"Gentle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... old. I have a little colt, but it is not gentle, it is very wild. I also have a roan horse, named Sabine. Whenever horses are gathered I help to herd them. I like to do it very much. We generally have about three hundred head to herd. I have no pets now, for ...
— Harper's Young People, October 12, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... and complex mechanical apparatus, railway and highway transport and power, reenforced concrete, excavations and mud, more particularly mud, concealment and ambush, and unlimited deceit and ferocity. It is not precisely that persons of pedigree and gentle breeding have ceased to enter or seek entrance to employment as officers, still less that measures have been taken to restrain their doing so or to eliminate from the service those who have come into it—though ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... of those women most worth knowing, and that although the dreaded interrogatories which Percy was to put to her as soon as she was stronger were still in the future, his faith in and love for her, whatsover they might have been, were seriously shattered. In manner he was still grave, kind, and gentle almost as before, but everything like tenderness had vanished. One question he said he must ask her before they left Scott. Had she ever accepted any gifts or letters or anything from Mr. Willett? And Almira answered ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... Ah! gentle Mary! no sculptured monument marks thy resting-place! No eulogistic sermon, no high-flown panegyric was ever delivered, on thy life and death! Yet that silent tear of old Isaac's outspoke a thousand eulogies! It told of all thy kindness, charity, love, angelic purity of heart, and ...
— Inez - A Tale of the Alamo • Augusta J. Evans
... delighted by the close intercourse I now had with the gentle young Dresden chamber musician, whose manly strength of character and extraordinary mental endowments greatly endeared him to me. My wife said that his curly golden hair and bright blue eyes made her think an angel had come to stay with us. For me his features had a peculiar and, considering ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... when my brother died five years ago and left her alone in the world I adopted her, and have looked upon her ever since as my daughter. She is a sunbeam in my house—sweet, loving, beautiful, a wonderful manager and housekeeper, yet as tender and quiet and gentle as a woman could be. She is my right hand. I do not know what I could do without her. In only one matter has she ever gone against my wishes. Twice my boy has asked her to marry him, for he loves her devotedly, but each time she has refused him. I think that if anyone could have drawn ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... head. His usually placid, gentle face had lost some of its placidity. He looked worn and worried and the shadows thrown by the lamp deepened the lines in his forehead. He looked up over ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... days before he was in condition to continue on his way. He reached the plateau and saw that the woods goats had been migrating south for some time. On the second morning he climbed up a gentle roll in the plain and met three ...
— Space Prison • Tom Godwin
... murmured, and his tone was as gentle and beseeching as it had lately been imperious. "Nay, Mademoiselle, I ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... flicked him on the raw at last. Something that was near to pain rested for a second in his eyes. "Murder is a hard name, ma'am. And I didn't say he was daid, or any of the three," came his gentle answer. ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... ye, lass, and to you, Stair Garland! Ye hae a wild filly to gentle. Be not downcast if the job be a long one. She will ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... provoke the chap—'twasn't worth while. He came in friendly enough,' said the gentle miller ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... was only beginning to show itself to be grey. He stood well, with a large person, only now beginning to become corpulent. His eyes were bright and grey, and his mouth and chin were sharply cut, and told of gentle birth. Most men who knew John Vavasor well, declared it to be a pity that he should spend his time in signing accounts in ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... La Guillotine," was hardly known to him, or to the generality of people, by name. The frightful deeds that were to be soon done, were probably unimagined at that time in the brains of the doers. How could they have a place in the shadowy conceptions of a gentle mind? ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... creature. There he rested, musing, while from her pen flowed a description of her walk and of Mr. Martindale's brother. 'If they are all like him, I shall be perfectly happy,' she wrote. 'I never saw any one so kind and considerate, and so gentle; only now and then he frightens me, with his politeness, or perhaps polish is the right word, it makes me feel myself rude and uncourteous and awkward. You said nothing gave you so much the notion of high-breeding as ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... voices of October moods. Now comes the night, the meadow yields Unto the sky a damp and pungent breath; The quiet air of the New England town Seems confident that everyone is home Safe by his fire. The frosty stars look down Near, near above the kind familiar trees In whose dry branches roam The gentle spirits of the darkling breeze. Deep in its caverned heart the forest sings Of mysteries unknown and vanished lore; Old wisdom; dead desire; Dreams of the past, of immemorial springs.... The wind is rising cold from the river: ...
— The Five Books of Youth • Robert Hillyer
... been standing before them with a composure which impressed Mrs. Carroll with a belief in his gentle blood, for she remembered her own fussy, plebeian husband, whose fortune had never been able to purchase him the manners of a gentleman. Mr. Evan only grew a little more erect, as he replied, with an ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... cast;—all clashing of opinion, or collision of feeling, all restraint, or suspicion, or gloom, or resentment; his great concern being to make every one at their ease and at home. He has his eyes on all his company; he is tender towards the bashful, gentle towards the distant, and merciful towards the absurd; he can recollect to whom he is speaking; he guards against unseasonable allusions, or topics which may irritate; he is seldom prominent in conversation, and never wearisome. He makes light of favours ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... little room perched high up under the roof of Wallater's Buildings. Even the glowing logs in the grate burned tranquilly, without any of those brisk cracklings and sputterings which make such cheerful company of a fire, while the distant roar of London's traffic came murmuringly, dulled to a gentle monotone by the honeycomb of narrow side streets that intervened between the gaunt, red-brick Buildings and the ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... upper story. Mrs. Gallender had opened the door softly, and Glory stepped into a large dark room in which fifty children lay asleep. Their breathing was all that could be heard, and it seemed to fill the air as with the rustle of a gentle breeze. But it was hard to look upon them and to think of their only earthly father in his cell. With full hearts and dry throats the two women returned ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... castle. Thinking that the man was but a villain, he would fain have called one of the men-at-arms to give him aid, but that something drew him to closer view. And then the boy felt certain that this was no villain born for his face bespoke gentle breeding. So he himself hastened for water and by much use of it the man soon opened his eyes and found himself. So he studied the lad as he helped him to greater ease but either through his great weakness or no desire he ...
