"Docility" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... man talks of burdens he can raise, the timid of giants he can confront, the poor of treasures he spends, the most humble peasant, in the height of his pride, calls himself Jupiter. Whether Noirtier understood the young man's indecision, or whether he had not full confidence in his docility, he looked uneasily at him. "What do you wish, sir?" asked Morrel; "that I should renew my promise of remaining tranquil?" Noirtier's eye remained fixed and firm, as if to imply that a promise did not suffice; then it passed from his face to ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... considerable uneasiness crept over the Master as he pondered the huge strength and docility of these two executioners. It was only by reflecting that the renegade Sheik would gladly have murdered the whole Legion, and that now (by a kind of poetic justice) he had been delivered back into the hands of the Sunnites he had so long defied and outraged, that the Master could smooth his ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... which he turns either to the organising of a governing machine or to some form of personal service (in either case merging his own individuality) is as much foreign to the American spirit as is the docility of the less intelligent class of Germans under their political leaders—a docility which, until very recently has caused the German voters in America to be used ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... before the wedding she surprised herself by her docility and acquiescence in all that was proposed for her. She even accepted without demur the white swiss and blue ribbons that a week before she had considered entirely too infantile for an adult maid of honor. This particular exhibition of virtue was due to the exemplary ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... instant before speaking. Then, all at once, his features assumed an expression of docility, not at ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... gaiety which had pleased Frau Dubois so much the first day of their meeting had greatly diminished. Only on special occasions her former fiery vivacity burst forth, but the sudden flame expired as quickly as it had blazed and, dreamily absorbed in her own thoughts, she obeyed her with the docility of a child. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... across the gardens to the park. Janey was flying like the wind over the level turf, but she was well under guidance, and when her rider brought her round to the spot where Mr. Fairfax and the young lady stood to watch, she quite bore out his encomium on her docility. She allowed Bessie to stroke her neck, and even took from her hand an apple which the groom produced from a private store of encouragement and reward in ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... his wrists, took up a lighted candle; and the two of them left the room, followed by wondering glances, not the least of these being the Chevalier's, who was at loss to explain the vicomte's sudden docility. The priest and the vicomte soon entered the latter's cabin, and the former placed the candle on ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... it may be readily imagined that a female elephant unprotected by tusks must certainly be injured should a tiger rush determinedly to the attack; nevertheless the female is generally preferred to the male for steadiness and docility. When a really trustworthy male elephant is obtainable, well grown, of large size, easy action, and in perfect training, it is simply invaluable, and there is no pleasure equal to such a mount; the sensation upon such an animal is too delightful, ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... she had felt herself at liberty to trouble him with a word about her circumstances or her feelings. He was greatly perplexed; and in his perplexity as to her motives in withholding intelligence, he did not inquire. Thus her silence of docility was misinterpreted. How much it really said if he had understood!—that she adhered with literal exactness to orders which he had given and forgotten; that despite her natural fearlessness she asserted no rights, admitted his judgement to be in every respect ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... war the absurd Koepenick incident gave us a glimpse of this astonishing docility on its farcical side. Its tragic side is well illustrated by the droves of helpless and inarticulate barbarians driven into the shambles daily (as at Verdun) for the sole purpose of covering up the ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers
... told a story which illustrates the docility of the sadoe drivers, and the cleverness with which they can trace ...
— A Visit to Java - With an Account of the Founding of Singapore • W. Basil Worsfold
... significance of the subdued exclamation, Robert nevertheless followed the detective with confiding docility, and the pair hastened down a flight of stairs which conducted them to ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... mother and the eminent saint are delightfully blended in the wife of Elkanah, and the influence of each is obvious in Samuel. Eli seems to have beheld him with unusual affection. He had been early trained to gentleness, docility, and goodness. Discipline at home commenced from his first infancy, and continuing to the moment of his removal to Shiloh, prepared him for the course of life to which he was so soon introduced. Too often the petulance and frowardness ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... heart broke I would not have let a tear drop on his face—I never will again. Thank you, Sally," as the servant relinquished him to her who came in the name of a mother. Sally watched Ruth's grave, sweet smile, as she followed up Sally's play with the tassel, and imitated, with all the docility inspired by love, every movement and sound which had ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... voice, "we are yet but at the beginning of our friendship; thou wilt some day be better acquainted with me. My friend, it was I who caused thee to ascend here, and I ought to be satisfied at the docility with which thou hast accomplished my wishes. Paphnutius, ...
— Thais • Anatole France
... read with faith and expectation; wrong in demanding for it unreasoning, uncritical submission. Let reverence for its spirit and criticism of its letter go hand in hand; for reverence and criticism, faith and reason, docility to great masters and freedom in seeking for ourselves, are antagonist, indeed, but not contradictory. They are not hostile, but helpful, though acting in opposite directions—like the opposition of the thumb and fingers in the human hand, which makes of it such a wonderful servant ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... manysidedly awake, all attempts at any such constraint only arrest or deflect the growth of these intimations. Yet the dispositions necessary for the sufficient apprehension of these religious intimations—sincerity, conscientiousness, docility—are not, even collectively, already Religion, any more than they are Science or Philosophy. With these dispositions on our part, objective facts and living Reality can reach us—and, even so, these facts reach us practically always, at first, through human teachers ...
