buy your pig in the barrel. And there is little that is edifying about a barrel of salt pork. I always try to fill my mind with cheerful thoughts before descending into the dark of the cellar to fish a cold, white lump of the late pig out ...
— The Hills of Hingham • Dallas Lore Sharp

... edifying than to confront a nervous Gorgeous Girl who had discovered that her maid had been reading her ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley

... children, and most affectionate of sisters. They were for three years the support of their father's spirits, and have always been the consolation of their mother. They lost their father about four years ago: and it is even edifying to observe, how elegantly they support the family reputation in their fine old mansion-house by the prudent management of their little income; for the mother leaves every household care to them; and they make it a rule to conclude the year with discharging every demand that can ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson

... of humorous if indignant resignation. "The Raven's Almanack" of the same year, though portentous in its menace of plague, famine, and civil war, is less noticeable for its moral and religious declamation than for its rather amusing than edifying anecdotes; which, it must again be admitted, in their mixture of jocular sensuality with somewhat ferocious humor, rather remind us of King Louis XI. than of that royal novelist's Italian models or precursors. "A Rod for Runaways" is the title of ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... Seemingly regardless of expense, bureaus of information for the Herald were established in every clime. 'Always ahead' seemed to be the motto of James Gordon Bennett, and surely enterprise was no small factor in the phenomenal success of the Herald. The tone, it has been said, was not always so edifying as that of its contemporaries, the Post and Commercial, still every article was piercing as a Damascus blade. To buy one paper meant to become afterwards one of its customers. It was indeed astonishing what a variety ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis

... claims of the Hohenzollerns that they have been in modern Europe the champions of the Protestant religion and at the same time the apostles of toleration. Is not the Kaiser the supreme head of his Church and the Anointed of the Lord? Does not he still preach edifying sermons to his soldiers and sailors? And does he not at the same time extend his Imperial protection over believers of ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea

... are those who have lent themselves with such delight to the execution of bad laws? of laws that, for the sake of religion and Christianity, never ought to have been effected? Are they men of moral and Christian lives? men whose walk has been edifying in the sight of their fellows? are they men to whom society could look up as examples of private virtue and the decorous influence of religion? are they men who, on the Sabbath of God, repair with their wives and families to his holy worship? ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... that the crime of witchcraft (capitally punished as it was when discovered) was not frequent among the chosen people, who enjoyed such peculiar manifestations of the Almighty's presence. The Scriptures seem only to have conveyed to us the general fact (being what is chiefly edifying) of the interview between the witch and the King of Israel. They inform us that Saul, disheartened and discouraged by the general defection of his subjects, and the consciousness of his own unworthy and ungrateful disobedience, despairing of ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott

... you,' said our host. 'I have been there twice. The first time was in the days of the Rump, when Lambert brought in his division to overawe the Commons. I was then quartered at the sign of the Four Crosses in Southwark, then kept by a worthy man, one John Dolman, with whom I had much edifying speech concerning predestination. All was quiet and sober then, I promise you, and you might have walked from Westminster to the Tower in the dead of the night without hearing aught save the murmur ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle

... those parts. At New-York, for instance, the infringement on civil or domestic liberty is become notorious, notwithstanding the political controversies of the inhabitants in praise of liberty; but no panegyric on this subject (howsoever elegant in itself) can be graceful or edifying from the mouth or pen of one of those provincials, because men who do not scruple to detain others in slavery, have but a very partial and unjust claim to the protection of the laws of liberty; and ...
— Some Historical Account of Guinea, Its Situation, Produce, and the General Disposition of Its Inhabitants • Anthony Benezet

... handbills, and they studded the multitudinous pork butchers' windows in juxtaposition with cruel-looking black puddings and over-fat loin chops. I determined I would go, if not to the tea, certainly to the "Experience," for I like novel experiences of all kinds: and this would certainly be new, whether edifying or not. ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies

... others came home, and so two months were they at home, and Adonias was overseer and commander on them. Solomon had seventy thousand men that did nothing but bear stone and mortar and other things to the edifying of the temple, and were bearers of burdens only, and he had eighty thousand of hewers of stone and masons in the mountain, without the prefects and masters, which were three thousand three hundred that did nothing but ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells

... been one or two scandals about the Orpheum which had reached the public Press—scandals of a not particularly edifying character. But Pinto had managed to ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace

... he quickly turned to the service for the ordering of deacons. "The first question here put to the candidate for holy orders is, 'Do you trust that you are inwardly moved by the Holy Ghost, to take upon you this office and ministration, to serve God for the promoting of His glory and the edifying of His people?' Now, Meredith, I ask you to think, whether, with such sentiments as you have just expressed, you can dare to answer, 'I ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May

... perhaps in the time of David or Solomon, which J and E inserted in their narrative. Some recent critics,[5] however, are inclined to place them in the post-exilic period, in which case a late editor has substituted them for earlier, probably less edifying, oracles. But the features which are held to indicate late date may be due ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various

... arose the edifying brow-beating, customary on such points. First of all, Mr. Winkle said it was quite impossible for him to say how many times he had seen Mrs. Bardell. Then he was asked if he had seen her twenty times, to which he replied, 'Certainly,—more ...
— Bardell v. Pickwick • Percy Fitzgerald

... in a fairy ring, which might be supposed at first sight to be an illustration of a nursery tale, but the text describing a Witch's Sabbath, rapidly dispels the idea. Nor does a version of the popular Faust legend—"Dr. John Faustus"—appear to be edifying for young people. This and "Friar Bacon" are of the class which lingered the longest—the magical and oracular literature. Even to-day it is quite possible that dream-books and prophetical pamphlets enjoy a large sale; but a few years ago many were to be found in the catalogues of publishers who ...
— Children's Books and Their Illustrators • Gleeson White

... interrupted the Duchessa, grasping at any straw by which she could drag the extraordinary young princess within conceivable distance of what she herself considered socially proper. "And you spend your time in good works, in the village, of course, and in edifying conversation with Don Teodoro. Yes—I see! As you put it at first, it was a little startling, but I understand it better now. You understand it, Pompeo, do you not? It is quite ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford

... the finer attention. The plain and happy profusions and advances and successes, as one looks back, reflect themselves at every turn; the quick beats of material increase and multiplication, with plenty of people to tell of them and throw up their caps for them; but the edifying matters to recapture would be the adventures of the "higher criticism" so far as there was any—and so far too as it might bear on the real quality and virtue of things; the state of manners, the terms of intercourse, the care for excellence, the sense of ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James

... usually begins with the scrutinio, or, as we should term it, the ballot. Each cardinal writes his own name and that of his candidate on a ticket. Then, with many ceremonies and genuflections, not very edifying to profane eyes, if profane eyes were permitted to see them, but each of which has its mystical interpretation, he ascends to the altar and lays his ticket on the communion-plate, whence it is transferred to the chalice,—communion-plate and communion-cup playing a part in the ceremony which ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... vague uneasiness sets Richardson to work on the style, unable to locate the center of his trouble. On page v "strongly interest them in the edifying Story" becomes "attach their regard to the Story," but this is barely to nibble at his phrase "so probable, so natural, so lively" just preceding, which perished ...
— Samuel Richardson's Introduction to Pamela • Samuel Richardson

... seems to me that I had better make an analysis and criticism of the "Inquiry," the backbone of the essay—as it touches all the problems which interest us most just now. I have already sketched out a chapter on Miracles, which will, I hope, be very edifying in consequence of its entire agreement with the orthodox arguments against Hume's a priori ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley

... for escape from this palace of his desires, when one morning, just as one venerable mandarin was saying to another, in their usual edifying style of conversation, "Pelican of the Morning, before the magic charm of thy lofty countenance I am spell-bound, like an albatross bewildered amid the flapping sails of a mighty—" down burst the door with a crash, and a lion rushed roaring in among them. What a scrambling ...
— The Magician's Show Box and Other Stories • Lydia Maria Child