— In the Court of King Arthur • Samuel Lowe
... A gentle wind begins to blow, swaying the bracken a little, the flowers and the straw; but the straw cannot sway, ...
— Look Back on Happiness • Knut Hamsun
... up as they entered the storeroom, and then went on cutting her cheese, but speaking in low, gentle tones: ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... Mate among mountains, wood-ridge and slope Wandering follow. Where the wastes lighten, Lake and plain brighten Hallow a temple of peace and hope. Norway, Norway, Houses and huts, not castles grand, Gentle or hard, Thee we guard, thee we guard, Thee, our ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... more human," was the way Park signified his approval of the change. "Here's a little horse that's easy to ride and dead gentle if yuh don't spur him in the neck, which you ain't liable to do at present; and Hank says you can have this saddle for keeps. Hank used to ride it, but he out-growed it and got one longer in the seat. When we start for Billings to trail ...
— The Lure of the Dim Trails • by (AKA B. M. Sinclair) B. M. Bower
... are ridiculous!—yes, a ridiculous poet-fellow. But I will come to your peasant celebration, if it pleases you.' She was touched by this gentle ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... with an old campaigner's head well set upon aggressive shoulders. His eyes were black and ferrety; and his face, well seasoned by the Carolina sun, was swart as any Arab's. A man, I thought, who could be gentle-harsh or harsh-revengeful, as the mood should prompt; who could make well-turned courtier compliments to a lady and damn a trooper in the ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... tribe that lived in a beautiful watered valley upon the borders of this desert, wondering what we should do. For my part I was by now so tired of travelling upon an endless quest that I should have been glad to stay among that tribe, a very gentle and friendly people, who like all the rest believed me to be a god, and make my home there till I died. But this was not Kari's mind, which was set fiercely upon winning back to his own country that he believed ...
— The Virgin of the Sun • H. R. Haggard
... nations are recommended by policy, humanity, and interest. But even our commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial hand, neither seeking nor granting exclusive favors or preferences; consulting the natural course of things; diffusing and diversifying, by gentle means, the streams of commerce, but forcing nothing; establishing, with powers so disposed— in order to give trade a stable course, to define the rights of our merchants, and to enable the government to support them—conventional rules of intercourse, the best that present ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... little orphan Sam Pitman adopted by law the other day," she informed him in a gentle aside, as her hand rested tenderly on the child's head, which was supported by his frail knees in their ragged and patched covering. "I've had my eye on him all evening. He's hoed out all this since dinner." She waved an indignant hand over the patch of corn immediately about ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... instances in which it most commonly puzzles us. The first of these is consumption; for here the flush, both in position and in delicacy and gentle fading away at the proper margins, is an almost perfect imitation of health. It, however, usually appears, not as the normal flush of health does, upon a plump and rounded cheek, but upon a hollow and wasted one. It rises somewhat higher upon the cheekbones, throwing the latter out into ghastly ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... is quite dry, it is quickly introduced into a platinum alembic, which has just been dried by heating it to redness. The whole is kept at a gentle temperature for an hour or an hour and a half, so as to allow the decomposition to commence very slowly; the first portions of acid which come over are rejected as they carry with them traces of water remaining in the salt. The platinum receiver is then attached, and the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 561, October 2, 1886 • Various
... brought up among and by children, fashionable children, if you like. Snobs, many of them, but children all the same. Some good, some bad, some rough, some gentle, some loving and faithful with whom he is friends to this day, some loving and not faithful. The dangers that he ran were not from the foreign children with whom he played, fought, loved, and dreamed dreams; but from foreign customs, foreign ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... all get in it!" cried Freddie, as he ran from the wagon over to where the goat was bleating in his crate. The animal was a large white one, and he seemed gentle when Flossie and Freddie put their hands in through the slats of the crate ...