— Progress and History • Various
... frequent use by the author of this book of the actual words of Bergson are a tribute to the excellence and essential rightness of his style. The Frenchman, himself a free and candid spirit, would be the last to require unquestioning docility in others. He knows that thereby is the philosophic breath choked out of us. If we read him in the spirit in which he would wish to be read, we shall find, however much we may diverge from him on particular issues, that our labour has been far from wasted. ...
— Bergson and His Philosophy • J. Alexander Gunn
... know that it would do any good," said Tarzan, "as I have an idea that these lions are a little different from any that we are familiar with and possibly for the same reason which at first puzzled me a little—I refer to the apparent docility in the presence of a man of the lion who was with us today. A man is out there now ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... whose acquaintance any one would very impatiently covet for his conversation: on the contrary, I agree that his humour is fantastical, and his manners not of the pleasing cast; but there is nothing so savage and inhuman, which a little care, attention, and complaisance may not tame into docility. I must repeat to you some verses upon the subject: I have got them by heart, because they contain a little advice, which you may accommodate, if you please, to ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... has for twenty-eight years refused the means of national defence, and has made the Belgian Army into a byword on the plea that barrack life is dangerous to the religious faith of the peasant, the German Catholics have voted with exemplary docility every increase of the army and navy. Only once did they dare to propose a small reduction in the estimates for the expenditure on the war against the Herreros. But the indignation they raised by ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... of obtaining a very easy husband, who will let her do whatever she likes. A friend says she has found one for her in Leon, who is forthwith introduced. Margarita puts some questions to him to ascertain his docility, ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... always the same way—between his knees—and he commenced and finished the shearing of each animal exactly the same way, every clip of the large shears counting to the best advantage. They told me that he gained much time by the unvarying precision that left no ragged strips to be trimmed off. The docility of those wild sheep was astonishing. Almost while the last clip was being made the sheep was seized by a second assistant standing at the shearer's left, who at once threw the poor thing down on its side, where he quickly painted the ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... An unwonted gentleness and docility on the part of a previously irritable or vicious mare, and supervening on service, is an excellent indication of pregnancy, the generative instinct which caused ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... Africa. They live in herds of thirty or forty, and every herd forms a separate community. The leader of the herd is a full-grown bull with large, strong tusks, whom all the others obey with the greatest docility. When they wander through the forest, however, or fly before danger, the females go in front and set the pace, for they alone know how fast their young ones can travel. Their senses of smell and hearing are ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... little brothers of Adinda came to the limit of their fields just at the same time that the father of Saidjah was there with his plow, then the children called out merrily to each other, and each praised the strength and the docility of his buffalo. Saidjah was nine and Adinda six, when this buffalo was taken by the chief of the district of Parang-Koodjang. Saidjah's father, who was very poor, thereupon sold to a Chinaman two silver curtain-hooks—heirlooms from the parents of his wife—for eighteen ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... of obedience to his superior, and the instinctive docility of his temper compelled Adone to submit; he drew a long, deep breath and the ...
— The Waters of Edera • Louise de la Rame, a.k.a. Ouida
... other German scientists, had co-operated with the imperial militaristic government for many years to bring the Germanic mind into a condition of docility. So well did they understand the mentality and the trends of character of the German people that it was comparatively easy to impose upon them a militaristic system and philosophy by which the individual yielded countless personal liberties for the alleged good of the state. Rigorous ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... disturbed by any sudden motion of her head, her grey eyes dilated with wonder and curiosity as she listened to a story of Miss Broadus which was fitted to excite neither. Eleanor was beyond her, but she concluded that Mr. Carlisle held the key of this extraordinary docility. ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume I • Susan Warner
... humility. It is a regard, an esteem for oneself, too great to allow one to stoop to anything base or mean. It is submissive to authority, acknowledges shortcomings, respects others and expects to be respected in return. It can preside with dignity, and obey with docility. Far from being a vice, it is a virtue and is only too rare in this world. It is nobility of soul which betrays ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... venison dinner was announced for Sunday and received by the Valley in a spirit of hilarious enthusiasm. The preacher refused to deliver the sermon while the meal was in progress, but it was such a gustatory success that at its close, the guests sat in complete docility through a sermon on future punishment. It was a good sermon, quite as modern in most aspects as Lost Chief. Douglas had seen to that. Mr. Fowler had reached the closing sentence when a bull bellowed outside and the door opened disclosing Elijah Nelson, with his horse close ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... no more painful sight than that of untimely care in children, and it was particularly observable in one whose disposition had heretofore been mirthful. Yet there was so much sweetness and docility about Clara, that your admiration was excited; and if the moods of mind are calculated to paint the cheek with beauty, and endow motions with grace, surely her contemplations must have been celestial; since every lineament was moulded into loveliness, and her motions were more harmonious ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... scouring the town, at earning twenty-five sous an hour from ignorant architects, who treated him like a hodman. What course should he adopt? How was he to guess at the shortest route? He might leave the School; he would get a lift from his master, the influential Dequersonniere, who liked him for his docility and diligence; only what a deal of trouble and uncertainty there would still be before him! And he bitterly complained of the Government schools, where one slaved away for years, and which did not even provide a position for all those whom ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... women live together, and where jealousy between the sexes is too often the cause of lifelong feuds. Here the matrons seemed content to devote themselves to the rearing of their offspring, who, in return, rendered heart-whole affection to their mothers. I never witnessed such docility and loving obedience as was displayed by the children of this island to those who had the care of them, and while I remained at Engano I never heard a child cry or ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... He took it, humorously, as his lesson—sank his previous self-consciousness, with excellent effect, in grateful docility. "I only meant that there are perhaps better things to be done with Miss Stant than to criticise her. When once you begin THAT, with anyone—!" He was ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... lower, and made a little fun of the shy and over-sensitive intruder.