"Magnanimity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... have hardly expected so much magnanimity in one of his class. It was truly a noble return for the injuries he had ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... has risen, in despite of her, to such colossal proportions, as, in its very existence, to menace the combined monarchies of the world. But we hold these 4,000,000 of barbarians subject to the laws of civilization; and let England remember that we, even now, have the magnanimity to relieve her from the self-imposed odium of doing right! We now tell her monarchists, degenerate sons of illustrious sires, that in their maritime decadence they have also morally retrograded, for they now seek to restore ...
— The Right of American Slavery • True Worthy Hoit
... humility with which they regarded their own peculiar principles, especially contrasted with the sublime view they appeared to take of the wisdom and providence of the Deity. But, with whatever delightful feelings strangers and posterity may contemplate this beautiful example of Christian magnanimity, it would be impossible to convey any idea of the sentiments with which it affected the youth who was the object of its exercise. He must have been less than man had he not endeavoured, without ceasing, to attain an honourable eminence in his profession; or, had he forgotten, in ...
— The Life, Studies, And Works Of Benjamin West, Esq. • John Galt
... Too monstrously the magnanimity of this man weights the scale against the woman. Instinctively we seek a different "excuse" for her from that which he makes—though indeed there scarce is one at ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... read, the Syracusans were not, as they should have been, transported with admiration at the unmovable constancy and magnanimity of Dion, who withstood all his dearest interests to be true to virtue and justice, but, on the contrary, they saw in this their reason for fearing and suspecting that he lay under an invincible necessity to be favorable to Dionysius; and they ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... accomplished; the extremity of suffering is endured with constancy; but it is the deed and the suffering of a whole nation whose individual members, it may almost be said, appear but as examples of the general fortitude and magnanimity, while the Roman heroes seem merely the instruments of fate. There is, if I may so speak, a sort of Spartan pathos in this piece: every single and personal consideration is swallowed up in the feeling of patriotism; and by ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... commanded the esteem and regard of all those who had access to admire her private virtues; and when at length she was raised to the rank of Empress, she graced the imperial throne with all the charities and virtues of a humbler station. She bore, with unexampled magnanimity, the sacrifice of power and of influence which she was compelled to make: She carried into the obscurity of humble life all the dignity of mind which befitted the character of an Empress of France; and exercised, in the delightful occupations of country life, or ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... had not the least doubt that Mr. Hodder did not desire to remain in the parish when it was so apparent that the doctrines which he now preached were not acceptable to most of those who supported the church. And he added (with sublime magnanimity) that he wished Mr. Hodder the success which he was sure he deserved, and gave him every assurance ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... with an evident determination to regard bygones as bygones. For when she had expatiated at some length on the effect of Elisha's harrowing news upon her nerves, and had repeated in great detail what she had said to Mr. Snooks, and what Mr. Snooks had said to her, she gave a crowning proof of magnanimity. ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... to wretched music. But that the dissension was sad and mischievous, it would have been very diverting; they were both so young in their incapacity of making allowances, their certainty that theirs was the theory to bring in the golden age, and even in their magnanimity of forgiveness, and all the time they thought themselves so very old. "I am resigned to disappointments; I have seen something of life."—"You forget, Miss Williams, that my ministerial experience is not ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... all out now. He had spoken his inmost mind. They had stopped again, and she was looking at him intently; it struck him that he could not possibly have said what he had been saying unless he had been led on by an instinctive dependence upon a great magnanimity of nature in her. And then the next moment the strange opposites the matter held in it flashed across him. He saw the crowded theatre, the white figure on the stage, his ear seemed to be full of the clamour of praise with which London had been overwhelming its favourite. ...
— Miss Bretherton • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... passage, however, is his appeal to the men and women of the South to rise to the plane of tranquillity and magnanimity: — ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... the falls. The party immediately landed, and were promptly beset by a dozen ragged boys, who desired to act as guides, where no such persons are needed. Not one of them spoke a word of English; but they led the way to the path, each one selecting his own victims, and trusting to the magnanimity of the passengers for their pay. A walk, covered with saw-dust, has been made by some public-spirited persons, and the excursion is ...
— Up The Baltic - Young America in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark • Oliver Optic
... Paaker, for although he was born under a lucky sign, the Hathors denied him all that makes youth happy. The enemy for whose destruction he prays is Mena, the king's charioteer, and, indeed, he must have been of superhuman magnanimity or of unmanly feebleness, if he could have wished well to the man who robbed him of the beautiful wife who was destined ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... continued without the smallest reverse to support his age, even to the last moments of his life. He lived above seventy years, and reigned within ten years as long as he lived, sixty over his dukedom, above twenty over England,—both of which he acquired or kept by his own magnanimity, with hardly any other title than he derived from his arms: so that he might be reputed, in all respects, as happy as the highest ambition, the most fully gratified, can make a man. The silent inward satisfactions of domestic happiness he neither had nor sought. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... him most grosely, and got all from him she could expect.... The Duke of York was certainly most ungrate to Lauderdale; for Lauderdale was the first who adventured in August 1679 to advise the King to bring home the Duke of York from Flanders.'[23] Argyll he deemed to be wanting in magnanimity. In 1671 he writes on the subject of a point in a lawsuit being decided in Argyll's favour, 'This was my Lord President's doing [Stair], he being my Lord Argyle's great confidant. It was admired by all that he blushed not to make a reply upon his Father's forfaultor, and ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... her. Their love affair was over, but she could not refuse this last request. Surely it was not much to ask—to help him keep up his end of social obligation for one short night. And if she insisted she could be the front part of the camel and he would go as the back. His magnanimity pleased him. His mind even turned to rosy-coloured dreams of a tender reconciliation inside the camel—there hidden away from ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... of the happy reform in the relations of foreign governments to China. I am quite sure that I heard from Mr. Burlingame in New York, in his last visit to America, that the whole merit of it belonged to Sir Frederic Bruce. It appears that the ambassadors were emulous in their magnanimity. It is certainly the best guaranty for the interests of China and ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... exquisitely feel; My heart can weep, when, from my downcast eye, I chase the tear, and stem the rising sigh: Deep buried there I close the rankling dart, And smile the most when heaviest is my heart. On this I act—whatever pangs surround, 'Tis magnanimity to hide the wound! When all was new, and life was in its spring, I lived an unloved, solitary thing; Even then I learn'd to bury deep from day The piercing cares that wore my youth away: Even then I learn'd for others' cares to feel; Even then I wept I had not power to heal: Even then, ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... philosophers. Yet it is admirable to profess because it was once admirable to live. To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust. It is to solve some of the problems of life, not only theoretically, but practically. The success of great scholars and thinkers is commonly a courtier-like success, not kingly, not manly. They make shift to live merely by ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... to succeed, once more, I require peace. That is why I lay down my arms and hold out the olive-branch to my enemies—while warning them, with every magnanimity on my part, that a refusal on theirs might bring down upon them ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc
... delighted at her confidence; I knew she would be grateful to me for giving her an opportunity of expressing her sorrow: thirdly, I was inwardly vowing to myself to bring Kolosov and Varia together again, and was deriving consolation from the consciousness of my magnanimity ... in the fourth place, I hoped, by my self-sacrifice, to touch Varia's heart; and then ... You see I do not spare myself; no, thank God! ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... off the stage you have just conquered me. I shall wear with pride any dress you have honored, and shall feel inspired to great exertions by your presence among our spectators, unless, indeed, the sense of your magnanimity and the recollection of your talent should damp me by the dread of losing any portion ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... language and used "no French idiom or particles, like Chaucer." In a letter from Jane Porter to Keats about the reviews of his "Endymion," she wrote: "Had Chatterton possessed sufficient manliness of mind to know the magnanimity of patience, and been aware that great talents have a commission from Heaven, he would not have deserted his post, and his name might ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... received by the family with affection, presented to General and Mrs. Washington, and afterward provided with a pass through the lines and sent to her father, accompanied by a letter of which (as she wittily said to a friend) "the bad orthography was amply compensated for by the magnanimity of the man who wrote it." Here is the letter: "Ginrale Putnam's compliments to Major Moncrieffe, has made him a present of a fine daughter, if he don't lick [like] her he must send her back again, and he will provide her with a ...