— The Bobbsey Twins on Blueberry Island • Laura Lee Hope
... than yield a point of honor that involved the crown. I have been bred to that idea of country, nurtured on it. Could I stay with you and see you work against my people? If I were a different sort of woman; if I were the gentle girl that you should marry,—one who knew no life but flattery and courts, like the lady of the miniature,—why, then it might be possible for me to think of you only in relation to myself, and to forget all that you stood for. But I am—what I am. I have known tragedy and suffering. I ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... nigh died of horror, though the courage of the Castles had held her head high in the presence of the inevitable. And now suddenly into her gray and hopeless future, peopled by the phantoms of an old man, stepped a living, smiling young fellow, with gentle manners and honest speech, and a quick courtesy which there ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... if you could ride him," said he. His voice was singularly unhurried and gentle. "But you'd drop out of the saddle in ten minutes. ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand
... half-forgotten past, and these works of incomparable art were being cared for and restored by the State for the benefit of the whole world. Here, too, in Malines was a most quaint "Beguinage," or asylum, in an old quarter of the town, hidden away amid a network of narrow streets: a community of gentle-mannered, placid-faced women, who dwelt in a semi-religious retirement after the ancient rules laid down by Sainte Begga, in little, low, red-roofed houses ranged all about a grass-grown square. Here, after depositing a considerable sum of money, they were ...
— Vanished towers and chimes of Flanders • George Wharton Edwards
... long to wait, for with the first rays of the sun there appeared, out to sea, a shining white object which was blown by gentle breezes towards the shore. As it came nearer he beheld a maiden, of dazzling loveliness, seated in a shell where blues and pinks and greens all melted into each other. In her hand she held the rope with which ...
— The Olive Fairy Book • Various
... day he saw the king of fairy and his retinue riding with hounds and blowing horns; and again he saw a great host of knights with drawn swords; and again he saw sixty ladies, gentle and gay, riding on palfreys and bearing hawks on their wrists. Their falcons had good sport, and Orfeo drew nigh to watch; and looking on the face of one of the ladies, he recognised Meroudys. They gazed at each other speechless, and tears ran from her eyes; but the other ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... his head and looked at her. His face had grown quiet and almost gentle, as she remembered seeing it sometimes when she was a little girl, before ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... man with a gentle disposition, much money, and no sense of humor. His object in life was to marry Miss Catherweight. For three years she had tried to persuade him this could not be, and finally, in order to convince him, married some one else. When the woman he loves marries another ...
— The Nature Faker • Richard Harding Davis
... reports "no more grass." They were in clear water again, and more than 1,400 geographical miles from the Canaries. A third source of alarm had already begun to disturb the sailors. They were discovering much more than they had bargained for. They were in the belt of the trade winds, and as the gentle but unfailing breeze wafted them steadily westward, doubts began to arise as to whether it would ever be possible to return. Fortunately soon after this question began to be discussed, the wind, ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... fruitful nurse of large serpents, elephants, antelopes and similar animals; of lions also and panthers." He does not mention the Chimpanzees, who are the most remarkable of all the aboriginal inhabitants, a gentle and peace-loving race, abstemious without being bigoted, and patriotic to a high degree, very few surviving transportation from their ...
— This Giddy Globe • Oliver Herford
... Anthony loved the old man and his gentle charity, this doctrinal position as stated by the chief pastor of the Church of England scarcely served ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... such an one many years ago, and I tell of him because I know of no deeper proof of the existence of a diviner nature than that man's story. Arthur Harvey, as I have heard people describe him, in his early years was gentle, shy, and given to much dreaming. He was taken from school early, came up from the country to the city, and was put to business. He possessed the apathy and unresisting nature characteristic of so many spiritual people, and which is found notably among the natives of India; so he took his ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... on which I raised a ridge of dried grass and weeds, very thick, and thatched over the whole with the leaves of a tree very much resembling those of a palm, but much thicker, and not quite so broad; the entire surface, I might say, was as smooth as a die, and so ordered, by a gentle declivity every way, as to ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... it just like one of the kids he'd tickled half to death on the wharf. There was a little jerking in his throat, and there came into his face a look so gentle that it made ...
— Thomas Jefferson Brown • James Oliver Curwood
... brown, 35 To every distant mart and wealthy town. Full oft we tempt the land, and oft the sea; And are we only yet repaid by thee? Ah! why was ruin so attractive made? Or why fond man so easily betray'd? 40 Why heed we not, whilst mad we haste along, The gentle voice of peace, or pleasure's song? Or wherefore think the flowery mountain's side, The fountain's murmurs, and the valley's pride, Why think we these less pleasing to behold 45 Than dreary deserts, if they lead to gold? 'Sad was the hour, and luckless was the day, 'When ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... was a great deal of rough ground upon which they could be useful as marksmen, needed some modifications to make it applicable to Belgium. At Waterloo the duke took his position on a plateau with a gentle slope like a glacis, where his artillery had a magnificent field of fire, and where it produced a terrible effect: both flanks of this plateau were well protected. Wellington, from the crest of the plateau, could discover the slightest movement in the French army, ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini
... sweet lady As often as I think of those dear times, When you two little ones would stand, at eve, On each side of my chair, and make me learn All you had learnt in the day, and how to talk In gentle phrase, then bid me sing to you— 'Tis more like heaven to ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... during which servants forget their duty to their masters, children their reverence for parents, men their respect for women, and women all notions of modesty, delicacy, and gentleness; they become raging bacchantes." Usually the Hos are quiet and reserved in manner, decorous and gentle to women. But during this festival "their natures appear to undergo a temporary change. Sons and daughters revile their parents in gross language, and parents their children; men and women become almost like ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... humour of the Freeholder too nice and gentle for such noisy times; and is reported to have said, that the ministry made use of a lute, when they should have ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... Countess, a good, comely, and witty lady; three Fathers, and us. Discourse good and pleasant. And here was an Oxford scholar, in Doctor of Laws' gowne, sent from the College where the Embassador lay when the Court was there, to salute him before his return to Spain. This man, though a gentle sort of scholar, yet sat like a fool for want of French or Spanish, but knew only Latin, which he spoke like an Englishman, to one of the Fathers. And by and by he and I to talk; and the company very merry at my defending Cambridge against Oxford; ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... very gentle breeze that was blowing at the time; and therefore it was a contest of speed that would most likely have to be decided by the oars. In this respect the Catamaran laboured under a great disadvantage,—she could only command a single ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... by king Ikshwaku. The eldest of them, Vinsa by name became the model of bowmen. Vinsa's son, O Bharata, was the auspicious Vivinsa. Vivinsa, O king, had five and ten sons; all of them were powerful archers, reverencial to the Brahmanas and truthful, gentle and ever speaking fair. The eldest brother, Khaninetra, oppressed all his brothers. And having conquered the entire kingdom rid of all troubles, Khaninetra could not retain his supremacy; nor were the people pleased with him. And dethroning him, they, O foremost of monarchs, invested his son Suvarcha ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... the Ute Indians indicate "mother" by placing the index finger in the mouth (497a. 479). Clark describes the common Indian sign as follows: "Bring partially curved and compressed right hand, and strike with two or three gentle taps right or left breast, and make sign for female; though in conversation the latter is seldom necessary. Deaf mutes make sign for female, and cross hands as in their sign for baby, and move ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... Mormon wife a sudden appreciative smile. Douglas, watching the girl's kindling face, said in his gentle way, "I've often thought if anybody could get the right kind of a moral hold on the kids of Lost Chief, the greatest horsemanship in the world could be ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... the time of their marriage, she had contrived by the end of the following winter to run up a tolerable bill at her London milliner's. When they had gone to town in the early spring, this bill was presented to Lionel. Four hundred and odd pounds. He gave Sibylla a cheque for its amount, and some gentle, loving words of admonition at the same time—not to spend him out of ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... the camp. Many hands made easy and gentle work of conveying the wounded man from his couch to the comfortable bed in the dugout. The young Indian took his place in the stern of the ticklish craft, and with a single shove of his long pole sent ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... to Berkeley in her gentle, persuasive way (she had not courage yet to talk to Pocahontas) and exerted all her influence in Thorne's behalf; but she speedily discovered that she made little headway; that while Berkeley listened, he did not assent; that he put down her efforts; mainly, to personal attachment ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland
... and put it in position, piling heavy stones round its base to keep it there. Engaged in this self-imposed task, I did not observe that my horse—a spirited animal I had bought some months before—had freed its bridle from the rock below, and when I looked round it was just breaking into a gentle trot away across the desert! At this juncture old Jose rode up with the mule-driver and took in the situation, and I directed the latter individual to tie up his pack-mule and pursue my horse at all speed. "This cross," said Jose, ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... and fatherless though he was, he had not been "spoilt" in the ordinary sense of the word. Mrs. Tudor, though gentle, and in some ways timid, was not a weak or silly woman. She had brought up her children on certain broad rules of "must," as to which she was as firm as a rock, and these had succeeded so well with the girls that it was a complete surprise as well as ...
— Great Uncle Hoot-Toot • Mrs. Molesworth
... 1861-2. In response to the toast of his health, he alluded to his infirmity of temper, admitted his suffering—before concealed from outside people—and expressed his apologies in a manner so feeling and so gentle that the tears came into everybody's eyes. I heard more than one sob from men whose rough exterior disguised the real tenderness ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin
... from behind the trees, bent on catching a glimpse of the Serdar Ekrem. I noticed that he never missed an opportunity of conversing with the country people, who would tremblingly obey his summons to come and receive 'Bakshish,' until reassured by his kind tone and gentle manner. ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot
... disgusted by the language used by Horace to women who once to him were young and pretty, but have become old and ugly. The venom of Cicero's abuse of Clodia annoys us, and we have to remember that the gentle ideas which we have taken in with our mother's milk had not grown into use with the Romans. It is necessary that this woman's name should be mentioned, and it may appear here as she was one of the causes of that hatred which ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... 21, 1828. The blow fell with terrible severity upon her husband. He had many sorrows to bear during his life, but this surpassed all others. His wife was the love of his youth, the mother of his children, a lovely woman whose strong but gentle influence for good was now lost to him irreparably. In his last days his thoughts reverted to her, and as he followed her body to the grave, on foot in the wet and cold, and leading his children by the hand, it must indeed have seemed as if the wine of life had been drunk and only the lees ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge
... by surprise, for Paul had, up to this time, shown such a gentle unwarlike spirit that the crew had come to regard him as "a soft lump ...
— The Crew of the Water Wagtail • R.M. Ballantyne
... tribe. The song has no words, except a term for wren, the vocables being intended only to imitate the notes of the bird, nevertheless, one can trace, through the variation and repetition of the musical motive, the movement of the gentle thoughts of the teacher as given in the story which belongs ...