[233] The ladies, however, made it up to him. Shelburne made him read his 'dry metaphysics' to them,[234] and they received it with feminine docility. Lord Shelburne had lately (1779) married his second wife, Louisa, daughter of the first earl of Upper Ossory. Her sister, Lady Mary Fitz-Patrick, married in 1766 to Stephen Fox, afterwards Lord Holland, was the mother of the ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... Jerome's confession of love, had experienced a curious revulsion from her maiden dreams. She had such instinctive docility of character that she was at times amenable to influences entirely beyond her own knowledge. Not understanding in the least Jerome's attitude of renunciation, she accepted it for herself also. She no longer builded ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... refused, declaring that it was all havers, but Heritage's docility persuaded him to follow suit. The two ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... cleverness. His talk is to that of Sir John what soda water is to champagne. It has the effervescence though not the body or the flavour. Slender and Sir Andrew Aguecheek are fools, troubled with an uneasy consciousness of their folly, which in the latter produces meekness and docility, and in the former, awkwardness, obstinacy, and confusion. Cloten is an arrogant fool, Osric a foppish fool, Ajax a savage fool; but Nicias is, as Thersites says of Patroclus, a fool positive. His mind is occupied ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Bart's beautiful cob with long mane and tail had been divested of saddle and bridle, and after being watered was about to be secured by its lariat to the tether-peg, the excitable little creature, that had been till now all docility and tractableness, suddenly uttered a shrill neigh, pranced, reared up, and before Bart could seize it by the mane, went off across the plain ...
— The Silver Canyon - A Tale of the Western Plains • George Manville Fenn
... This latter task was no easy one, owing to the restlessness of the child, who would join in all the gymnastic exercises suitable to his age, whereas absolute repose was prescribed for him. Dr. Glennie says, however, that, once back in the study-room, Byron's docility was equal to his vivacity. He had been instructed according to the mode of teaching adopted at Aberdeen, and had to retrace his steps, owing to the difference of teaching prescribed in ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... reappeared amid the accomplishments of the petit-maitre, and poor Mrs. Allison's spirits revived. Then the golden-haired Lady Madeleine was asked to stay at Castle Luton. When she came Ancoats devoted himself with extraordinary docility. He drew her, made songs for her, and devised French charades to act with her; he even went so far as to compare her with enthusiasm to the latest and most wonderful "Salome" just exhibited in the Salon by the latest and most wonderful of the impressionists. ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... all the powers of the mind in the study of the Scriptures, and should task the understanding to comprehend, as far as mortals can, the deep things of God; yet we must not forget that the docility and submission of a child is the true spirit of the learner. Scriptural difficulties can never be mastered by the same methods that are employed in grappling with philosophical problems. We should not engage in ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... to caresses and affection, but a blow, or angry word, rouses them to fury. They are certainly capricious, and sometimes without any apparent cause burst into fits of ill temper, therefore are by no means to be trusted, even in the midst of love and docility. ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... family line ever kept the laws of any government or creed." And if it was well that he should bear this in mind, it was well to reiterate it persistently, for, from the nurse's arms, the boy wore a look, not of docility so much as of gentle, judicial benevolence. The domestics of the old man's house used to shed tears of laughter to see that look on the face of a babe. His rude guardian addressed himself to the modification of this facial expression; it had not ...
— Madame Delphine • George W. Cable
... be renown'd for her song, The Eagle for strength, and for softness the Dove, Higher praise to the Baya of India belongs, For gentle docility, duty ...
— Ballads - Founded On Anecdotes Relating To Animals • William Hayley
... are people who are simply cultivated—Naturvoelker—and people who are wholly cultivated—Vollkulturvoelker. Now the degree of right depends on the degree of culture. As compared with the Kulturvoelker the Naturvoelker have no rights. They have only duties—submission, docility, obedience. And if there exists a people which deserves more than all others the title of Vollkulturvoelker—completely cultured people—to this people the earth belongs and the supremacy thereof. Its mission is to bend all other peoples beneath the yoke of its omnipotence ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... much more relished and admired in England than in his own country, and added: "It is only recently critics on the lookout for a literature have elevated him to his proper and almost more than his proper place. This docility to English guidance in the case of their best, or almost their best, prose writer, may perhaps be followed by a similar docility in the case of their best, or almost their best, poet, Poe, whom also England had preceded the United States in recognizing." This comical patron is all the ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... choice of routes, extricating the horses when wedged between the trees, and re-adjusting the packs so that they would not project beyond the sides of the horses, required constant patience and untiring toil, and the struggle between our own docility and the obstacles in our way, not unfrequently resulted in fits of sullenness or explosions of wrath which bore no slight resemblance to the volcanic forces ...