... same time, at Altona, accepted as members of the body of Christ [the Labadist church].... She loved her husband tenderly, but when God called him elsewhere, to the service of His work and children, she embraced His will therein with much love; which was especially edifying in her, since before this, when she was living in the world, she was wont to be in great anxiety whenever he was away from home on their own concerns. At Bremen, when a portion of our community was there, then at Altona, and here in Friesland, ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts

... of criminals chained in pairs and kept at hard labour would not be very edifying to ...
— The Querist • George Berkeley

... by merely thinking of her in this manner—as "this extraordinarily good-looking girl," and had not, for a moment, hesitated before the edifying idea of its not being impossible to arrange a lively flirtation with her. She was at an age when, in his opinion, girlhood was poised for flight with adventure, and his tastes had not led him in the direction of youth which was ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... differences and their passionate sympathies, throw light on each other, and the agreeable pages achieve a double end, without ever affecting the real unity of the book. Thus handled, biography, so often the drudge of literature, rises into its high places and becomes a delight instead of an edifying or ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume II • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... mention of angling. Our new acquaintance had quite subjects enough without touching upon that. In eating, for instance, he might fairly be called learned. Mrs. Dunbar's cuisine was excellent, and he not only praised the different dishes in a most scientific and edifying manner, but volunteered a recipe for certain little mutton pies, the fashion of the season. In drinking he was equally at home. Edward had produced his father's choicest hermitage and lachryma, and he seemed to ...
— The London Visitor • Mary Russell Mitford

... it was explained, like that of their having darted into a public institution. Then no doubt it would hang together with the rest only too well. The explanation most exact would probably be that the pair had snatched a walk together (in the course of a day of many edifying episodes) for the 'lark' of it, and for the sake of the walk had taken the risk, which in that part of London, so detached from all gentility, had appeared to them small. The last thing Selina could have expected was to meet her sister in such a strange corner—her ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James

... should have seen me that morning, for I was bedecked in all my finery, and upon entering Noo-koom's lodge, I seized Ojistoh by the hair of her head, and dragged her out. Her struggles to escape from me were quite edifying in their propriety. Her shrieks were heartrending—or rather, they would have been had they not alternated with delighted giggles. By that time the wedding march had begun; for as we struggling lovers led the way, the children, bubbling with laughter, ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming

... found, its methods were providentially chosen by a process of spiritual selection. Its agencies are the accretions of the Divine purpose in its progress toward the salvation of the undermost, and the edifying of the whole body of Christ. To the production of its unique Christian institutions the exclusive devotion to the study of the peculiar conditions of these entirely distinct communities was necessary. There have been generated by this devotion and acquired through ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 12, December, 1889 • Various

... whether he was here at all, does not concern any of us especially, except Lydia, who having a turn for history is always determined to find out how, why, when, and where. I am glad that she does care, as her example is edifying to us all, especially so to Christine and Lisa, who follow her about and ask questions to their hearts' content, which she is never tired of answering. The garden, we revelled in, and found it hard to believe that the terrace, which rises to a height ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton

... English language." The delight of the host must have been at least equalled by the delight of the guest in conversation which was thus ever taking new turns, branching into topical surprises, and at all turns and on every topic was luminous, high, edifying, full. ...
— Burke • John Morley

... fact that of that class of literature to which Munchausen belongs, that namely of Voyages Imaginaires, the three great types should have all been created in England. Utopia, Robinson Crusoe, and Gulliver, illustrating respectively the philosophical, the edifying, and the satirical type of fictitious travel, were all written in England, and at the end of the eighteenth century a fourth type, the fantastically mendacious, was evolved in this country. Of this type Munchausen ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe

... their own, would endeavour after a handsome elocution[40], and all those other talents that are proper to enforce what has been penned by greater masters. This would not only be more easy to themselves, but more edifying to the people. ...
— The De Coverley Papers - From 'The Spectator' • Joseph Addison and Others