— "Old Put" The Patriot • Frederick A. Ober
... again give the Austrians battle, and drive them out of Silesia? You will then see that I shall receive other proposals. At present I must have four duchies, and not one. Do not, my lord," said the King, "talk to me of magnanimity; a prince ought first to consult his own interests. I am not averse to peace; but I expect to have four duchies, and will ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... effect, which by many spirits nowadays is considered the Mammon. A modern work, it is said, must have a purpose, which may be the God. An artist must serve Mammon; he must have 'self-concentration'—selfishness, perhaps. You, I am sure, will forgive me for sincerely remarking that you might curb your magnanimity, and be more of an artist, and load every rift of your subject with ore. The thought of such discipline must fall like cold chains upon you, who perhaps never sat with your wings furled for six months together. And is not this extraordinary ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... stand prepared for war or peace. Too great to yield, and too noble to insult; superior to misfortune, and generous in success, let us untaintedly preserve the character which we have gained, and show to future ages an example of unequalled magnanimity. There is something in the cause and consequence of America that has drawn on her the attention of all mankind. The world has seen her brave. Her love of liberty; her ardour in supporting it; the justice of her claims, and the constancy of her fortitude have won her ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... conquer his aversion to Latin; but we would point out, that where the love of glory is connected with obstinate temper, the passion is more than a match for the temper. Let us but enlighten this love of glory, and we produce magnanimity in the place of obstinacy. Examples, in conversation and in books, of great characters, who have not been ashamed to change their opinions, and to acknowledge that they have been mistaken, will probably make a great impression upon young people; they will from these learn ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... depredations of revolutionists; but an armed menace from the United States induced him to desist from his plans. He contented himself accordingly with issuing a decree of amnesty for all political offenders except the leaders. When "reelected," he carried his magnanimity so far as to resign awhile in favor of the Vice President, stating that, if his retirement were to bring peace and concord, he would make it permanent. But as he saw to it that his temporary withdrawal should not have this ...
— The Hispanic Nations of the New World - Volume 50 in The Chronicles Of America Series • William R. Shepherd
... by Froude, "the first words her husband uttered as the door closed were, 'Well, Mill, poor fellow, is terribly cut up; we must endeavour to hide from him how very serious this business is to us.'" This trait of magnanimity under the first blow of a disaster which seemed to cancel the work of years should be set against his nearly contemporaneous criticisms of Coleridge, Lamb, Wordsworth, Sydney ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... prepared and conducted, moment well chosen, secret well kept, measures well taken. False keys well made—that's the whole story. When these things have been said, all has been said, except a phrase or two about "clemency;" and yet no one extols the magnanimity of Mandrin, who, sometimes, did not take all the traveller's money, and of Jean l'Ecorcheur, who, sometimes, did not kill ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... General Winder came to me and said that he had asked leave to go to Richmond, been refused, and resigned. He commanded Jackson's old brigade, and was aggrieved by some unjust interference. Holding Winder in high esteem, I hoped to save him to the army, and went to Jackson, to whose magnanimity I appealed, and to arouse this dwelt on the rich harvest of glory he had reaped in his brilliant campaign. Observing him closely, I caught a glimpse of the man's inner nature. It was but a glimpse. The curtain closed, and ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... for his own security suppress Marmont's letter, trusting that the affair would pass without inquiry: and there was the further chance that Marmont himself, on receipt of my note, would remember the magnanimity which (to do him justice) he usually has at call, and give orders whistling off the pursuit. At any rate, I spent a fortnight in Paris; and no man questioned or ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... quoted by Mr. Bright) did not see why he and she and Millais should discontinue their life in common as before. Neither Millais nor Mrs. Ruskin would, of course, accede to this proposition, and the divorce was accordingly obtained. Ruskin intended simply to show magnanimity, and in the course of years this was recognized and he was forgiven, just as we forgive a person for being color-blind. In our present stage of civilization we must, in certain matters, follow strict convention ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... his shape and family, from his experience and wisdom, from his prudence and magnanimity, from his eloquence and bravery in battle, and from the number ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston
... introduced us to Mr. Waterlow and he introduced us to—to his friends," she explained, colouring, as if it were a fault for the inexactness caused by her magnanimity. "That's why I thought I ought to tell you what ...
— The Reverberator • Henry James
... nor children; neither habitation nor clothing convenient for them. Whatever emergency might happen, they were cut off, both by land and water, from any succor or retreat. What self-denial, firmness, and magnanimity are necessary for such enterprises! How distressing, in the beginning, was the condition of those now fair and opulent towns on ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... you a real jam tea all the same," he concluded, with a magnanimity which did him honor, and which, as he was evidently aware, proved him to be ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... in them, and to consider whether, although amusing to himself, such games might not be fatal to the animals on whom they were played off. The shivering puppy was too much alarmed at the time to attend either to the magnanimity of his antagonist or the wisdom of his advice, but they were evidently not lost upon him. Many can bear testimony to the change which that hour wrought in his character; and some weeks after the event, Job received that statue ...