— The Discovery of Yellowstone Park • Nathaniel Pitt Langford
... wonder, as well you may—as you may wonder at the docility with which strong men walk through the press-room to the drop, and thank the people of the prison for their civility when they bid them good-bye, and facilitate the fixing of the rope and adjusting of the cap. Have you never wondered ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... return. Prayers were put up the following day at most of the fashionable churches, and a solemn te deum was composed expressly for the occasion. The young savage has already realized the expectation we formed of his docility and capacity; already he speaks our language equal to a native—has run through the whole of his property—keeps race-horses—and has an opera singer under his protection—never pays a bill, and is admitted without a voucher at every hell in the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, No. - 287, December 15, 1827 • Various
... dreamily, then opened his eyes wide, with surprising docility rolled out and, uttering no word, lurched to the fan-tan table. The tall man took his place, lay down, and drew together the unclean curtains of sleazy stuff provided to afford privacy to shrinking ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... acquaintance, he perceived that, under a child's innocent simplicity, there were the workings of an acuteness that required but development and direction. He ascertained that the pattern boy's progress at the village school proceeded from something more than mechanical docility and readiness of comprehension. Lenny had a keen thirst for knowledge, and through all the disadvantages of and circumstance, there were the indications of that natural genius which converts disadvantages ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... true religion into her daughter's infant mind; and, by her judicious instructions, gave her knowledge far superior to her years; which was indeed the most delightful task of this fond parent; for her daughter's uncommon docility and quick parts, continually stimulated by her tenderness for the best of mothers, made her improve even beyond Lady ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott
... necessary they agree that the pig be weighed, as that would be a means of ascertaining how he fared during his stay with the lonely woman. This point being settled satisfactorily, the pig answered to his name, and ran to his master with the docility of a spaniel. And now, amidst the loudest of squeals his lungs were capable of, his hind legs were secured and his body hung suspended by the steelyards, the dog in the meantime keeping up a loud barking, ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... finished. Youth, courage—all combined to turn him from obedience; but obedience bade fair to conquer, when Marcia's laugh rang in his ears, and he could hear her gravely complimenting his prudence and discoursing on the rare value of docility in a husband. Besides, what did it all matter? Had he not said that he sought death? and, surely, the way it ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... fight the enemy with you, and to die with you if it be necessary." Byron, superior to vulgar prejudice, saw in the manners of the pallikares an ingenuous simplicity, a manly frankness and rustic procedure, but full of honour; he observed in the people a docility and constancy capable of the greatest efforts, when it shall be conducted by skilful and virtuous men; he observed amongst the Greek women natural gaiety, unstudied gentleness, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 336 Saturday, October 18, 1828 • Various
... was broad-chested, and rotund in his hind quarters, and possessed much of the plumpness and sleekness which distinguish that breed, but looking in his eyes you would have been undeceived in a moment; a wild savage fire darted from the restless orbs, and so far from exhibiting the docility of the other noble and loyal animal, he occasionally plunged desperately, and could scarcely be restrained by a strong curb and powerful arm from resuming his former headlong course. The rider was a youth, apparently about eighteen, dressed as a European, ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... his friends, writhed under the mere possibility. And how they would laugh in and round about Peshawur! A fine figure he would cut as he rode through the streets with every ragged bystander jeering at the man who was walked into docility and submission by ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... it was not faith, but self-will. To cast Himself into dangers needlessly, and then to trust God (whom He had not consulted about going into them) to get Him out, was to 'tempt God.' True faith is ever accompanied with true docility. He had come to do His Father's will. A divine 'must' ruled His life. Was He to begin His career by throwing off His allegiance on pretext of trust? If the Captain of our Salvation commences the campaign by rebellion, how can He lead the rank and file to that surrender ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... towards the sunset for islands yet dreamier than its own. The islanders are of a kind with their islands. Different as are the nations into which they are now divided, the Scots, the English, the Irish, the Welsh of the western uplands, have something altogether different from the humdrum docility of the inland Germans, or from the bon sens francais which can be at will trenchant or trite. There is something common to all the Britons, which even Acts of Union have not torn asunder. The nearest name for it is insecurity, something fitting in men walking on cliffs ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton
... instance, Captain Cook displayed true eloquence. The merit, indeed, is not inconsiderable, of inducing so great a sacrifice as his crew now made; and, on the other hand, due commendation ought to be allowed to their docility. This incident altogether is exceedingly striking, and might, one should think, be very advantageously studied by all who are in ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... in her habits; a quick feeder; and a most satisfactory animal in all particulars. From the Devons, spring those beautifully matched red working-oxen, so much admired in our eastern states; the superiors to which, in kindness, docility, endurance, quickness, and honesty of labor, no country can produce. In the quality of their beef, they are unrivaled by any breed of cattle in the United States; but in their early maturity for that purpose, are not equal ...
— Rural Architecture - Being a Complete Description of Farm Houses, Cottages, and Out Buildings • Lewis Falley Allen
... mounted on a beautiful bay horse, with a gold-colored mane, my uncle on a gray horse, young and ardent, and I rode one of those little white ponies, which to strength and activity unite the docility of a sheep. ...