... had been long prepared, was fine-edifying and very Christian-like. He was universally regretted. A joke of his with the King is still remembered. One day, at dinner, where he always paid much attention to the Cardinal, the King complained of the inconvenience he felt in no longer ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon

... edifying his hearers with an explanation of the drama of The Corsican Brothers, and his eloquence, unlike that of the other speakers, was largely inspired by the hope of pennies. It was a novel idea, and his interpretation was rendered very amusing ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... would meet in "Antiquity Hall," an old house near Wadham, and smoke their honest pipes. They held certain of the opinions of "the Hebdomadal Meeting," satirised by Steele in the Spectator (No. 43). "We are much offended at the Act for importing French wines. A bottle or two of good solid Edifying Port, at honest George's, made a Night cheerful, and threw off Reserve. But this plaguy French Claret will not only cost us more Money but do us less good." Hearne had a poor opinion of "Captain Steele," and of "one Tickle: this Tickle is a pretender to poetry." He admits that, ...
— Oxford • Andrew Lang

... of industrious sittings. A pressman whom I knew told me "He's an idiot." Which was possible. Before that I overheard once somebody declaring that he had a criminal type of face; which I knew was untrue. The sentence was pronounced by artificial light in a stifling poisonous atmosphere. Something edifying was said by the judge weightily, about the retribution overtaking the perpetrator of "the most heartless frauds on an unprecedented scale." I don't understand these things much, but it appears that he had juggled with ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad

... am standing so far below it! I, too, have on my bureau a bust of our great Poquelin, but Madame Desvanneaux thinks that this author's style is somewhat too pornographic, and has ordered me to replace his profane image by the more edifying one of our charitable patron, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... in the United States is spoken of as being in a condition of even more desperate degradation. The writer's remarks on that subject will not specially interest our readers; but we trust that what we have given above from his strictures will be edifying to all whom ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various

... hushing up and wiping up among the juvenile population, and a series of remarks commences from the various shelves of a very edifying and instructive tendency. One says that the woman did not seem to know where anything was; another says that she has waked them all up; a third adds that she has waked up all the children, too; and the elderly ladies make moral reflections on the importance of ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn

... the intercalated anecdotes which do not touch the story itself. The wicked man's career is not brought to the abrupt or sensational issues so much in favour with ordinary didactic tale-writers. Such issues are the exception, not the rule, and the edifying story loses its effect when the reader turns from it to actual life, and perceives that the majority are not punished in any such way. Bunyan conceals nothing, assumes nothing, and exaggerates nothing. He makes his bad man sharp and shrewd. He allows ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude

... into the upper galleries. Yet the private dreams of Miss Winchelsea, already vivid and concrete enough, became now realistic in the highest degree. She figured that pleasant young man, lecturing in the most edifying way to his students, herself modestly prominent as his intellectual mate and helper; she figured a refined little home, with two bureaus, with white shelves of high-class books, and autotypes of the pictures of Rossetti and Burne-Jones, with Morris's ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells

... volumes of the MEMORIALS OF OLD LONDON should appear when the minds of the people of England are concerned with this wonderful panorama of the past history of the chief city of the Empire. The Pageant will be all very beautiful, very grand, instructive and edifying, and profoundly interesting; but, after all, London needs no Pageant to set forth its attractions, historical and spectacular. London is in itself a Pageant. The street names, the buildings, cathedral, churches, prisons, theatres, the river with ...
— Memorials of Old London - Volume I • Various

... a few rings of smoke, and utter the most commonplace remarks, or even keep silence altogether. After gossiping a little with Ivan Afanasiitch about the neighbours, about horses, the daughters of the gentry around, and other such edifying topics, Mr. Bublitsyn suddenly winked, pulled up his shock of hair, and, with a sly smile, approached the remarkably dim looking-glass which was the solitary ornament ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... the great gale that was rocking the orchard trees and filling the air with whirls of blossom, that came down like a thick fall of snow, he made an observation which was felt at the time to have an edifying power in it, and which was incorporated with the story ever after. "And when I telled him how the grete stack of chimneys fell not half-an-hour after, over the very place where they had passed, and how they were in such a hurry to be off that they jumped the edge for fear us should ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow

... been up to the elbows, as it were, in the diplomacy of an unscrupulous, grasping age ever since his college days. He had been behind the scenes in more than one European crisis, and that which goes on behind the scenes is not always edifying or conducive to a squeamishness of touch. He was not the man to be mawkishly afraid of soiling his fingers. But the small white hand ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman

... such vanities as novels or short stories, but she read the edifying romances in the Sunday-school paper and an occasional book from the Sunday-school library, mainly about children whose angelic qualities gave her a picture of child life that would have contrasted strongly with ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes

... inquiries here have been protracted beyond their anticipated period. I trust, however, that the time here has not been passed unpleasantly to you. Among the sights of Europe, that of Rome has ever been held one of the most striking and in some respects edifying. I well remember that I considered it an epoch in my life when I visited it for the first time; after the fall of Napoleon, an event which opened the Continent to travellers. Indeed I think it is one among several cities to which an extreme hyperbole has been applied—'See Rome and die:' ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... It was all very edifying. Like Juan, Manuel spat out his cigarette when it had burned too short. But, unlike Juan, he made no dying speech. He felt that he was still too hoarse to be effective. Instead, at the command, "Aim!" he burst out laughing, ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris

... noise; it was like three cracked violins gone mad, all playing different tunes at the same time. It was only Yosepu singing hymns to the children. "For spiritual instruction is a thing to be desired, and there is nothing so edifying as music." ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael

... stimulated by some such reflection he sprang for the companionway, dropping the lid of the locker with a bang which must have been excruciatingly edifying to the men in the captain's room. Whatever their emotions, the bang was mocked by a mighty kick, shaking the door; which, Kirkwood reflected, opened outward and was held only by the frailest kind of a lock: ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance

... their streets,—"Is your god blind, that you burn candles to him at mid-day?" The tapers lighted, one of the friars dropped on his knees, and fell to praying with great vigour. I fear my deportment was not so edifying as the place and circumstances required; for I could see that ever and anon the monk cast side-long glances at me, as at a man who was scarce worthy of so great a sight as was about to be shown him. The other monk, drawing a key from under his ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie

... "and perhaps rather more than all, that is known of the life of the blessed St. Neot." His connection with the series ceased. But his curiosity was excited. He read far and wide in the Benedictine biographies. No trace of investigation into facts could he discover. If a tale was edifying, it was believed, and credibility had nothing to do with it. The saints were beatified conjurers, and any nonsense about them was swallowed, if it involved the miraculous element. The effect upon Froude may be left to his own words. "St. Patrick I found once lighted a fire with icicles, ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul

... other properties he bequeathed to the little fair-haired prattler now playing at my knee. We have called him Ernest Dalton Campbell, but Arthur says we must keep that until he is big, and in the meantime has christened him "Toddles," which is very absurd to my thinking, but to which, with all the edifying obedience of a Christian wife I am bound to submit now, as well as in every matter of greater or ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"

... remark is Xenophon-Hellenic, but less edifying; fortunately it is only the penultimate, for there is the final {khairete} [good-bye] and message to his wife. Why was she not present? I suppose she was ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon

... one familiar with the South, must have heard similar encomiums hundreds of times: each household appears to pride itself on the possession of some singularly admirable negro, whose capacity, honesty, and fidelity are vaunted with an air of conscious magnanimity edifying to witness. The desired inference is that the institution, productive of so much mutual appreciation, must be excellent. It never seems to occur to the eulogists that the good is exceptional, or that the praised characteristics might be alleged as ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various



Words linked to "Edifying" :   enlightening, unedifying



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