— The Adventures of a Dog, and a Good Dog Too • Alfred Elwes
... as my mother and my sister at once," cried Elizabeth, as with ardor she threw herself into Catharine's arms. "Yes, I will love you for it; and I will pray God that He may one day give me the opportunity to show my gratitude, and to reward you for your magnanimity and goodness." ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... No: Liberality is entrusted with some small sums; but she is a bad accountant, and is allowed no important place in the exchequer. But the treasures are given in charge to a virtue of which we hear too little in modern times, as distinct from others; Magnanimity: largeness of heart: not softness or weakness of heart, mind you—but capacity of heart—the great measuring virtue, which weighs in heavenly balances all that may be given, and all that may be gained; and sees how to do noblest things ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... majority of us, however, must be content to acquire these arts by study and practice. In the same way we must acquire the art of behavior, so far as behavior is an art. We must possess, in the first place, a sense of equity, good-will toward our fellow-men, kind feelings, magnanimity and self-control. Cultivation will do the rest. But we most never forget that manners as well as morals are founded on certain eternal principles, and that while "the letter killeth," "the spirit ...
— How To Behave: A Pocket Manual Of Republican Etiquette, And Guide To Correct Personal Habits • Samuel R Wells
... endeavoured to present such of them as seemed to me to best illustrate the primitive character and beliefs of the people. The belief, and the language in which it is clothed, are often very beautiful. Fantastic imagination, magnanimity, moral sentiment, tender feeling, and humour are discovered in a degree which may astonish many who have been apt to imagine that advanced civilisation has much to do with the possession of such qualities. I ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends: North American Indian • Anonymous
... was the more important question of the settlements. Of course there were to be settlements, in the arrangement of which Ralph was to give everything and to get nothing. With high-handed magnanimity he had declared that he wanted no money, and therefore the trifle which would have been adjudged to be due to Gus was retained to help her as yet less fortunate sisters. In truth Marmaduke at this time was so expensive that Sir George was obliged to be a little ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... ungrateful space, and only a small part on the reflecting planet. Let your greatness educate the crude and cold companion.... Yet these things may hardly be said without a sort of treachery to the relation. The essence of friendship is entireness, a total magnanimity and trust. It must not surmise or provide for infirmity. It treats its object as a god that it may ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... group there is another elderly lady to be liked without a shadow of misgiving; abrupt, angular, extravagant, but the very soul of magnanimity and rectitude; a character thoroughly made out in all its parts; a gnarled and knotted piece of female timber, sound to the core; a woman Captain Shandy would have loved for her startling oddities, and ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... his moral and sentimental disturbance, and so on the high-road, as he fondly imagined, to capture his habitual attitude of charity and tolerance once again. But heaven had further trial of his fortitude and magnanimity, not to say his good honest horse sense, in ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... observed more fully below, even an analysis of the Grand Cyrus, though a great advance on mere general description of it, must be still (unless it be itself intolerably voluminous) insufficient. Not very much actually "happens"; but if you simply skip, you miss a fresh illustration of magnanimity not only in Cyrus, but in a formerly mentioned character, Aglatidas, with reference to the heroine Amestris earlier inset in the tale (v. sup.). And this is an example of the new and sometimes very ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... infamy. They are jealous and vindictive. Their courage is desultory, the effect of a momentary enthusiasm which enables them to perform deeds of incredible desperation; but they are strangers to that steady magnanimity, that cool heroic resolution in battle, which constitutes in our idea the perfection of this quality, and renders it a virtue.* Yet it must be observed that, from an apathy almost paradoxical, they suffer under sentence of death, in cases ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... temper, touched him with the spirit of enterprise; he became a new creature. I lost sight of certain characteristics which I had begun to ponder over critically. I believed with all my heart that circumstances were blameable for much that did not quite please me. Upon the question of his magnanimity, as well as of his courage, there could not be two opinions. He would neither retort nor defend himself. I perceived some grandeur in his conduct, without, however, appreciating it cordially, as I did a refinement of discretion about ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... I have within this quarter of an hour heard what will ruin me for ever in your lordship's opinion, unless your lordship does me the justice to believe that I never heard or suspected it before—I have only to trust to your magnanimity—and ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... the hero. The moment Robin Hood becomes a sort of Superman, that moment the chivalrous chronicler shows us Robin thrashed by a poor tinker whom he thought to thrust aside. And the chivalrous chronicler makes Robin Hood receive the thrashing in a glow of admiration. This magnanimity is not a product of modern humanitarianism; it is not a product of anything to do with peace. This magnanimity is merely one of the lost arts of war. The Henleyites call for a sturdy and fighting England, and they go back to the fierce old stories of the sturdy and fighting English. ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... punishment." That is why he, Aristophanes, has always attacked the living; he knew how they would hide their heads, once dead! Euripides had chosen the other way; "men pelted him, but got no pellet back"; and it was not magnanimity but arrogance that prompted him to such silence. Those at whom Aristophanes or he should fling mud were by that alone immortalised—and Euripides, "that calm cold sagacity," knew better than ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... above it; of a scene in which the littlenesses and selfishness of mortality are forgotten; in which virtue is generally in the end triumphant; in which honour in women proves victorious over love, and fortitude in men obtains the mastery of fortune. Generosity and magnanimity beyond what could have been even conceived, often furnishes the denouement of the piece, and extricates the characters from apparently insurmountable difficulties. There can be no doubt this is not human life: Alexander the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... that thou art the most pitiful, paltry, beggarly, blind—" I shall say no more. Thy whole munificence, thy whole magnanimity, thy whole generosity, to the living lights of thy sullen region of toil, trimming, and tribulation, of the dulness of dukes and the mountainous fortunes of pinmakers—is exactly L1200 a-year! and this to be divided among the whole generation of the witty and the wise, of the sons and daughters ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... scheming adventurer. Neither patience nor tolerance belonged to Percival's character; and although he loved Elizabeth, he was bitterly indignant with her, and not indisposed to punish her for her faithlessness by forcing her to submit to caresses which she neither liked nor returned. If he had any magnanimity in him he deliberately put it on one side; he knew that he was taking a revenge upon her for which she might never forgive him, which was neither delicate nor generous, but he told himself that he had been too much injured to show mercy. It was Elizabeth's own fault if he assumed ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... weaker, and emboldened them openly to declare their sentiments and join his party. Those who could neither vie with Gustavus Adolphus in importance, nor suffer from his ambition, expected the more from the magnanimity of their powerful ally, who enriched them with the spoils of their enemies and protected them against the oppression of their stronger neighbors. His strength covered their weakness, and, inconsiderable in themselves, they acquired weight and ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... thinks it required more genius to invent, and more ability uniformly to sustain this character than any other of the masterly characters with which the book abounds. There is indeed uncommon art in the manner in which his dignity is preserved by his courage and magnanimity, in spite of all his pedantry and his ridicules, and his bear and bootjack, and all the raillery of M'Ivor. M'Ivor's unexpected "bear and bootjack" made us ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... their work on the night of the Grand Variety entertainment in the empty Government store. He would pretend to go away and leave her. He would come back, enjoy her astonishment, be melted by renewed entreaties, stoop to relent, overwhelm her with his magnanimity, and then proceed ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... refusal, insisted on still higher terms; and, indeed, rose in their demands, beyond what an administration, bankrupt in character and confidence, were able to grant them. What a Minister of comprehensive mind and enlarged views would have granted to the people with magnanimity at once, and what if thus granted, would have taken the tongue from discontent, and left disaffection no handle to use against the peace of the country, the Irish administration conceded piece-meal—one little measure ...