— Indian Story and Song - from North America • Alice C. Fletcher
... placed Reuben in a comfortable chair and hastened to bring him a glass of wine from the sideboard. At Molly's entrance, Gay and Mr. Chamberlayne came forward to shake hands with her, while Mrs. Gay looked up from her invalid's couch and murmured her name in a gentle, reproachful voice. The pale blue circles around the little lady's eyes and faintly smiling mouth were the only signs of the blighting experience through which she had passed. As she turned her angelic gaze on old Jonathan's daughter there was not ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... her. She looked back to the darkening east that she was leaving behind. It suggested nothing of interest beyond the vanishing perspective of a long track tangent. Then to the north, whence blew a cool and gentle wind, but the landscape offered nothing attractive to her eyes; its receding horizon told no new story. Then she looked into ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... not poached eggs, I strongly suspect not scrambled eggs, and the best historians are decidedly doubtful about curried eggs. To cut a long story short (the longest of all stories), you would not have any civilization, far less any Christian civilization. And if in some moment of gentle curiosity you wish to know why you are the polished sparkling, rounded, and wholly satisfactory citizen which you obviously are, then I can give you no more definite answer geographical or historical; but only toll in your ears the tone of the ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton
... gave her something of the feeling that very rich ladies have for very small dogs. She was too, in a way, proud. "Never been able to talk, nor never will, they tell me, the lamb," she would assure her friends, "but as gentle and as quiet!" ...
— The Golden Scarecrow • Hugh Walpole
... your eye on vacancy, And with the incorporal air do hold discourse? Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep; And, as the sleeping soldiers in the alarm, Your bedded hair, like life in excrements, Starts up, and stands on end. O gentle son, Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper Sprinkle cool patience. Whereon do ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... uncultivated surroundings of Nazareth. Let them bear in mind the carpenter's shed, the rough country work, the bare equipment of the village home, the humble service of the family life. Let them, above all, remember the plain and gentle mother, and the meek and lowly One Himself, and in this remembrance let them ...
— Our Master • Bramwell Booth
... Ann," said her mother; "they say that 'those who sing before breakfast will cry before supper.' Girls talk about getting married," she said, relapsing into a gentle didactic melancholy, "without realizing its ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... visited by man, where are treasured sublimities that enchain the mind, and inspire a feeling of devotion in the heart of the beholder. Here the Indian, undisturbed by other sights or sounds, may yet listen to the voice of the waterfall as it sounded in the ear of his fathers, or to the gentle murmur of the stream discoursing now, as it did to them, in passing hurriedly over its rocky bed. [Footnote: Who would ever suspect that a railroad would stride across any of ...
— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard
... Sometimes the ships, favored by the so-called trade winds, went in an extended line one after another, like a chain of sea-mews or albatrosses. The red casks indicating the channel swayed on the light wave with gentle movement. Among the sails appeared every afternoon gigantic grayish feather-like plumes of smoke. That was a steamer from New York which brought passengers and goods to Aspinwall, drawing behind it a frothy path of foam. On the other side of the balcony ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Polish • Various
... so, fellow gladiators, must you, and so must I, die like dogs! O Rome! Rome! thou hast been a tender nurse to me. Ay! thou hast given to that poor, gentle, timid shepherd lad, who never knew a harsher tone than a flute-note, muscles of iron and a heart of flint; taught him to drive the sword through plaited mail and links of rugged brass, and warm it in the marrow of his foe;—to gaze into the glaring eyeballs of the fierce Numidian lion, ...
— The Evolution of Expression Vol. I • Charles Wesley Emerson
... the thing you wanted to maintain. Discipline be jiggered—that might do mischief—if you drove it too hard. The fact was, he was a little too sharp with Lucy. She was a dear, gentle creature, and no doubt one fell into the habit of pushing a willing horse. He could see it all now perfectly. He had been put out when he arrived at the Marchants' too early—she was not there; and then that old fool Vane with his, "Saw your wife at the Chelsea thing, with Lingen. They looked ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... observed that nature has established connexions among particular ideas, and that no sooner one idea occurs to our thoughts than it introduces its correlative, and carries our attention towards it, by a gentle and insensible movement. These principles of connexion or association we have reduced to three, namely, Resemblance, Contiguity and Causation; which are the only bonds that unite our thoughts together, and beget that regular train of reflection or discourse, which, ...
— An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding • David Hume et al
... gifts than flowers, too; thoughtful, expensive things that fairly took Ma's breath. No one had ever given her presents; to be remembered, therefore, with useless, delightful little luxuries filled her gentle soul with ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... fellow stopped me and named me to him, and I remember how he leaned back in his chair, and reached out his great hand to me, as if he were going to give it me for good and all. He had a fine head, with a cloud of Jovian hair upon it, and a branching beard and mustache, and gentle eyes that looked most kindly into mine, and seemed to wish the liking which I instantly gave him, though we hardly passed a word, and our acquaintance was summed up in that glance and the grasp of his mighty fist upon my hand. I doubt if he had any notion who or what I was beyond ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... the head and spring of them all, his Christianity; for this alone is the true royal blood that runs through the whole body of virtue, and every pretender to that glorious family, who has no tincture of it, is an impostor. This is that same fountain which baptizeth all the gentle virtues that so immortalize the names of the old philosophers; herein they are regenerated, and take a new name and nature. Dug up in the wilderness of nature, and dipped in this living spring, they are planted and flourish ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler
... captivating, young, gay, and handsome; but a complete model also of the polished, courteous, high-bred woman of fashion. Her manners are said by Lady Louisa Stuart to have 'had a foreign tinge, which some called affected; but they were gentle, easy, and altogether exquisitely pleasing.' She was in secret a Jacobite—and resembled in that respect most of the fine ladies in Great Britain. Whiggery and Walpolism were vulgar: it was haut ton to take offence when James II. ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... natures are apt to bite and devour one another; the union of gentleness to friends and fierceness against enemies appears to be an impossibility, and the guardian of a State requires both qualities. Who then can be a guardian? The image of the dog suggests an answer. For dogs are gentle to friends and fierce to strangers. Your dog is a philosopher who judges by the rule of knowing or not knowing; and philosophy, whether in man or beast, is the parent of gentleness. The human watchdogs must be philosophers or lovers of learning which will make them gentle. And how ...