— The Regent's Daughter • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... burdens which they enjoyed as compared with their friends at home. To speak of them as 'slaves to the corvees and unpaid military service, debarred from education and crammed with gross fictions as an aid to their docility and their value as food for powder,' [Footnote: A. G. Bradley, The fight with France for North America (London, 1905, p. 388).] is to display a rare combination of hopeless bigotry and crass ignorance. ...
— The Seigneurs of Old Canada: - A Chronicle of New-World Feudalism • William Bennett Munro
... next event. They had a puncture on the way, and the terrace and halls were deserted when they arrived home. Miss Watts hurried her off to the schoolroom, for supper, and urged her to take her bath and go to bed after her strenuous day. The child was docility itself. ...
— The Cricket • Marjorie Cooke
... absolutely unattainable by millions—literally by millions—of our fellow-men and women in this country. Can the Cab Horse Charter be gained for human beings? I answer, yes. The Cab Horse standard can be attained on the Cab Horse terms. If you get your fallen fellow on his feet again, Docility and Discipline will enable you to reach the Cab Horse ideal, otherwise it will remain unattainable. But Docility seldom fails where Discipline is intelligently maintained. Intelligence is more frequently lacking to direct than obedience ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... strategic movements to be made upon the logs, whereby they would move more swiftly than usual. He described several successful drives on the Kennebec, when the logs had melted down the river almost by magic, owing to his generalship; and he paid a tribute, in passing, to the docility of the boss, who on that occasion had never moved a single log ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... includes about one hundred and sixty species, and, though peculiar to the warmer regions of the world, they are better known in England than any other foreign bird. From the beauty of their plumage, the great docility of their manners, and the singular faculty they possess of imitating the human voice, they are general favourites, both in the drawingroom of the wealthy and ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... the first time, they comprehended that salvation is without money and without price—absolutely free and gratuitous. It was to them news—good news; and when I call to mind Meekha's impetuous temperament, and see him listen with such docility to Christ's teaching, I cannot but hope that, though imperfectly sanctified, the 'good work' is begun in him, which God's grace will complete. He accepts no new truth without a challenge, and nothing short of a 'Thus saith the Lord,' will give it currency with him. At ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume II. • Rufus Anderson
... Zoological Gardens in London is the Crested Screamer from South America. It is in many respects a very singular species, and its large size, great strength, and majestic demeanour, with the surprising docility and intelligence it displays when domesticated, give it a character amongst birds somewhat like that of the elephant amongst mammals. Briefly and roughly to describe it: in size it is like a swan, in shape like a lapwing, only with a powerful curved gallinaceous beak. It is adorned ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... Sisters were the first to obey with the docility of holy women accustomed to unfaltering submission. The Count and Countess appeared next, followed by the manufacturer and his wife, and after them Loiseau pushing his better half in front of him. As he set foot to the ground he remarked to the officer, more from motives ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... raked the street with final reluctant glances; then in a spirit of witless and unquestioning docility returned. ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... retrospect of fifty years, it was impossible to attribute to him. You imagined him as having been caught early, broken to harness at once, and kept between the shafts ever since. It was easy to figure him as backing into position with a sweet and reasonable docility—a docility which saw no other course or career for a properly minded young horse, and which looked upon the juvenile antics of others in the herd as an unintelligible and rather reprehensible procedure. He knew what he was for, and ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... foray. But they will overtake the wind sooner than they will overtake the Liath Macha and Black Shanglan, whose going truly is like the going of eagles. O storm-footed steeds, great is my love for you, and inexpressible my pride in your might and your beauty, your speed and your terror, and sweet docility and affection." ...
— The Coming of Cuculain • Standish O'Grady
... seen such a craft before. This, however, was a comparatively unimportant matter. What concerned him most intimately was the fact that, after their night's rest, they seemed to exhibit a good deal more docility and intelligence than they had displayed on the night before. They worked well and—apparently—quite willingly, but did not appear to possess a very great amount of stamina, as they manifested every indication of ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... superintending the teaching, but he had confined himself to admiring the teacher. And then in time he too had been drawn into the attraction of that strong sweet nature, and had found himself consulting her upon points of conduct, and acting upon her advice with a docility which he had never shown before to minister or mistress. For a time he had thought that her piety and her talk of principle might be a mere mask, for he was accustomed to hypocrisy all round him. It was surely unlikely that a woman who was still beautiful, with as bright an eye and ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... So with plants: the shrewd, observing, thoughtful gardener will obtain many varieties from his flowers; but those varieties will fade out, if left to themselves. There is, as it were, a certain degree of pliability and docility in the organization both of animals and plants, which may be developed by the fostering care of man, and within which he can exercise a certain influence; but the variations which he thus produces are of a peculiar ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... was suddenly emancipated, and what has been the effect? Where the opportunities of insurrection have been so frequent, and so tempting, what has been the effect? M. Ravenga declares that the effect has been a degree of docility on the part of the blacks, and a degree of security on the part of the whites, unknown in any preceding period of the history ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... It is said that before she had reached the age of eight-and-twenty, she had learned to read Latin and Greek with facility, and made herself more than passably acquainted with various arts and sciences. To the indomitable will and perseverance of her sister Maria, she added a docility and gentleness to which the elder daughter of Garcia had been a stranger. Pauline was a favorite of her father, who had used pitiless severity in training the brilliant and willful Maria. "Pauline can be guided by a thread of silk," he would say, "but Maria ...