— The Causes of the Rebellion in Ireland Disclosed • Anonymous
... inability to alter the other's peculiar point of view—natural magnanimity checked ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... upon which this indemnity, which can not be large in amount, may be granted without establishing a dangerous precedent, and the granting of which would commend itself to the generous feelings of the entire country, and that is this: The Queen of Spain, with a magnanimity worthy of all commendation, in a case where we had no legal right to solicit the favor, granted a free pardon to all the persons who had so unjustifiably invaded her dominions and murdered her subjects in Cuba, in violation of her own laws ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume - V, Part 1; Presidents Taylor and Fillmore • James D. Richardson
... rendering him propitious and the fruits of such endeavour—are difficult to fathom by all beings other than himself, whether gods or men, since those Vedas are divided into Rik, Yajus, Sman, and Atharvan; and being animated by infinite pity, tenderness, and magnanimity; with a view to enable his devotees to grasp the true meaning of the Vedas, himself composed the Pakartra-sstra. The author of the Stras (Vysa)—who first composed the Stras, the purport of which it is to set forth the arguments establishing ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... meaner stuff than the men underneath, the same stuff, just spoilt, spoilt by prosperity and opportunity and the conceit that comes with advantage? This trouble wants so little, just a touch of aristocracy, just a little cultivated magnanimity, just an inkling of responsibility, and the place might rise instantly out of all this squalor and evil temper.... What does all this struggle here amount to? On one side unintelligent greed, unintelligent resentment on the other; ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... him into camp with great gusto. A rebel prisoner made a particular request, that his own negroes should not be placed over him as a guard. Dame Fortune is capricious! His request was not granted. Their mode of warfare does not entitle them to any privileges. If any are granted, it is from magnanimity to ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... any rate we 'll have Miss Striker—the divine Petronilla!" The young lady thus denominated formed, with Mrs. Hudson, Miss Garland, and Cecilia, the feminine half of the company. Mr. Striker presented himself, sacrificing a morning's work, with a magnanimity greater even than Roderick's, and foreign support was further secured in the person of Mr. Whitefoot, the young Orthodox minister. Roderick had chosen the feasting-place; he knew it well and had passed many a summer afternoon there, lying at his length on the ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... but put it quietly aside, and keep their temper, and rest content to wait patiently, perhaps years, perhaps a lifetime, for the opportunity of a sudden and pat revenge. Indeed, I suppose he would have been well satisfied to answer Frisbie's spite with the nobler revenge of magnanimity and smiling forbearance, had not the said opportunity presented itself. It was a temptation not to be resisted. And he, the most philanthropical of men, proved himself capable of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... her imagination, 'my slave, my comrade, and my king.' And we know that her courage was flawless, heroic, beyond praise; that she forgot nothing, not even that love for her unspeakable brother, for whom she has expressed in two of her poems a more than masculine magnanimity of pity and contempt; and that at all times she could turn inward to that world within, where ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... third scenes of the fourth act we may concede some slight merit to the picture of a chivalrous emulation in magnanimity between the Duke of Burgundy and his former fellow-student, whose refusal to break his parole as a prisoner extorts from his friend the concession refused to his importunity as an envoy: but the execution is by no means ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... Church, however, did not stick to its colours in this respect. Honesty not the best policy. A policy of compromise. 25. The oracles. Sosthenion and St. Michael. Delphi. St. Gregory's saintliness and magnanimity. Confusion of pagan gods and Christian saints. 26. Church in North Europe. Thonar, etc., are devils, but Balda gets identified with Christ. 27. Conversion of Britons. Their gods get turned into fairies rather than devils. Deuce. Old Nick. 28. Subsequent ...
— Elizabethan Demonology • Thomas Alfred Spalding
... individuals who would have assisted, to a greater extent than myself, two young men of decided genius, like Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Robert Southey, who required, at the commencement of their literary career, encouragement, and a little assistance. Few however, would have exhibited the magnanimity which Southey displayed, in seasons of improved circumstances, by referring to slender acts of kindness, long past, and scarcely remembered but by himself. Few are the men, who, after having surmounted their difficulties by honourable exertion, ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... insensible, when its uncontrollable grief burst out in the midst of a discourse on other topics, into an impassioned address to his departed brother, and a magnificent tribute to the virtues of this partner of his soul and affections? Or does not such an instance of Christian fortitude and magnanimity favorably contrast with the pusillanimous and almost heathen despondency and desolation which overwhelm many at the sight or news of death, even as the Catholic faith—warm, generous, and confident—cheers beyond that cold and gloomy ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence[.] They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces ...
— The Fathers of the Constitution - Volume 13 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Max Farrand
... baronial ancestors in the twelfth century—a spirit regarded by Euphemia but as a large way of understanding friendship, a freedom from conformities without style, and one that would sooner or later express itself in acts of surprising magnanimity. There doubtless prevailed in the breast of Mademoiselle de Mauves herself a dimmer vision of the large securities that Euphemia envied her. She was to become later in life so accomplished a schemer that her sense of having further heights to scale might well have waked up early. ...
— Madame de Mauves • Henry James
... presence and his magnanimity of character quickly banished any prejudices which the colonists had formed against him. In view of the hardships they had endured, he divided among them, free of all dues, some additional land. To the discharged soldiers he gave land on both sides of the river. ...