— The Republic • Plato
... his heart was breaking. Willie I truly, unselfishly loved; and I am charitable enough to think that even you loved him, but it was through your neglect that he died, and for his death you will answer. Carrie was gentle and trusting, but weak, like her father. I do not think you killed her, for she was dying when we came here, but you put the crowning act of wickedness to your life when you compelled a man, shattered in body and intellect, to write a will which disinherited his only son; but on that point you ...
— Homestead on the Hillside • Mary Jane Holmes
... extolled for every virtue. Petrarch represents her as a woman of weak understanding, disposed to gallantry, but incapable of greater crimes. Her history reminds us much of that of Mary Queen of Scots. Her youth and her character, gentle and interesting in several respects, entitle her to the benefit of our doubts as to her assent to the death of Andrew. Many circumstances seem to me to favour those doubts, and the opinion of Petrarch is on the side ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... Betsy Butterfly begged him; for she was as gentle as she was beautiful and never wanted people to quarrel on ...
— The Tale of Mrs. Ladybug • Arthur Scott Bailey
... water flowing over the dam, and the dashing rain and the gusts of wind. Then, as they stood, listening curiously, there came a deep, rumbling sound out of the very vitals of the old mill; there was a gentle quivering throughout all its timbers; a groaning in all its aged structure; a whirring, droning sound—the wheels of the mill were turning, and there was needed only the pushing of one of the levers to set the great ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... day-dreams. He thought Jacqueline was selfish. She seemed to care only for herself. And yet, selfish or not selfish, she pleased him better than all the other girls he knew— a thousand times more than gentle, sweet Giselle. ...
— Jacqueline, v1 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... worst kind. To do what lay before him openly and like a man, without fear of either foes, fiends, or fate; to hold his own and speak his mind, and seek fame without respect of persons; to be free and daring in all his deeds; to be gentle and generous to his friends and kinsmen; to be stern and grim to his foes, but even towards them to feel bound to fulfil all bounden duties; to be as forgiving to some as he was unyielding and unforgiving ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous
... strength in the poise of her firm neck, strength in every movement of her limbs and body. When she spoke, it was in a voice which, like her hair, was adorable. I had never heard a sweeter voice, and her firm mouth was all at once not only gentle and womanly, ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood
... kept at the Manor, and Captain Wybrow would have been much duller if Caterina had not been there. It was pleasant to pay her attentions—to speak to her in gentle tones, to see her little flutter of pleasure, the blush that just lit up her pale cheek, and the momentary timid glance of her dark eyes, when he praised her singing, leaning at her side over the piano. Pleasant, ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... ship. They were remarkably tame, allowing us to approach them closely, and we were delighted by their beautiful plumage and their singular forms. This reminds me to say that the motion of the craft was extremely curious—a kind of gentle rising and falling, which was very agreeable when once we were accustomed to it, and which resembled what one would suppose to be the movement of a bird in flight. This, of course, arose from the structure of the air ship, which, as I have before said, seemed to be modeled, as far as its ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... day we left the river, which continued its course towards Pike's Peak; and taking a southeasterly direction, in about ten miles we crossed a gentle ridge, and, issuing from the South Park, found ourselves involved among the broken spurs of the mountains which border the great prairie plains. Although broken and extremely rugged, the country was very interesting, being well watered by numerous ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont
... backwards, clawing madly at anything which might save him, and then, with a jerk which nearly snapped his loins, he was thrown forward again. But the camel was on its legs now, and the young pressman was safely seated upon one of the fliers of the desert. It was as gentle as it was swift, and it stood oscillating its long neck and gazing round with its large brown eyes, whilst Anerley coiled his legs round the peg and grasped the curved camel-stick which Abbas had handed up to him. There were two bridle-cords, one from the nostril and one from the neck, but he remembered ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Attend then, gentle reader, to this plain deduction, which, if thou art a king, an emperor, or other powerful potentate, I advise thee to treasure up in thy heart, though little expectation have I that my work will ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... America sweeter and quainter memorials of a gentle past—memorials still consecrated to the gracious work of the present—than the churches and other denominational houses in the old Moravian towns of Pennsylvania. At Bethlehem, as one stands in the little three-sided court on Church street and looks up at the heavy walls, the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... suffused with tears. Why do they weep? Whither are they bound? Not a word is spoken. They are too sad to talk. Still the oar keeps its measured stroke, and they glide slowly on, and thus may we follow them day after day. Now and then a gentle breeze fills the sail, and wafts the small boat on. When the shades of evening begin to fall around them, they push to shore, and rear a temporary tent. Then the frugal supper is spread upon the green grass, ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... carried up the news had added that the widow was "in a pretty pore," and wore not so much as a shawl over her indoor garments. Also she knew, as well as her commoner neighbours, that the situation at Steens must be a difficult one. Now Lady Piers was a devoted and gentle-hearted woman, a loving wife and an incomparable housekeeper (the news had found her busy in her still-room), but her judgment of the young fisher-girl who had wheedled old Humphrey Stephen into matrimony was that of the rest of her sex; and even good and devout women can ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... together. Her dust now lies in the "House of Rest," at Milan, a home for aged artists, founded by Verdi. This "House of Rest" was a Love-Offering, dedicated to the woman who had given him, without stint, of the richness of her nature; who had bestowed rest, and peace, and hope and gentle love. She had no feverish ambitions and petty plans and schemes for secretly corralling pleasure, power, place, attention, or selfish admiration. By giving all, she won all. She devoted herself to this man in whom she had perfect faith, and ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... violent temper a mortal had to struggle with. And in those earlier years, when I got into a rage, it blinded me to everything else, to every other earthly consideration. And during that interview, well,—need I say it?—Fairfax was simply immovable,—gentle and loving always,—but I could no more impress him with my wishes than I could have moved the Rock of Gibraltar. The galling part to me was—that he kept insisting he was only doing what was right! Right?— How could he be ...