— Great Singers, Second Series - Malibran To Titiens • George T. Ferris
... area of 1,000 square miles! We left by the 4.30 train for Seymour, Mr. Rose driving me to the station in his carriage with his pretty pair of ponies. They are said to be perfectly quiet, and I suppose they are, according to Australian ideas; but they did not come up to my notion of docility. Besides sundry kicks and buck-jumps, they had both legs over the splinter-bar once, one leg over the pole twice, and another leg over the traces, which fortunately came unfastened, or in the regular kicking match which ensued some ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... convent to enter another. I know you; you are a coward, and you will submit to the yoke of family life with a lamblike docility. But I am here to direct you; you must come to Paris. There we shall drive the men wild and hold a court like queens. Your husband, sweetheart, in three years from now may become a member of the Chamber. I know all about members ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... had grown apace, a placid, dimpled little creature, who stayed with great docility wherever she was put, content to amuse herself with her ten fingers, or the new accomplishment of blowing bubbles out of her mouth. In all characteristics she was so different from what her own two strenuous, exacting babies had been ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... preparation of men and warlike material,—the majestic patience and docility,—with which the people waited through those weary and dreary months,—the martial skill, courage, and caution, with which our movement was ultimately made,—and at last the shock with which we were brought suddenly up ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 6, June, 1886, Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 6, June, 1886 • Various
... the romantic rescuer and lover of the little dancer. All were conscious of witnessing the development of a romance especially sanctioned by Divine Providence, and looked on with interest and respect. Ingigerd's attitude to Frederick was that of tacit docility, as if she, the obedient ward, recognised ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... her vague surmise on the train. It was only a very few minutes before Wollaston laid down the paper which he had been reading, and said something to Evelyn, who began to fold her work with the sweet docility which Maria remembered. Wollaston rose and went over to Evelyn and kissed her as she stood up and let the yellow cat leap to the floor. Evelyn looked to Maria more beautiful than she had ever seen her. Maria stood farther back in the shadow. Then she heard the front door opened, and the ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... that the intellectual virtues are outside the range of religion. "Candour, moral courage, intellectual honesty, scrupulous accuracy, chivalrous fairness, endless docility to facts, disinterested collaboration, unconquerable hopefulness and perseverance, manly renunciation of popularity and easy honours, love of bracing labour and strengthening solitude; these, and many other cognate qualities," says Baron von ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... identical with the famed "Basuto pony," for which long prices are given today. It is a great pity that these ponies have been allowed to become practically extinct in the Cape Colony. For hardiness and docility they were unequalled. Like so much else, they melted away in the coffers of ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... century western Europe had been living in an age of simple faith. The Christian world everywhere lay under "a veil of faith, illusion, and childish prepossession." The mysteries of Christianity and the many inconsistencies of its teachings and beliefs were accepted with childlike docility, and the Church had felt little call to organize, to systematize, or to explain. Here and there, to be sure, some questioning monk or cleric had raised questions over matters [9] of faith which his reason ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... taught him that there was a side of life he did not realize. Though beauty meant little to his practical nature, he sought, in his great love for Margaret, to appreciate the works which excited her to such charming ecstasy. He walked by her side with docility and listened, not without deference, to her outbursts. He admired the correctness of Greek anatomy, and there was one statue of an athlete which attracted his prolonged attention, because the muscles were indicated with the precision of a plate in a surgical textbook. When Margaret talked of the ...
— The Magician • Somerset Maugham
... had recovered himself. That was too much for the obstreperous animal; he knew he was conquered and gave in to the inevitable, allowing himself to be handled and put through his paces with suspicious docility. ...
— Australia Revenged • Boomerang
... thought and sensation. I never played except by myself, and then only acted over what I had been reading or fancying, or half one, half the other, with a stick cutting down weeds and nettles, as one of the "Seven Champions of Christendom." Alas! I had all the simplicity, all the docility of the little child, but none of the child's habits. I never thought as a child, never had the language of ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... their work and returned to their farms; many of the most active and disorderly spirits, the restless loud-voiced men who are the potent minority in an agitation, had been removed by the levy of Marius; with the city mob docility generally alternated with revolution, and it was now inclined to look to the verdict of the recognised heads of the State. In this moment of reaction, too, many must have been inclined to wonder what after all could be said against this general ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... trouble in teaching manners to our dumb companions; for in spite of Master Nimble's general docility, he was constantly playing some trick, or getting into scrapes of all sorts. One day he was seen by Duppo trying to pull the feathers out of Niger's head; and on another occasion he was discovered in an attempt to pluck poor Poll, in spite of her ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... him company, and such hell-dogs were in chase of him;—till Czaslau, when the dice fell kind again! All this had been didactic on a young docile man. He was but thirty gone. And if readers mark such docility at those years, they will find considerable meaning in it. Here are prudence, moderation, clear discernment; very unusual VERACITY of intellect, as we define it,—which quality, indeed, is the summary and victorious outcome of all manner of good qualities, and faithful performances, in ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... observation universally true that the sons of labourers and rusticks are more dull and indocile than those of gentlemen and tradesmen; for though I doe not pretend to have become of the first magnitude for wit or docility, yet I think I may without arrogance say that in our paltry country school here at Braintry - "Ego meis me minoribus condiscipulis ingenio prlu[si]": but perchance the advantage I had of my contemporaries may rather be owing to my ...