— The Red River Colony - A Chronicle of the Beginnings of Manitoba • Louis Aubrey Wood
... for free thought was short commons, stopped his son's allowance. Froude would have been alone in the world, if the brave and generous Kingsley had not come to his assistance. Like a true Christian, he invited Froude to his house, and made him at home there. To appreciate the magnanimity of this offer we must consider that Kinglsey was himself suspected of being a heretic, and that his prominent association with Froude brought him letters of remonstrance by every post. He said nothing about them, and Froude, in perfect ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... here is a welcome service if performed with skill and fair-mindedness in the interests of truth. The only query would be: Is the picture undistorted? If Thackeray's studies leave a bad taste in the mouth, if their effect is depressing, if one feels as a result that there is neither virtue nor magnanimity in woman, and that man is incapable of honor, bravery, justice and tenderness—then the novelist may be called cynic. He is not a wholesome writer, however acceptable for art or admirable for genius. Nor will the mass of mankind believe in and ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... been profuse in their praises of the cadet who appears in The Nights as an adviser of calm sound sense, an intercessor and a peace-maker, and even more remarkable than the rest of his family for an almost incredible magnanimity and generosity—une generosite effrayante. Mohammed was famed for exalted views and nobility of sentiment and Musa for bravery and energy: of both it was justly said, "They did ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... him in his wandering life; taught him all he knew himself—to take tin-types (as well as I can make out) and doubt the Scriptures; and died at last in Ohio at the corner of a road. "He was a grand specimen," cried Pinkerton; "I wish you could have seen him, Mr. Dodd. He had an appearance of magnanimity that used to remind me of the patriarchs." On the death of this random protector, the boy inherited the plant and continued the business. "It was a life I could have chosen, Mr. Dodd!" he cried. "I have been in all the finest scenes of that magnificent continent that we were born to be the heirs ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... puppy-dogs and kittens, to whom that commandment, along with the rest of the decalogue, is totally unknown. Sundry times I did observe symptoms of alarm; and care did write a sad story of mental suffering on the brow of the great lady, which was a person of the magnanimity of an ancient matron, and bore up in a manner surprising to behold in one who stood, as it were, with one hand upon her coffin, while her other stretched backward through the shadow of fourscore years to touch her cradle. And ever, from time to time, couriers ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... grounds which in the circumstances seem to me to be far from satisfactory. It is deeply disappointing that such an appeal, actuated by the most friendly feelings toward both nations directly concerned, addressed to the sense of justice and to the magnanimity of one of the great powers of the world, and touching its relations to one comparatively weak and small, should have ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland
... could tell by her eyes that she knew. There was nothing but Annie's loyalty between him and that exposure that he dreaded. He heard Fanny say that she would go and see Susan to-morrow. There would be nothing but Susan's loyalty and Ballinger's magnanimity. It would amount to that if they spared him for Fanny's sake. He had been absolutely right, and Ballinger had brought the whole trouble on himself; but you could never make Fanny see that. And Ballinger contrived ...
— Mr. Waddington of Wyck • May Sinclair
... describe us Anglo-Saxons. It is sufficient that we be hindered from getting what we want, even by our own sense of honour; we are forthwith ready to sacrifice life and limb to prevent any other man from getting it. The magnanimity of our renunciation is only to be compared with our tenacity in asserting our claim to what we have renounced. Even our charities usually have strings to them on which our hold never relaxes, in case we ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... the inheritance and the affections of her father. But the memory of this unhappy princess has been embalmed by the genius of Shakespeare, in the noble drama of which he has made her the touching and majestic heroine; and let not the praise of magnanimity be denied to the daughter of Anne Boleyn, in permitting those wrongs and those sufferings which were the price of her glory, nay of her very existence, to be thus impressively offered to ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... in succession, and they fared very badly at his hands. He showed that Abraham had not one good act recorded to his credit, and contrasted his duplicity with the magnanimity of the ruler of Egypt whom he visited. He dwelt upon the Hagar episode, showing that the adulterer was also a murderer by intention, and so forth; while no words could be too strong to apply to Sara, his wife. Isaac did not call ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... have been incentive enough; but I always considered that I could not afford to suffer in my own estimation for the sake of punishing him. When I recall all these things, I take credit to myself for magnanimity; though then I was governed only by my poor uncultivated judgment, and my impulses. For instance, Mr. Seabrook fell ill of a fever not long after he appropriated my real estate. Of course, I was as bitter towards him in my ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... magnanimity of abuse in some of these epithets, a fearless choice of topics of invective, which may be considered as the heroical ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... state of affairs continue? Would Governor Drentell show the same leniency and magnanimity towards the Hebrews as did his predecessor? The new ruler had now been in power for nearly a year, during which time there had been no hostility, no ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... be the means of tracing this national crime to the individuals who perpetrate it; and it is with the deepest sorrow that I am obliged to confess that my countrymen have not, in Tasmania, exhibited that magnanimity which has often been the prominent feature in their character. They have sternly and systematically trampled on the fallen. I have before remarked that they started with an erroneous theory, which they found to tally with their interests, and ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... eddicated accordingly;" and this, it was evident could only be brought about through the good offices of a tutor. And to the prospective tutor (though he was to be her rival) she was magnanimously favourable, whilst I, for my part, warmly opposed the very thought of him. But neither her magnanimity nor my unreasonable objections were put to the test ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... did not belong to your clique! Though you may not approve of his method or his principles, recognize his magnanimity. Would you not like to claim kindredship with him in that, though in no other thing he is like, or likely, to you? Do you think that you would lose your reputation so? What you lost at the spile, you ...
— A Plea for Captain John Brown • Henry David Thoreau
... heard him say with rare magnanimity, "yus, I forgives yer, old boy. But if yer does it again, yer'll ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... the following citations are from Long's translation) were written, not for self exploration, nor from delight in rounded periods, but for his own guidance. That he was in fact guided by his principles no better illustration offers than his magnanimity toward the adherents of one who would have usurped the throne of the Caesars. The observation of Long that fine thoughts and moral dissertations from men who have not worked and suffered may be read, but will be forgotten, seems to have been exemplified in the comparative oblivion ...
— Why Worry? • George Lincoln Walton, M.D.