— The Boarded-Up House • Augusta Huiell Seaman
... did not see the dawn creeping out of the east, she was not conscious that the highwayman came to the window and looked at her, that he stopped the coach for a moment, nor did she feel the touch of gentle hands as he folded her cloak more closely about her lest the chill breath of the morning air ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner
... he went nearer, and looking closely at the buds, found that they were folded up, leaf over leaf, as eyelids are folded over sleeping eyes, so that Birdie thought they must be asleep. "Lazy roses, wake up," said he, giving the branches a gentle shake; but only the dew fell off in bright drops, and the flowers were still shut up. At last Birdie remembered how he had awakened his mother with kisses, and thought he would try the same plan with the roses; so ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... moment, doubtless, on which you wished to see me, my daughter," he began, in a tone which was gentle rather from self-control than from immediate inclination. "I know you are not wont to lay stress on ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... Marion!' was all I could utter; 'what does this mean? Am I in a dream?' But it was not a happy dream; for when I had a moment to reflect, my very soul was troubled as I thought of the sacrifice of all her youthful aspirations, made by that poor, gentle creature, for the sake of a secure and comfortable home in this stormy world. I could not reconcile myself to the idea of Mr Budge and Marion as man and wife; and as I learned, ere we retired to rest that night, I had no occasion ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 448 - Volume 18, New Series, July 31, 1852 • Various
... the guide of Reason. As is wont with those who labour under these privations respectively Reason is apt to be eager, impetuous, impatient of that instruction which his infirmity will not permit him readily to apprehend; while Faith, gentle and docile, is ever willing to listen to the voice by which alone truth and wisdom can effectually ...
— Reason and Faith; Their Claims and Conflicts • Henry Rogers
... but, on the whole, the large reclining figures - the beautiful, relaxed Reclining Nymph and the Listening God over the great pylons - seem to be meditatively listening, the seated figures have a fanciful, lighter suggestion and those standing give a gentle effect of rhythm. The great arches are marked by ...
— The Sculpture and Mural Decorations of the Exposition • Stella G. S. Perry
... another house—not at all big or splendid, but of great age; a house which stands not far from the village of Down, in Kent; a house which is going to rack and ruin for want of a mistress. Sometimes, just as evening comes on, I think it must dream of the light feet and gentle hands it has known so many years ago, and feels ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... from his chair as if he had been stung. Accustomed as he was to his gentle little wife, and the even gentler La Valliere, such language as this had never before intruded itself upon the royal ears. It was like a physical blow to him. He felt stunned, humiliated, bewildered, by so unwonted a sensation. What odour was this which mingled for the first time with ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... took care of the young Pawnee, clothed him in his rough way, encased the little feet in moccasins, and with a soft doe-skin jacket the little fellow throve admirably under the gentle care ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... little her hand stole out, closed round his fingers, and drew him forward with a gentle, insistent pressure. He knelt then with her, hand in hand—filled with the wonder of it, that he to whom religion had been nothing should have been brought to this by ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... look at me, however, but her little face was gentle and shy. "I cannot understand though why you did all that. I cannot understand anything about it all.—You do not love me.—You only wanted me for your secretary, and yet you paid over a hundred thousand francs! The generosity ...
— Man and Maid • Elinor Glyn
... turning his back on all these things as soon as they became popular. In spite of their popularity I have the audacity to like them still, in their humble twittering way. Much more in his true vein were the lines, "Clear and Gentle Stream," and all the other verses in which, like a true Etonian, ...
— Letters on Literature • Andrew Lang
... mountains with Alps in west and south; mostly flat, with gentle slopes along eastern ...