— The Natural History of Wiltshire • John Aubrey
... weakness in his eyes and mouth. With such a man, she thought, there was little to fear; but there was nothing to love. If she asked, he would give, if she opposed him, he would surrender, if she lost her temper and commanded, he would obey with petulant docility. She should be obliged to take refuge in vanity in order to get any satisfaction out of her life, and she was not naturally vain. The luxuries of those days were familiar to her from her childhood. Though she had not lived in ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford
... person of true imagination—would call abominable a wonderful piece of mechanism with the power of flattening mountains into plains, triumphing over space, annihilating distance; a machine combining fiercest energy with the mildest docility. No, only old fogies would close their hearts to a machine fit for the gods, and pride themselves on being motophobes forever. We felt ourselves, car and all, to be worthy of this magic way, lined with blossoms that played like rosy children among ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... kept up a stream of baby talk to her infant: "Now your stockings, my darling; now your skirt, sweetness—O! no—not yet—your shoes first," etc., etc. Baby acceded to all the details with more than the docility which real infants usually show. When this was done—"Now we must go tell papa good-morning, dearie," said mamma. "Yes, mamma," came the reply; and hand in hand they started to find papa. I, the spectator, carefully read my newspaper, thinking, however, ...
— The Story of the Mind • James Mark Baldwin
... also failed to acknowledge the valor of those who swelled the ranks of the Continental army. Enough, however, can be gathered, mostly from private correspondence, to show that the hope of success for the Americans rested either in the docility of the negroes at the South, or in their loyalty to the cause of Independence. At all events, upon the action of the blacks more than upon the bravery and valor of the American troops, depended the future status of the Colonies; hence the solicitude ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... these witnesses, Mrs. Gaunt took a line that agreeably surprised the court. It was not for nothing she had studied a hundred trials, with a woman's observation and patient docility. She had found out how badly people plead their own causes, and had noticed the reasons: one of which is that they say too much, and stray from the point. The line she took, with ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... you are quite mistaken," began Aunt Marjorie. "What I principally noticed about Judy was her great quietness and docility since Hilda left. She scarcely spoke of her sister, and seemed content to sit by my side and read fairy stories. She used to be such a very excitable, troublesome sort of child. If you ask me frankly, I think Hilda's ...
— A Young Mutineer • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... veneer of docility had been spread over them by their three years' dealing with the Hudson's Bays and their intercourse with the quiet and tractable Assiniboines, had vanished. They were themselves as nature made them, cruel to the ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... had gone off in a decided huff—so much so indeed that he left his devoted army to carry out their rather misty manoeuvres without any help from him. He was beginning to find a falling-off in their docility of late, which was no doubt owing to their sisters; it was excessively annoying to him that those girls should be so difficult to convince of the protective value of a fortress, and especially that they should decline ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... what I answered,—my heart was heavy and aching,—but I tried with true feminine docility to follow the lead he had set me. He continued for some time in the same vein; but as we approached the house the effort seemed to become too much for him, and we relapsed again ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... of the power of story-telling to develop attentiveness comes to my mind, but the most prominent in memory is a rather recent incident, in which the actors were boys and girls far past the child-stage of docility. ...
— How to Tell Stories to Children - And Some Stories to Tell • Sara Cone Bryant
... and constantly thought of good things gone by, though she had but the faintest idea of what those good things had been. She imagined that a purity had existed which was now gone; that a piety had adorned our pastors and a simple docility our people, for which it may be feared history gave her but little true warrant. She was accustomed to speak of Cranmer as though he had been the firmest and most simple-minded of martyrs, and of Elizabeth ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... it politic to be seen sauntering about the town. By leaving the old man alone with his despair, he knew he should make him feel his desertion the more keenly, and reduce him to docility. To keep Philippe from assisting his uncle at this crisis, he had given Kouski strict orders not to open the door to any one. Flore away, the miserable old man grew frantic, and the situation of things approached ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... his well-shaped eyebrows and showed his brilliant teeth. But he took Winterbourne's rebuke with docility. "I told the signorina it was a grave indiscretion, but when was the ...
— Daisy Miller • Henry James
... compos'd here of a twofold part: The first of nature, and the next of art: Art presupposes nature; nature she Prepares the way for man's docility. ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... apparent docility, the cowboy, when the time came for him to bunk down under the chuck wagon for a few hours of sleep, tethered his mount quite securely to a deep-driven stake. Before the cattleman had taken more than a round dozen of winks the black had tested his tether ...
— Horses Nine - Stories of Harness and Saddle • Sewell Ford
... were also ignorant of the aims of the men who dealt it; and while they were waiting to see the import of events, power passed rapidly into the hands of Bonaparte and his coadjutors. Such is an explanation, in part at least, of the strange docility now shown by a populace which still vaunted its loyalty to the democratic republic. But there is another explanation, which goes far deeper. The revolutionary strifes had wearied the brain of France and had predisposed it to ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... it was that the outlaw had for the time given up all notion of resistance and hostility, or that he felt the difference between the girl's gentle touch and the rough handling he had undergone, he did not stir. But this docility, this understanding, was only a part of the sight that ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... their passage to the North, disappeared with the little they had saved. They were quite destitute now, but looked to the future with no foreboding, and huddled together in the straw, made a picture of domestic felicity that impressed me greatly with the docility, contentment, and unfailing good humor of their dusky tribe. The eyes of the children were large and lustrous, and they revealed the clear pearls beneath their lips as they clung bashfully to their mother's lap. The old lady was smoking a clay pipe; the man running over ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... consisting of those which are implanted by nature, and are called involuntary; the other, of those which depend on the will, and are more often spoken of by their proper name of virtues; whose great excellence is attributed to the mind as a subject of praise. Now in the former class are docility, memory, and others, nearly all of which are called by the one name of ingenium, and those who possess them are called ingeniosi. The other class consists of those which are great and real virtues; which ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... practical jokes, the victim alternately of careless indifference or of extravagant generosity. He received kicks and half-dollars intermittently, and pocketed both with stoical fortitude. But under this treatment he presently lost the docility and frugality which was part of his inheritance, and began to put his small wits against his tormentors, until they grew tired of their own mischief and his. But they knew not what to do with him. His pretty nankeen-yellow skin ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... far is it from being true that the blacks as material soldiers are inferior to white, that they are in some respects manifestly superior; especially in aptness for drill, because of their imitativeness and love of music; docility in discipline, when their confidence is once acquired; and enthusiasm for the cause. They at least know what they are fighting for. They have also a pride as soldiers, which is not often found in our white regiments, ...
— 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
... repertory of tricks, calculated to get a man off his back, so extensive that he never seemed to repeat. He stood always as docilely as a camel to be saddled and bridled, with what method in this apparent docility no man versed in horse philosophy ever had been able to reason out. Perhaps it was that he had been born with a spite against man, and this was his scheme for luring him on ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... virtues of a school, as Dewey points out, are learning by doing; the use of muscles, sight and feeling, as well as hearing; and the employment of energy, originality, and initiative. The virtues of the school in the past were the colorless, negative virtues of obedience, docility, and submission. Mere obedience and the careful performance of imposed tasks he holds to be not only a poor preparation for social and industrial efficiency, but a poor preparation for democratic society and government as well. Responsibility for good government, under ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... the fact that the white man was now in possession of the domains of their forefathers, and that their best course was to behave themselves. When the presence of the police was required, Jim was almost amused at the docility with which ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... done embracing her; and I, too, was warmly welcomed by these dear and affectionate boys, who kissed me again and again. They have already won golden opinions at the college, by their rare aptitude in acquiring all that is taught them, and by their docility and ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... multiplication table and the rule of three, or the hypostatical union with the chemical composition of water and light. Having said thus much of compulsion, we return, not as ministers in the temple of religion so much as students in the school of science, to consider with docility the question in ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... imagine that she was scolding; but, in truth, she was merely giving them directions. Having no other object of contemplation or subject of discourse, she always found, in their postures and looks, occasion for praise, or blame, or command. The readiness with which they understood, and the docility with which they obeyed, her movements and ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... and no spiritual twilights connected her sleeping and waking hours. She opened her eyes and looked around the room, and remembered how she had run away and how her mother was not there, and she remembered the strange lady with that same odd combination of terror and attraction and docility with which she had regarded her the night before. It was a very cold morning, and there was a delicate film of frost on the windows between the sweeps of the muslin curtains, and the morning sun gave it a rosy ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... disposes of vermin. Laura listened to them, pallid with silent torture. "Since the rascals have taken to assassination, we know that we have them at the dregs," said Count Lenkenstein. "A cord round the throats of a few scores of them, and the country will learn the virtue of docility." ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... detail, and of extraordinary rigour in application. And this discipline had actually brought into existence a wonderful average of character,—a character of surprising patience, unselfishness, honesty, kindliness, and docility combined with high courage. But only the evolutionist [162] can imagine what the cost of developing that character must ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... baby-burros, looking ridiculously like jack-rabbits—snorting their indignation at our invasion of their privacy. Strange, by the way, how quickly these wild asses lose their wildness of carriage when broken, and lapse into the utmost docility! ...
— Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb
... propriety of a custom, in which they have been constantly brought up. Never having seen any example that contradicted it, they have not the least idea of varying from it. Thus being submissive from the habit, as well as from reason, they, by their docility, maintain that peace in their families, which they ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... obeyed all my brother's military commands with the utmost docility; and happy it made me that every sort of doubt, or question, or opening for demur was swallowed up in the unity of this one papal principle, discovered by my brother, viz., that all rights and duties of casuistry were transferred from me to himself. His was the judgment—his was the responsibility; ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... not have been so great. Being what she was, it was grand; and made as it was for penitence, it had in it the essential spirit of saintliness. For saintliness comes in small things as well as great, and George Herbert's swept room is a true image. There was saintliness in the docility with which she rose at six and went to bed at nine; saintliness in the quiet asceticism with which she ate porridge for breakfast and porridge for supper—at the first honestly believing it either a joke or an ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various |