... flight, there was no refuge from her beneficent despotism. It is not always easy for the curator of a museum to abandon his post on the plea of escaping a pretty cousin's importunities; and Eleanor, aware of my predicament, is none too magnanimous to take advantage of it. Magnanimity is, in fact, not in Eleanor's line. The virtues, she once explained to me, are like bonnets: the very ones that look best on other people may not happen to suit one's own particular style; and she added, with a slight deflection of metaphor, that none ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton
... infernal. His motives were sordid and flagitious. To display all their ugliness and infamy was not his province. No; he did not tell you that he stole at midnight to the chamber of his mistress; a woman who astonished the world by her loftiness and magnanimity, by indefatigable beneficence and unswerving equity; who had lavished on this wretch, whom she snatched from the dirt, all the goods of fortune, all the benefits of education; all the treasures of love; every provocation ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... me a Relation of more piety and moderation; shew me a Fraternity more spotlesse in their honour, and freer from the exorbitances of youth, then these three Brothers, so conspicuous to all the world for their Temperance, Magnanimity, Constancy, and Understanding; a friendship and humility unparallel'd, and rarely to be found amongst the severest persons, scarcely in a private family. It is the malice of a very black Soul, and a virulent Renegado (of whom to be commended were the utmost infamy) that has ...
— An Apologie for the Royal Party (1659); and A Panegyric to Charles the Second (1661) • John Evelyn
... from A.D. 37 to 41, youngest son of Germanicus and Agrippina, born at Antium; having ingratiated himself with Tiberius, was named his successor; ruled with wisdom and magnanimity at first, while he lived in the unbridled indulgence of every lust, but after an illness due to his dissipation, gave way to the most atrocious acts of cruelty and impiety; would entertain people at a banquet and then throw them into the sea; ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... and un-motived manner." It is difficult to see how "Love's Labour's Lost," produced in 1592, could have imitated "Mother Bombie," produced in 1594. "Alexander and Campaspe" is "taken from the well known story of the magnanimity and self-command with which Alexander curbs his passionate love for his beautiful Theban captive, and withdraws in favor of her lover Apelles." The most important comic scenes afford Diogenes the opportunity ...
— The Critics Versus Shakspere - A Brief for the Defendant • Francis A. Smith
... has an opportunity to ruin a rival, with whom he is at enmity, without public dishonor, and yet generously forbears, nay, converts the opportunity into a disinterested benefit, evinces a noble instance of virtuous magnanimity. He conquers his own enmity, the most glorious of all conquests, and overcomes the enmity of a rival by the most heroic ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... expressions as: 'to subsist in bones and be but pyramidally extant'—'sad and sepulchral pitchers which have no joyful voices'—'predicament of chimaeras'—'the irregularities of vain glory, and wild enormities of ancient magnanimity'—are examples of this consummate mastery of language, examples which, with a multitude of others, singly deserve whole hours of delicious gustation, whole days of absorbed and exquisite worship. It is pleasant to start out for a long walk with such a splendid phrase upon one's lips as: 'According ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... their invectives, and her admirers somewhat of their panegyrics, have at last, in spite of political factions, and what is more, of religious animosities, produced a uniform judgment with regard to her conduct. Her vigor, her constancy, her magnanimity, her penetration, vigilance, and address are allowed to merit the highest praises, and appear not to have been surpassed by any person that ever filled a throne: a conduct less rigorous, less imperious, more sincere, more indulgent to her people, would have been ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... glad to make peace with us. The next Sunday Mrs. Shimerda came over and brought Jake a pair of socks she had knitted. She presented them with an air of great magnanimity, saying, "Now you not come any more for knock my ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... of the Prince of Orange never appeared so thoroughly great as at this crisis. With wisdom and magnanimity rarely equalled and never surpassed, he threw himself and his authority between the indignation of the country and the guilt of Anjou; saving the former from excess, and the latter from execration. The disgraced and discomfited duke ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... no call for to take de trouble. I done said all I gwine to say and now I gwine to shut up my mouf tight. I'd scorn to hit a man arter he's down," said Katie, bridling with a lofty assumption of magnanimity. And as she really did shut her mouth fast, the point of expulsion ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... the wedding; but neither did he shut himself up indoors, as one indulging lamentation and grief. He pursued his occupations just as usual. He read to Mr. Verner, who allowed him to do so that day; he rode out; he saw people, friends and others whom it was necessary to see. He had the magnanimity to shake hands with the bride, and ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... thousand slaves are said to have been captured; an immense quantity of silver, wrought and coined; eighty-three thousand pounds of gold; of statues and pictures so many that they almost equalled the decorations of Syracuse. But Fabius, with more magnanimity than Marcellus, abstained from booty of that kind. When his secretary asked him what he wished to be done with the statues of their gods, which are of immense size and represented as fighting, each having his peculiar ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... thought I, "being good is very expensive." I deliberated for sometime, but finally answered, "No." My mother pressed the subject no farther; but after a while I exclaimed with a comfortable feeling of magnanimity; "Yes, dear mamma, you may give Aunty Patton the five dollars—and I'll get papa to ...
— A Grandmother's Recollections • Ella Rodman
... a woman of this valiant spirit Should, if a coward heard her speak these words, Infuse his breast with magnanimity, And make him, naked, foil a man at arms. I speak not this as doubting any here; For, did I but suspect a fearful man, He should have leave to go away betimes, Lest in our need he might infect another And make him of the like spirit to himself. If any such be here—as God forbid!— ...
— King Henry VI, Third Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]
... observing them carefully." In addition, however, to this peculiar insight, he had a singular reverence for truth and fact, enormous industry, and great self-abnegation: and his kindliness, modesty, and magnanimity attracted the affection of all who ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... wherein the noblest men and the wisest princes of that day enrolled themselves; and the inefficiency of whose far-reaching, secret, and solemn aims can be accounted for only by the fatal error of trusting in the magnanimity of an order born to hereditary power, and overlooking, in their municipal fraternities, the vast importance of the more scattered, but not less capable and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... thirty mortal sins than be a leper; but a kingly saint may touch heights of piety which are unattainable by himself. And, at the same time, he makes us feel that Louis is not the less a man because he is a saint. Certain human infirmities of temper are his; yet his magnanimity, his sense of justice, his ardent devotion, his charity, his pure self-surrender are made so sensible to us as we read the record of Joinville that we are willing to subscribe to the sentence of Voltaire: "It is not given to man to carry virtue to ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... mine and your father's wishes in that respect showed that force of understanding which I always ascribed to you. Your previous reluctance, your scruples, were indeed unworthy of you, but you conquered them, and that was better; perhaps it evinced more magnanimity than never to ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... much as she would anywhere else. With a strong will, and an intense, resistless kind of energy in holding any conviction, and an independence of character only equalled by its preeminent justice and generous magnanimity, she was singularly free from any tenacious insistence upon the matters of external life. She had her preferences; but she always accommodated herself to the decision or the necessity of the hour, and there was an end of it. She ...