— The 1990 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... foreign places, and talk about the mountains and the people living near Ravensnest, many of whom mother had known when she was a little girl. Milly, who was old enough to listen, could only understand a little bit here and there; but there was always Aunt Emma's friendly gentle face to look at, and her soft old hand in its black mitten, to slip her own little fingers into; while Olly was so taken up with the prospects of the black-currant pudding which he had seen cook making in the morning, and the delight of it when it came, that it ...
— Milly and Olly • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... plan, or co-operate with other men of mental power in the execution of such. He was crotchetty and impracticable, a man of rash judgment and hasty action-as brave and as tenacious as a bulldog. In private life he was gentle and loving; it was easy, as a friend or companion, to argue with John Mitchell, but impossible to co-operate with him as a compatriot. He had not the mind of a statesman, nor had he the prudence and policy requisite ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... published—for they are witnesses, and will be eternal witnesses, of your services to me and of my affection—but I refrained because I was afraid, not of those who might think themselves attacked, for I have been very sparing and gentle in that respect, but of my benefactors, of whom it were an endless task to mention the whole list. Nevertheless, the books, such as they are, if I find anyone to whom I can safely commit them, I will take care to ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... and going in, and my Lady Carteret not suffering me to go back again to-night, my Lord to walke again with me about some of this and other discourse, and then in a-doors and to talke with all and with my Lady Carteret, and I with the young ladies and gentle men, who played on the guittar, and mighty merry, and anon to supper, and then my Lord going away to write, the young gentlemen to flinging of cushions, and other mad sports; at this late till towards twelve at night, and then being sleepy, I and my wife in a passage-room ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... received all that he could get from Finegas. His education was finished and the time had come to test it, and to try all else that he had of mind and body. He bade farewell to the gentle poet, and set out ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens
... Mrs. Crowder and her daughters were gone, George Manly sat without speaking for some considerable time. He was deep in thought, and his gentle, pious wife felt that she knew on what subject he had been thinking so deeply; for when he woke up from his fit of thought, a deep sigh stole from his lips, and he brushed away the tears which had filled ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... may be, she revives and grows cheerful and happy under it in a way and to a degree marvellous to behold. What singular secret is there among the psychological mysteries of her nature which is able to account for this phenomenon?—A gentle, timid girl of sixteen, whom the sight of a spider or a live snake would have frightened into hysterics, I had once an opportunity, on a tour through Italy, to observe, while she took little or no notice of other works of art, would gaze, as if fascinated, at the writhings of Laocooen ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... patience and tact. Some day, what has been decided wrongly may be reversed, or what has been denied the librarian may be granted, through the conversion of a minority of the trustees into a majority, by the gentle suasion and skilful ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... The gentle art of four-flushing was absolutely beyond his ken. He was like those South-Sea Islanders told of by Robert Louis Stevenson, who didn't know enough to lie until after the missionaries came, when they ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... fleece their subjects, for the advancement of their own pomp and pride, until the common people can endure it no longer.' If God for their punishment allowed the devil to stir up tumult against them, He and his gospel were not to blame; but he counselled them to try by gentle means to soften, if possible, God's wrath against them. As for the peasants, he had never from the first concealed from them his suspicions, that many of them only pretended to appeal to Scripture, and offered for mere appearance' ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... south, it runs through a district known as Chien-ch'ang, celebrated throughout China for its fertility and the variety of its products. At the lower end the valley is very narrow, and level ground is limited, but the gentle slopes on either side are beautifully cultivated in tiny terraced fields. Farther north, however, in the neighbourhood of Ning-yuean-fu, the valley widens out into a broad, open plain. Apparently in this favoured region tropics and temperate zone meet, for I never saw before such motley vegetation. ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... Dom Diego's lodging and saw the unexpected, forgotten Ianthe—Ianthe grown from that sweet child to matchless grace of early womanhood; Ianthe with her dark smiling eyes and her caressing voice and her gentle movements—then this resolution of passive silence was exchanged for a determination to fight desperately against discovery. In the glow of his soul, in the stir of youth and spring in his veins, in the melting rapture ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... works is no novelty since some years, and whom I made comprehend exactly your position and the necessity for the absolute silence I enjoined respecting the permission to see you. You may depend on them,—and Miss Mitford is in your keeping, mind,—and dear Mr. Kenyon, if there should be never so gentle a touch of 'garrulous God-innocence' about those kind lips of his. Come, let me snatch at that clue out of the maze, and say how perfect, absolutely perfect, are those three or four pages in the 'Vision' which present the Poets—a line, a few words, ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... dress is imperceptibly and gracefully melting away into a refined simplicity of modern costume, which in many cases seems to be the perfection of taste. The obvious reflection, that one color of the rainbow is quite as much of God as another, has led the children of gentle dove-colored mothers to appear in shades of rose-color, blue, and lilac; and wise elders have said, it is not so much the color or the shape that we object to, as giving too much time and too much money,—if the heart is right with God and man, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... not say that—for his manhood I hope so. I would rather believe that this is the mistake of some "uninspired" writer than think that one who in much had so gentle and tender a nature, was unkind and brutal to his mother. No one would attempt, in this age, to apologize for such a reply to so simple a remark made by a mother to her son. But they say "he was divine." They also tell us ...
— Men, Women, and Gods - And Other Lectures • Helen H. Gardener |