— The Brownings - Their Life and Art • Lilian Whiting
... nostrils from a land of fallen principalities and proud gentility, and the breath of his spirit from a creed which made a wall of crystal around the elect. The two forces between them produced this potent and slender figure, swift, scornful, dainty and full of dry magnanimity; and it only needed the last touch of oligarchic mastery to be given by the overwhelming oligarchic atmosphere of our present age. Such was the Puritan Irishman who stepped out into the world. Into what kind of world did ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... that? Do you want to shoot yourself? You can if you like. I understand you! They wish to humiliate you, and you will show them the sort of man you are! You will kill yourself with a revolver, and them with magnanimity. I understand you. I understand everything, ...
— The Live Corpse • Leo Tolstoy
... like that," I said, and I won my neighbor's easy laugh, "I always like to give my own sex the benefit of the doubt, and I haven't any question but man's inconsistency is always attributable to his magnanimity." ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... building and rigging of ships," in "anatomy, making skeletons, and excarnating bowels;" but you miss all that Milton would have taught you of Latin and Greek, Poetry and Philosophy, Italian and Hebrew, moral magnanimity and spiritual elevation, the History of Nations, and the ways of God to men. [Footnote: Wood's Ath., IV. 214; Worthington's Diary by Crossley, I. 294- 8; and Pett's own Tract. On its title-page are the words "London: Printed anno Dom 1648;" but a copy in the British Museum bears the ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... La Salle, a man whom the historian Bancroft says that he had no superior among his countrymen for force of will and vast conceptions; for various knowledge, and quick adaptation of his genius to untried circumstances; for sublime magnanimity that resigned itself to the will of Heaven and yet triumphed over affliction by energy of purpose ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... cup from her lip before she had drank of it, to seep away all her power before she had tasted its sweets! Traitors that they were; the husband of her bosom, and the outcast whom she had fostered and brought into the warmth of the world's brightest fireside! But neither of them had the magnanimity of this woman. Though two men have thus leagued themselves together against her, even yet ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... was kneeling by the bedside of his dying wife, and her last words revealed to him a magnanimity of devotion for which he had been wholly unprepared. He had thought her merely amiable and stupid—except in her love for him—and his sentiments towards her had been a mixture of boredom, and the tolerant consideration due to the bestower of substantial benefits. Nevertheless, she had awakened, ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... the personal character of an opponent from the opinions he maintains. Men lean most to justice, and women to mercy. Men are most addicted to intemperance and brutality, women to frivolity and jealousy. Men excel in energy, self-reliance, perseverance, and magnanimity, women in humility, gentleness, modesty, and endurance.... Their religious or devotional realisations are incontestably more vivid.... But though more intense, the sympathies of women are commonly less wide than those of men. Their imaginations individualise more, their affections ...
— A Short History of Women's Rights • Eugene A. Hecker
... Majesty our sense of the victory obtained by the Count de Grasse over the enemy's fleet on our coast, and the subsequent reduction of the British armament in Virginia; and we repeat our grateful acknowledgments for the various aids so seasonably extended to us. From the benevolence and magnanimity, which has hitherto interested your Majesty in the welfare of these States, we are convinced, that you will on this occasion feel an equal pleasure with ourselves, whose immediate advantage is the result of such ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various
... with the utmost regret that we find ourselves compelled, by the overruling principles of self-preservation, to adopt measures detrimental in their consequences to numbers of our fellow subjects in Great Britain and Ireland. But we hope that the magnanimity and justice of the British nation will furnish a Parliament of such wisdom, independence, and public spirit, as may save the violated rights of the whole empire from the devices of wicked ministers and ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... the second place, Is it possible? Let us admit that at that particular crisis, or even generally, what he proposes is for the best. Thereupon the question which suggested itself in regard to the community of goods recurs with double force: Where may lie the secret of the magnanimity (that is the term to hold by) which will make wealth and office, with all their opportunities for puissant wills, no motive in life at all? Is it possible, and under what conditions—this disinterestedness ...
— Plato and Platonism • Walter Horatio Pater
... declarations against recusants were repeated with increased vehemence, while particular treaties for a local and conditional toleration were notoriously progressing; in a word, the administration of affairs exhibited all the worst vices and weaknesses of a despotism, without any of the steadiness or magnanimity of a really paternal government. Some of the edicts issued deserve particular notice, as characterizing the administrations of Grandison ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... decide what poetic use he could make of his intercourse with that loose and lawless class of men, who, from love of gain, broke the laws and braved the police of their country: that he found among smugglers, as he says, "men of noble virtues, magnanimity, generosity, disinterested friendship, and modesty," is easier to believe than that he escaped the contamination of their sensual manners and prodigality. The people of Kyle regarded this conduct with suspicion: they were not to be expected ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... indulgently, laughingly, "Molly!" Secure in her own safe place of favor she felt a great wave of generous pity for the helpless self-deception of her sister-woman. Fired by this and by the sudden perception of an opening for an act of spectacular magnanimity—would it be any the less magnanimous because it would cost her nothing in the end?—she reached for the mantle of the beau role and cast it about her shoulders. "Why, Molly dear!" she cried, and her quick sympathies had never been more genuinely aroused, "Molly dear, of course I'll keep out, ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... end? Ellen, her father, and Malcolm Graeme are united and happy, and Fitz-James reveals his identity and shows his magnanimity. ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Literature • Ontario Ministry of Education
... assemble in your cell and sing hymns. This will show that assassination is respectable. Then you will write a touching letter, in which you will forgive all those recent Browns. This will excite the public admiration. No public can withstand magnanimity. Next, they will take you to the scaffold, with great eclat, at the head of an imposing procession composed of clergymen, officials, citizens generally, and young ladies walking pensively two and two, and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Vincent's plan would prove a complete failure, and that the business would be nothing, yet he made me what I considered generous offers for so poor an establishment. But for Floyd," he admits, with great magnanimity, "I should have played into ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... surrounded with a huge band of chosen young men, for ornament and glory in peace, for security and defence in war. Nor is it amongst his own people only, but even from the neighbouring communities, that any of their Princes reaps so much renown and a name so great, when he surpasses in the number and magnanimity of his followers. For such are courted by Embassies, and distinguished with presents, and by the terror of their fame ...
— Tacitus on Germany • Tacitus
... caution and suspicion. But like all men of his breed, he hated with peculiar venom the well-born; he loved to grapple with them, to wrest their idleness from them, to compel them to work for a living, to humiliate them. The fiber in McQuade was coarse; he possessed neither generosity nor magnanimity; the very men who feared him held ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... spite of his obsession. Might not she hope to touch him just a little further? Was there any height now that he might not rise to? She seemed to see the possible end of it all shaping itself out of his magnanimity. She seemed to see him finally relinquishing his passion for the jewel, and his passion for her for the sake of something finer than both. She had seen it foreshadowed in what he had done this day—having them both in his hands, he had put them away from him. Yet in that action she ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... of this miserable sedition, from which London was delivered by the magnanimity of the Sovereign himself. Whatever some may maintain, I am satisfied that there was no combination or plan, either domestic or foreign; but that the mischief spread by a gradual contagion of frenzy, augmented ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... received an unexpected reward. Camillus, justly indignant at the act, put thongs in the boys' hands and bade them flog their master back into the town, saying that the Romans did not war on children. On this the people of Falerii, overcome by his magnanimity, surrendered themselves, their city, and their country into the hands of this generous foe, assured of just treatment from ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... young man the next day on the ground she had chosen—amid the chaste upholstery of a New York drawing-room furnished in the fashion of fifty years ago. Morris had swallowed his pride and made the effort necessary to cross the threshold of her too derisive parent—an act of magnanimity which could not fail ...
— Washington Square • Henry James
... greater still when they received this information. I did not hear what the Admiral said, but I know he made a very long speech, full of grandiloquent words, that he pressed his hands to his heart very often, and in other ways endeavoured to show his sense of British magnanimity. Evening coming on, he and his countrymen took their departure in their respective boats, some of which were rather overcrowded, as, of course, they had to carry the crews of the ...
— Ben Burton - Born and Bred at Sea • W. H. G. Kingston
... The magnanimity of Louis XIV. was still more strikingly shown on another gambling occasion. Very high play was going on at the cardinal's, and the Chevalier de Rohan lost a vast sum to the king. The agreement was to pay only in louis d'ors; and the chevalier, after counting out seven or eight ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... when some one talked of his good spirits, "Oh, Mr. Walpole is spirits of hartshorn." When Mason was writing the life of Gray, Walpole bade him throw the whole blame of the quarrel upon him. This might be mere magnanimity, as Gray was then dead; what makes one most inclined to think it was the truth, is the fact, that Gray was not the only intimate friend of Walpole with whom he quarrelled. He did so with Bentley, for which the eccentric conduct of that ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... death." "Forbear your entreaties," exclaimed the tyrant, "for were an angel to cry from Heaven, Do not slay him!' I would not attend." Upon this the young Syed said, "Thou ravest, O Hyjauje; who art thou that an angel should be commissioned for thy sake?" The tyrant, struck with his magnanimity, became calm, and commanding the executioner to release the youth, said, "For the present I forbear, and will not kill thee unless thy answers to my further questions shall deserve it." They then ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... an image of noble sadness, of magnanimity at issue with cruel fate. Iris glanced timidly at him; her panting showed that she wished to speak, but could not. He offered his hand; Iris took it, but ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... still further to impose upon an unoffending people, we must accord to him the redeeming virtue of courage, and recognize his ability as a soldier. On this occasion General Price exhibited in two instances the magnanimity, self-denial, and humanity which ever characterized him. General McCulloch claimed the right to command as an officer of the Confederate States Army. General Price, though he ranked him by a grade, replied that "he was not fighting for distinction, but for the defense of the liberties of his countrymen, ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... Toni were indeed a woman, one capable, moreover, of a totally unexpected magnanimity, he had indeed been guilty of a serious mistake, and the very idea that he had misread Toni's character so hopelessly filled Owen with a humility as disturbing ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... of your royal exchequer who reside in Mexico write that they are not empowered by your Majesty to provide this camp with some very necessary supplies which were asked from them for this land. May your Majesty be pleased to exercise your accustomed magnanimity, and order them to provide us with what is necessary for your Majesty's service, and for the maintenance of this camp and commonwealth, according to the memorials which the royal officials of these islands shall ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 - Volume III, 1569-1576 • E.H. Blair
... of the two sexes leads us to a third conclusion, that the stronger party seems to be master, but is as a matter of fact dependent on the weaker, and that, not by any foolish custom of gallantry, nor yet by the magnanimity of the protector, but by an inexorable law of nature. For nature has endowed woman with a power of stimulating man's passions in excess of man's power of satisfying those passions, and has thus made him ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... magnanimity of George III. Washington's rage at the tone of the speech is almost amusing in its vehemence. He, with a mind conscious of rectitude and sacrifice in a great cause, to ask pardon for his course! He to bend the knee to this tyrant overseas! Washington himself was not highly ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... by its recipient and his family. Samuel spoke with his wonted magnanimity; his father took a liberal view of the matter. And in writing to her friend a few days later, Jessica was able to say: 'I think you may safely stay at Falmouth for the whole winter. You will not be interfered with ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... end! I knew it not; I sought to thank thee; I found thee in the grave; I would have made retribution to thy children, but unjust, iron-hearted princes had deprived me of the power. Can the virtuous heart conceive affliction more cruel? My own ills I would have endured with magnanimity; but thine are wrongs I have neither the power to forget ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 2 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... audience. He, who had now benefited by his dreams, or by his reflections, returned a gracious answer, and invited himself to breakfast with her in her apartment." In the conversation which ensued, Napoleon asked her if her husband were mad, upon which she justified the duke by appealing to his own magnanimity, asking in her turn if his majesty would have approved of his deserting the king of Prussia at the moment when he was attacked by so potent a monarch as himself. The rest of the conversation was in the same spirit, uniting with a sufficient concession ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... our lives,' said Berenger, warmly, 'and be ever bound to you. Tell your lady that THIS is magnanimity; that now I truly thank her as our preserver, and shall bless her all the days of the life she gives ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... here, and you may safely indulge the belief that her own campaign is well matured. Keep your solemn sinless eyes wide open, and don't under any circumstances quarrel with poor Elliott Roscoe. One drop of his blood floats more generosity and magnanimity than all the blue ice in his cousin's body. He was in a savage mood last night, at Mrs. Tarrant's, and had some angry words with your guardian, who of course treated him as he would a spoiled boy. Roscoe at least has or had a heart. There is the day ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... seriousness we should mix in his dialogues is still a problem. Each palate has to season to suit. Also, we can never know how much is Socrates and how much essence of Plato. Socrates wrote nothing, and Plato ascribes all of his wisdom to his master. Whether this was simple prudence or magnanimity is ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard |
