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More "Benignity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... country usefully in the field of battle, whilst the concurrent limitation of the expenses in this direction prevented any proportionate increase of their numbers, they were so much the less disposable in aid of the public luxury. His fatherly care of all classes, and the universal benignity with which he attempted to raise the abject estimate and condition of even the lowest Pariars in his vast empire, appears in another little anecdote, relating to a class of men equally with the gladiators given up to the service of luxury in ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... dear Sir; but it would be almost a crime in your Pamela not to exult in the mild benignity of those rays, by which her beloved Mr. B. endeavours to make her look up to his own sunny sphere: while she, by the advantage only of his reflected glory, in his absence, which makes a dark night to her, glides along with her paler and fainter beaminess, and makes a distinguishing figure among ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... he had been so much oftener vexed, and so much seldomer pleased than you do," continued I, mentally comparing the smooth though weather-beaten benignity of the straight-cut features beside me, with the austere and frown-puckered gravity of ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... in the summer of 1525. Before this end was accomplished, the Good Elector passed away—a wise, kindly, tolerant man who had exercised an immense moderating influence by simple benignity, shrewdness, and force of character. A little earlier, the ambitious schemes of Francis I. had been shattered by the disaster of Pavia. In effect, the whole European situation was changed completely since the death ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... might have inculcated with decent firmness the guilt of blood, and the necessity of repentance; he is content to celebrate the deliverance of the people and the fall of the oppressor; to rejoice that the piety and benignity of Phocas have been raised by Providence to the Imperial throne; to pray that his hands may be strengthened against all his enemies; and to express a wish, perhaps a prophecy, that, after a long and triumphant ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... Middleton, having now returned to the usual benignity of his manner—"the reason why I desired that none of you should go to that building," pointing out of the window, "was this:—I had been informed that a gang of gipsies had slept there the night before I spoke to you, one of ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... rest, where her sins of ignorance and untutored instincts would not count too heavily against her. The sea is very benign to its elect; a calm sea in the setting sun received Dolores in arms of infinite benignity. ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... cried the judge gaily, and he began to assemble the dainties he had enumerated. "Here you are!" he cleared his throat impressively, while benignity shone from every feature of his face. "A moment since you allowed me to think that you were solvent to the extent of fifty cents—" Hannibal looked puzzled. The judge dealt him a friendly blow on the back, then stood off and regarded him with a glance of great jocularity, ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... her impulse was to seize a poker and rush at the cat. But she stood where she was and infused more benignity into her smile. ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... to a severe divine judgment Emperor of France, and James Buchanan, according to the merciful divine benignity President of ...
— Secret Enemies of True Republicanism • Andrew B. Smolnikar
... first received intimation from the supernal and spanking hand of Hon'ble Mr Punch, that he smiled with fatherly benignity at my humble request that he should offer myself as a regular poorly-paid contributor, I blessed my stars and was as if to jump over the moon ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... gray, ancient sandals, and a golden key hanging by a cord from his waist. In the serene beauty of his noble features I saw justice and mercy had met and were reconciled. I cannot describe the majesty of his bearing or the benignity of his appearance. It is needless to say that I stood before St. Peter, who ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... feast was concluded, the pipes made their appearance as a matter of course; and when these were lighted, and in full blast, the trappers found leisure to look round upon each other's faces with expressions of benignity. ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... on your benignity," cried the captain, as they led him away, "I congratulate myself that insignificant as I am the king yet deigns to notice my existence even ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... efforts I had made to escape, elicited no small amount of admiration from the chief. I could, of course, only guess at what he said, but I caught a word here and there; and he looked down on me and smiled with such benignity as his stern features were capable of assuming. At all events, I thought that these people, whatever they might do, would not torture me or put ...
— Afar in the Forest • W.H.G. Kingston
... generous and happy feelings. As we passed over a rising ground which commanded something of a prospect, the sounds of rustic merriment now and then reached our ears; the Squire paused for a few moments, and looked around with an air of inexpressible benignity. The beauty of the day was of itself sufficient to inspire philanthropy. Notwithstanding the frostiness of the morning, the sun in his cloudless journey had acquired sufficient power to melt away the ...
— Old Christmas From the Sketch Book of Washington Irving • Washington Irving
... supplanted or reinforced by later achievements of its author. It is a vast pageant of theology and philosophy, comprising in some twelve divisions an attempt to represent the relation of God to man and of man to God, to emphasize the benignity of Providence, to preach the immortality of the soul, and to postulate "a gospel of faith and reason combined." It contains fine lines and dignified thought, but its ambitious theme, and a certain incoherency in the manner in which it is worked ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... Warden of this Hospital," said he, with not less benignity than heretofore, and greater courtesy; "and, in that capacity, must consider you under my care,—as my guest, in fact,—although, owing to my casual absence, one of the brethren of the house has been the active instrument in attending you. ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... gentle smile flits o'er his lip, He eyes me with benignity; He yearns to offer goodly tip, Yet ...
— Fringilla: Some Tales In Verse • Richard Doddridge Blackmore
... motionless gazing at her steadfastly. For her beauty, the monarch for some moment believed her to be (the goddess) Sri herself. Next he regarded her to be the embodiment of the rays emanating from Surya. In splendour of her person she resembled a flame of fire, though in benignity and loveliness she resembled a spotless digit of the moon. And standing on the mountain- breast, the black-eyed maiden appeared like a bright statue of gold. The mountain itself with its creepers and plants, because of the beauty and attire of that ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... the highest form of prayer. We should feel as some peasant come to court who stands on the threshold of the presence-chamber, and forgetting his grievances and his embassy, gazes entranced on the splendour and benignity ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... of the Trinity fell benignity that was—awesome; the tiny flames in the jet orbs vanished, leaving them wells in which brimmed serenity, hope—an extraordinary joyfulness. The woman sat upright, tender gaze fixed upon the man ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt
... repaired to the house of the bookseller; the bookseller was in his shop. 'Ah,' said he, as soon as I entered, 'I am glad to see you.' There was an unwonted heartiness in the bookseller's tones, an unwonted benignity in his face. 'So,' said he, after a pause, 'you have taken my advice, written a book of adventure; nothing like taking the advice, young man, of your superiors in age. Well, I think your book will do, and so does my wife, for whose judgment I have a great regard; as well I may, as she ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... picture accurately resembled him in the minute traits of his person. His features, however, were so marked by prominent characteristics, which appear in all likenesses of him, that a stranger could not be mistaken in the man; he was remarkably dignified in his manners, and had an air of benignity over his features which his visitant did not expect, being rather prepared for sternness of countenance.... his smile was extraordinarily attractive. It was observed to me that there was an expression ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... inhabitants, be they of war or of burden and private men's, shall be forced by tempests, or pursued by pirates and enemies, or any urgent necessity to the harbour or shores of the other confederate, and be forced to call for protection, they shall be received there with all benignity, humanity, and friendship, and at no time to be hindered, and all victual, reparation, and things fit for use at the ordinary price; they shall not be prohibited to depart or go out of the port or harbour by any pretence whatsoever, as ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... words the benevolent Mr. Wilkinson fell flat on his face in the road, but continued to laugh softly, and turned towards his flying companion a face of peculiar peace and benignity. Evan's mind went through a crisis of instantaneous casuistry, in which it may be that he decided wrongly; but about how he decided his biographer can profess no doubt. Two minutes afterwards he had overtaken Turnbull and told the tale; ten minutes afterwards he and Turnbull ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... kindness would be unavailing. If you bear with the injuries or supposed offences of another, and yet suffer your mind to be soured, and your kind offices remitted, the wound will corrode and inflame, till it breaks out with tenfold violence. But benignity of temper, and the constant practice of friendly offices and benevolent actions, will disarm ill-nature, and bring the offender to see the folly of his conduct. "A soft answer turneth away wrath; and the kind treatment of ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb
... still doubtful. But for certain inhabitants of Falmouth and its neighborhood, this place would be far more attractive than it. But I have here also friends, whose kindness, like much that I met with last winter, perpetually makes me wonder at the stock of benignity in human nature. A brother of my friend Julius Hare, Marcus by name, a Naval man, and though not a man of letters, full of sense and knowledge, lives here in a beautiful place, with a most agreeable and excellent ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... Stillingfleet observes in his Irenicum: "The unity and peace that was then among Christians made religion amiable in the judgment of impartial heathens: Christians were then known by the benignity and sweetness of their dispositions, by the candour and ingenuity of their spirits, by their mutual love, forbearance, and condescension to one another. But either this is not the practice of Christianity (viz., a duty that Christians are now bound to ...
— An Exhortation to Peace and Unity • Attributed (incorrectly) to John Bunyan
... shall pray For thee when I am far away: For never saw I mien, or face, In which more plainly I could trace Benignity and home-bred sense Ripening in perfect innocence. Here scattered, like a random seed, Remote from men, Thou dost not need The embarrassed look of shy distress, And maidenly shamefacedness: Thou wear'st upon thy forehead clear The freedom ...
— The Hundred Best English Poems • Various
... — N. benevolence, Christian charity; God's love, God's grace; good will; philanthropy &c. 910; unselfishness &c. 942. good nature, good feeling, good wishes; kindness, kindliness &c. adj.; loving-kindness, benignity, brotherly love, charity, humanity, fellow- feeling, sympathy: goodness of heart, warmth of heart; bonhomie; kind- heartedness; amiability, milk of human kindness, tenderness; love &c. 897; friendship &c. 888. toleration, consideration, generosity; mercy &c. (pity) 914. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... I proceeded on our journey for some time in silence; he restraining his sober-minded steed to a pace which might have suited a much less active walker than myself, and looking on me from time to time with an expression of curiosity, mingled with benignity. For my part, I cared not to speak first. It happened I had never before been in company with one of this particular sect, and, afraid that in addressing him I might unwittingly infringe upon some of their prejudices or peculiarities, I patiently remained silent. At length he asked me, whether I ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... that beauty only worth adorning and transmitting which was unmarred by outward manifestations of hard and haughty feeling. According to their ideal, beauty must be the expression of attractive qualities within—such as cheerfulness, benignity, contentment, and love. ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... above the average height, well developed, without being corpulent, had a firm elastic step, and motions indicating vigor and health. His eye was bright, but mild, his features regular and unusually handsome, and his countenance was habitually lighted up by an intelligence and benignity which gave it a peculiar charm, and inspired even strangers with a confidence that such a face could not belong to any but a good and upright man. Mr. Charless was an exceedingly pleasant companion, and, without being either brilliant or witty in conversation, ...
— A Biographical Sketch of the Life and Character of Joseph Charless - In a Series of Letters to his Grandchildren • Charlotte Taylor Blow Charless
... was, in the sense of being free from envy, hatred, and malice; and such freedom was all the more remarkable an indication of native benignity, because of his gaseous, illimitably expansive conceit. Yes, conceit; for that his enormous and contentedly ignorant confidence in his own rambling thoughts was usually clad in a decent silence, is no reason why it should be ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... on the summit of the first. An additional mile of plateau followed, from which could be discerned two light-houses on the coast they were nearing, reposing on the horizon with a calm lustre of benignity. Another oasis was reached; a little dell lay like a nest at their feet, towards which the driver pulled the horse at a sharp angle, and descended a steep slope which dived under the trees like a rabbit's burrow. ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... I overflowed with benignity to all the world, and even granted the poor Frenchman permission to enjoy his pipe, a privilege of which he made haste to avail himself. It was an ill-timed charity, to be sure, but I could well ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... accustomed to compare the marriage law to the law of the Sabbath as broken by Jesus. We find exactly the same comparison in Milton. The Sabbath, he believes, was made for God. "Yet when the good of man comes into the scales, we have that voice of infinite goodness and benignity, that 'Sabbath was made for man and not man for Sabbath.' What thing ever was made more for man alone, and less for God, than marriage?" (op. cit., Bk. i, Ch. XI). "If man be lord of the Sabbath, can he be ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... Mrs. Dering could not speak for the many emotions that oppressed her, but after one or two glances at her face, which caused the old gentleman to scout at the idea of her refusing, he exclaimed with a fatherly benignity which sat oddly ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... meet in order to protect it. The wrinkles that surrounded that mouth were innumerable, and each wrinkle was a distinct and separate smile; so that, whether pursing or expanding, it was at all times rippling with an expression of tender benignity. ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... extinguish our feelings, but to correct and refine them. My visits to the hermitage were frequently renewed at first, because they afforded me the relief of variety, whilst his intimate knowledge of men and things—his remarkable sagacity and good sense—his air of mingled piety and benignity,—cheated me into forgetfulness of my situation. As these gradually yielded to the lenitive power of time, I sought his conversation for the positive pleasure it afforded, and at last it became the chief source ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... inexhaustible; consequently great precipitancy, many mistakes, much weakness, fits of heroic devotion to unworthy objects, enormous force applied to an end that was wretched in truth and fact, but sublime in her thought.' George Eliot had none of this facility. Nor was general benignity in her at all of the poor kind that is incompatible with a great deal of particular censure. Universal benevolence never lulled an active critical faculty, nor did she conceive true humility as at all consisting in hiding from an impostor that you have found him out. Like Cardinal Newman, ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol 3 of 3) - The Life of George Eliot • John Morley
... that of his deceased friend Garrick. With the very same breath in which we read the paragraph we declared it to be a falsehood. Mr. Fox had too much judgment to institute the comparison—Mr. Fox had too much benignity to utter such a malicious libel ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold
... she sighed, "you have missed such a treat! You have no conception of these Scottish ministers of the Establishment,—such culture, such courtliness of manner, such scholarship, such spirituality, such wise benignity of opinion! I asked the doctor to explain the Disruption movement to me, and he was most interesting and lucid, and most affecting, too, when he described the misunderstandings and misconceptions that the Church suffered in those terrible days of 1843, when its very life-blood, as well as its integrity ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... It was not the image of a new sweetly-budding life that came as a vision of deliverance from the monotony of distaste: it was an image of another sort. In the irritable, fluctuating stages of despair, gleams of hope came in the form of some possible accident. To dwell on the benignity of accident was a refuge ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... true end and object: for there is such a thing as tyranny, as well as usurpation. You can hardly state to me a case to which legislature is the most confessedly competent, in which, if the rules of benignity and prudence are not observed, the most mischievous and oppressive things may not be done. So that, after all, it is a moral and virtuous discretion, and not any abstract theory of right, which keeps governments ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... what the man's distinguishing quality was. It was his open look, an expression almost of benignity, absolutely foreign to the Indian character. Indians may give their eyes freely to one another, but a white man never ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... brilliant and sometimes dazzling expression of his eye could not be overlooked. It was not, however, a permanent lustre, for it was only remarkable when he was excited by some point of particular interest. It is impossible to imagine an expression of more entire mildness, I may almost call it of benignity and kindliness, than that which played over his features during the whole interview. If, therefore, he was at this time out of health and in low spirits, his power of self-command must have been even more extraordinary than is generally ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... says, "Conduct is three-fourths of character," and Christian benignity draws the line for conduct. A high sense of rectitude, a lowly soul, with a pure and kind heart are elements of nobility which will work out in the life of a human being at home—everywhere. "Private refinement makes ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... by another, had, coming from the beautiful Rebecca, the romantic and pleasing effect which fancy ascribes to the charms pronounced by some beneficent fairy, unintelligible, indeed, to the ear, but, from the sweetness of utterance, and benignity of aspect, which accompanied them, touching and affecting to the heart. Without making an attempt at further question, Ivanhoe suffered them in silence to take the measures they thought most proper for his recovery; and it was not ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... question, replied that there could be none such in the Order, or, at least, would not be suffered to remain in office, seeing that it was governed with so much gentleness and benignity, and that its yoke was so sweet and desirable. The examiner, who did not like evasive and ambiguous replies of this sort, determined to get an answer that should be straight-forward and to the point. Taking a much sterner tone, he represented a Superior to them as a sort of slave-driver: ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... Providence itself. The first violent demonstration of its madness and folly was, setting up the doctrine that injustice had been done the monikin race, by causing the safety-valve of the world to be opened within their region. Although we were manifestly indebted to this very circumstance for the benignity of our climate, the value of our possessions, the general healthfulness of our families-nay, for our separate existence itself, as an independent species, yet did these excited and ill-judging wretches absolutely wage war upon the most benevolent and the most unequivocal friend they had. Specious ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... them; the grateful slaves showed their love for her; gradually and unintentionally she trained her feelings, when thus liberated from a continual temptation to the sympathies with cruelty, into a demand for gentler and purer excitement. Her purpose had been one of luxury; but, by the benignity of nature still watching for ennobling opportunities, the actual result was a development given to the higher capacities of her heart. In the same way, when the brutal right (and in many circumstances the brutal duty) of inflicting death upon prisoners taken in battle, had exchanged ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... happened to be lying on the table; and very soon, without any other process than the facial contortions having been gone through, the medium broke silence, and, in measured tones of considerable benignity, said:—"Friends, we greet you in the name of our Lord and Master. Let us say the ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... undressed and got into the bed I should be much more rested; they would keep everything quiet at that end of the house, and the gentle fall of the water into the moat outside would not disturb me. I said on the contrary it would soothe me, and I felt the benignity of the place possess me like a spell. Remember that I was very tired and had not slept ...
— On Something • H. Belloc
... we find a Bible in the cabins? No. Weak, wicked, and absolutely poor, in dumb and stolid content with animalism and dirt, here families are herding like cattle, in windowless and miserable cabins of one room. The children who fail to receive the benignity of death grow up here and exist and suffer in this dreadful life. Yet we can ride by this plantation and in sight of it any day on our way to Florida, and never see what is so near. Nevertheless, here it is a reality much worse than it reads, for ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 50, No. 4, April 1896 • Various
... the Nativity! H eaven made thy lowly shrine R esplendent with the gift of the eternal Deity I n whom we live and move, whose large benignity S pared not His Son divine: T hat well-beloved Son by God was given, M ankind to save with His redeeming blood; A nd Jesus freely left the bliss of Heaven, S uffering death, to achieve ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... the conclusion which is particularly forced upon us by a consideration of the play which is in many ways most typical of Shakespeare's later work, and the one which critics most consistently point to as containing the very essence of his final benignity—The Tempest. There can be no doubt that the peculiar characteristics which distinguish Cymbeline and The Winter's Tale from the dramas of Shakespeare's prime, are present here in a still greater degree. In The Tempest, unreality ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... bitter irony, brought his half-taught savage into touch with the scum of modern civilisation, and made them conspire together against its benignity and wisdom. The reader is apt to remember this conjunction when he passes from Caliban to Mr Sludge. Stephano and Trinculo, almost alone among Shakespeare's rascals, are drawn without geniality, and Sludge is the only one of Browning's "casuists" whom he treats with open ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... is the countenance of Christ when passive to the gaze of others: regard is the same countenance in active contemplation of those others whom he loves or pities. The placid aspect expresses, therefore, the divine rest; the meek regard expresses the divine benignity: the one is the self-absorption of the total Godhead, the other the eternal emanation of ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... at him with wild, staring but lack-luster eyes and open mouth. He rose from the floor, and casting a look of great benignity on the sullen brute, he was about to go, when he observed that Robinson was trembling in ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... tall woman of forty, her ample form, her wide bosom, the falling folds of her black dress, her loosely girdled waist, suggesting, with the cloistral analogies, the mournful benignity of a bereaved Madonna. Seen as she stood there, leaning her head to watch her son's approach, she was an almost intimidating presence, black, still, and stately. But when the door opened and the young man came in, when, not moving ...
— Amabel Channice • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... senior year James entered another phase of his development. He offered to the college a new, or at least an enlarged, interpretation of himself. Some of his smiling good-fellowship had been sloughed to make way for the benignity of a budding statesman. He still held a tolerant attitude to the antics of his friends, but it was easy to see that he had put away childish things. To his many young women admirers he talked confidentially of his aims and aspirations. The future of James K. ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... Quarry Wood first," said Cousin Dick, with royal benignity. "You get away outside at the western end, and ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... days seemed to wait upon her happiness, but the stars laughed at her as they had always done. She looked up and saw a host of them, clear and distant, shining in a sky so blue and vast that to see it was like flight. They were secure in their high places, and with the smiling benignity of gods they assured her of her littleness, and gladly she accepted that assurance, for she shared her littleness with Zebedee, and now she understood that her happiness was made of small great things, of the hope of caring for him, of keeping that ...
— Moor Fires • E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young
... he might save you the cost of the doctor. Such strange lingering echoes of the old demon-worship might perhaps even now be caught by the diligent listener among the grey-haired peasantry; for the rude mind with difficulty associates the ideas of power and benignity. A shadowy conception of power that by much persuasion can be induced to refrain from inflicting harm, is the shape most easily taken by the sense of the Invisible in the minds of men who have always been pressed close by primitive wants, and to whom ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... though he do nothing but reprove." Practical wisdom enough to make the course of any household run smooth! The instincts of a happy, placid temper have taught Olivia that there is as little of Christian virtue as of natural benignity in stinging away the spirit of kindness with a tongue of acid and acrimonious pietism. Her firm and healthy pulse beats in sympathy with the sportiveness in which the proper decorum of her station may not permit her to bear an active ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... joyous pinions o'er the advancing host, Doth not triumphant conquest proudly soar? And feels not every one a happier lot, Since Thoas, who so long hath guided us With wisdom and with valor, sway'd by thee. The joy of mild benignity approves, Which leads him to relax the rigid claims Of mute submission? Call thyself useless! Thou, When from thy being o'er a thousand hearts, A healing balsam flows? when to a race, To whom a god consign'd thee, thou dost prove A ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... the hair from the top of his commanding head, although it is thick at the sides over the ears, and repeats in its soft gray the color of his kindly eyes. Before taking in these physical facts one receives an impression of benignity and amenity not often conveyed, even by the most distinguished. And, taking advantage of this amiability, I asked if certain words just used should be followed by a dash, and even boldly added: "Are you not famous, Mr. James, for ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... The sweet lingering tang filled the arch of his palate with a soft mellow cheer. His gaze fell upon us as his head tilted gently backward. We wish there had been a painter there—someone like F. Walter Taylor—to rush onto canvas the gorgeous benignity of his aspect. It would have been a portrait of the rich Flemish school. Dove's eyes were full of a tender emotion, mingled with a charmed and wistful surprise. It was as though the poet was saying he had not realized there was anything so good left on earth. His bearing was devout, ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... know of His personal appearance must be gained through imagination, as it clothed Him with those traits that alone cannot account for His influence over the multitudes. What sweet allurement in the face that made children leap into His arms! What winsome benignity that made mothers feel that His touch would return the babe with double worth into ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis
... message himself; for which he was duly rewarded by a broadside from Miss Silence, giving him what she termed a piece of her mind in the matter of the rights of widows and orphans; to all which the good old man listened with great benignity from the beginning to ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... journey he sat down in the coffee room of the hotel, and wrote thirty-two letters before he went to bed. He never allowed a letter, even a begging letter, to remain unanswered; and, says his son, "the same benignity and courtesy which marked his conduct in every relation of life, pervaded his whole correspondence." "In the many volumes of his letters which are preserved, I venture to affirm that there is not the faintest indication of an ungenerous ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... the evening. He came accordingly, and favoured us with his presence for a considerable time. He seemed an intelligent man, but in a very infirm state of health, and quite crippled from rheumatism. One would hardly have supposed, while admiring his pleasing features, which expressed so much benignity, that when on the throne of Koollum he had been such a bloody tyrant; yet such was the case;—though the hereditary ruler of Koollum and its dependencies, he had by his brutality made himself so obnoxious, ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... keep the very form and mold Of our great martyr's face. Yes, this is he: That brow all wisdom, all benignity; That human, humorous mouth; those cheeks that hold Like some harsh landscape all the summer's gold; That spirit fit for sorrow, as the sea For storms to beat on; the lone agony Those silent, patient lips too well foretold. Yes, this is he who ruled a world of men As might ...
— The Poets' Lincoln - Tributes in Verse to the Martyred President • Various
... sanctimonious father. Mr. Jesse Collings hides under a painfully extorted smile the agonies he endures on the few occasions when Mr. Gladstone deems it worth his while to scornfully refer to his apostasy. But, speaking generally, Mr. Gladstone uses his giant powers with extraordinary benignity and mercifulness, and is almost tender with even his bitterest opponents. When, therefore, Mr. Gladstone was being baited by beef-headed Lowther, he for the most part looked simply pained; and took refuge in that far-off self-absorption ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... this folio, enumerates those plants, fruits, and flowers, which he thinks this then-intended garden ought to be furnished with; and a small bit, or a piece or parcel, of which once most sumptuous garden, Plot gives us. "Altho' (says Rea) our country cannot boast the benignity of that beautiful planet which meliorates their fruit in Italy, France, and Spain; yet, by reflection from good walks, well gravelled walks, the choice of fit kinds, we may plentifully partake the pleasure, and yearly enjoy the benefit, of many delicious fruits: as also the admiration ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton
... hand lifted. The form of the sleeper expanded with power. Her face took on benignity and lofty serenity. She rose slowly, impressively, and with her hand upraised in a peculiar gesture, laid a blessing upon the head of her hostess. There was so much of sweetness and tolerance in her face, so much of dignity and power in every movement that I was moved to applaud ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... rather than have allowed them so much as to suspect. The two friends who did understand her feelings, though in different degrees, were, one, a good and venerable clergyman, the Rev. Doctor Danvers, a frequent visitor and occasional guest at Gray Forest, where his simple manners and unaffected benignity and tenderness of heart had won the love of all, with the exception of its master, and commanded even his respect. The second was no other than the young French governess, Mademoiselle de Barras, in whose ready sympathy and consolatory counsels she found no small happiness. ...
— The Evil Guest • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... humour, remarks, "neither was wrong":—"Mox, quasi rixantes stupra et flagitia invicem objectavere: neuter falso." (Hist. I. 74.) This witty and ridiculing vein does not prevent him from being always kindly. The benignity of his nature is seen in all his portraitures (which look, by the way, like the portraitures of real men); it is observable in his character of Licinius Mucianus (I. 10), Cornelius Fuscus (II. 86), Helvidius Priscus (IV. 5), and others;—lovely portraits where defects ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... fulfilled. These suns, as they rose slowly and steadily, amidst clouds and storms, in their ascendant, so they have not rushed from their meridian to sink suddenly in the west. Like the mildness, the serenity, the continuing benignity of a summer's day, they have gone down with slow-descending, grateful, long-lingering light; and now that they are beyond the visible margin of the world, good omens cheer us from "the bright track of their ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... him. Simple as a child in everything relating to worldly matters, he united the deepest learning to the most elevated piety, while the thoroughly practical character of his religion, carried, as it was, into all the minor details of everyday life, imparted a gentleness and benignity to his manner which seemed to elevate him above the level of ordinary mortals. If he had a fault (I suppose, merely for the sake of proving him human, I must allow him one), it was a want of moral courage, which made it so disagreeable to him to find fault with any of us, that he ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... infinitely stronger of form and grandeur of aspect—and inspiring the same unutterable feeling of dread. Yet each countenance was mild and tranquil, and even kindly in expression. And, strangely enough, it seemed to me that in this very calm and benignity consisted the secret of the dread which the countenances inspired. They seemed as void of the lines and shadows which care and sorrow, and passion and sin, leave upon the faces of men, as are the faces of sculptured gods, or as, in the eyes ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... authenticity, and possible significance and beauty of this department of sculpture, it has a peculiar interest and charm. The most distinct idea we have of the Roman emperors, even in regard to their individual characters, is derived from their busts at the Vatican and elsewhere. The benignity of Trajan, the animal development of Nero, and the classic rigor of young Augustus are best apprehended through these memorable effigies which Time has spared and Art transmitted. And a similar permanence and distinctness of impression associate ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... what I call uncommon jolly," said Captain Bunting, sitting down on his saddle before the cheerful blaze, rubbing his hands, and gazing round, with a smile of the utmost benignity on ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne
... rules, and on the question of slavery especially, never to provoke an adversary—to allow him credit fully for sincerity and purity of motive—to abstain from all irritating expressions—to avoid even such political attacks as would indispose his opponents for his great cause. In fact, the benignity, the gentleness, the kind-heartedness of the man, disarmed the bitterest foes. Not only on this question did he restrain himself, but generally. Once he had been called during a whole debate 'the religious member,' in a kind of scorn. He remarked afterwards, that ...
— An Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism - With reference to the duty of American females • Catharine E. Beecher
... Jupiter of Strangers, was, among the ancients, one of the solemn characters of divinity, the peculiar attribute of the supreme deity; benign to mankind, and recommending universal love, mutual kindness, and benignity between the remotest and most unlike of the human race. Such was the ancient heathen charity and pious duty towards the whole of mankind; both those of different nations and different worship. But, good God! how different a character do bigots give us of the Deity, making him an ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... "Lady! thy goodness, thy magnificence, Thy virtue, and thy great humility, Surpass all science and all utterance; For sometimes, Lady! ere men pray to thee 25 Thou goest before in thy benignity, The light to us vouchsafing of thy prayer, To be our guide unto thy ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... Ruet rode along together, they partook of the universal benignity with which all things seemed that morning so graciously adorned, and their hearts were filled with the hope that their united endeavours to save her fallen sister would be blessed with success. ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... companion; he spoke the provincial vernacular, but his manners were polished and pleasing. He was somewhat under the middle height, but was well formed and slightly athletic, and his fresh-coloured complexion beamed a generous benignity. ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... less to be expected concerning a Puritan warrior, whose Puritanism was in fact inclined to ferocity—how Jackson's "remarkable eyes lit up for the moment with a look of real enthusiasm as he recalled the architectural beauty of the seven lancet windows in York Minster," how "intense" was the "benignity" of his expression, and how in him it seemed that "great strength of character and obstinate determination were united with extreme gentleness of disposition and with absolute tenderness towards all about him." Men such as ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... dignity and affability, which charmed all who approached her. She paid profound respect to the external observances of religion, daily performing her devotions in the churches, accosting the poor with benignity, treating the clergy with marked respect, and winning all hearts by ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... portrait above mentioned. And this is the more extraordinary, because the heads of Lawrence, like those of ancient statuary, are always smaller than life, to give them an aristocratic, high-bred air, and the bodies are larger. The expression of countenance, too, was benignity itself,—just such as Titian would have been delighted with,—calm, clear, passionless, without a prevailing characteristic of any strength. "Felix trembled," they say. Whatever Felix may have done, I do not believe that Lord ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... her aside with a gesture of calm benignity. "I should hope," she said magnificently, "that I could do without food as well as any of you." And she seated herself on the stool beside Mrs. Spicer with an air of having ...
— Miss Pat at Artemis Lodge • Pemberton Ginther
... and it is rarely that extremes in character or manners can approximate. To blend into one harmonious picture the utmost grace and refinement of sentiment, and the broadest effects of humor; the most poignant wit, and the most indulgent benignity;—in short, to bring before us in the same scene, Viola and Olivia, with Malvolio and Sir Toby, belonged only ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... petitions to Your Highness, as being to me the sole, exclusive source of all peace, of all bliss, of all health. Wherefore, as your most lowly vassal, I pray you, dear my bliss, my soul's one hope, wherein she nourishes herself in love's devouring flame, that in your great benignity you deign so far to mitigate the harshness which in the past you have shewn towards me, yours though I am, that, consoled by your compassion, I may say, that, as 'twas by your beauty that I was smitten with love, so 'tis to your pity that I owe my life, ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... counted it worth His while to weep, and bleed, and die, to deceive thee into a false esteem of Him and His love. But if it be the greatest madness imaginable to entertain any such thought but that His tears were sincere and unartificial, the natural, genuine expression of undissembled benignity and pity, thou art then to consider what love and compassion thou art now sinning against; what bowels thou spurnest; and that if thou perishest, 'tis under such guilt as the devils themselves are not liable to, who never had ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Vol. 2 (of 10) • Grenville Kleiser
... with the shell of Orpheus, Things high and humble, the enthroned gods, And tenants of the far unvisited huts Of wildernesses, she alike subdues Unto the awe of perfect harmony? What else but sweetness tempered all one way, And looks of sociable benignity? Which when she chooseth to be all herself, She doth put on, and in the act thereof, Such thousand graces lacquey her about, And in her smile such plenitude of joy— The extreme perfection of the divine gods— Shines affable, as, to partake thereof, Hath oftentimes ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... doctrines of the Calvinistic school. Yet he was not bigoted or rigid. His heart was full of the milk of human kindness, and he carried conviction to his hearers, not more by the strength of his logic than the benignity of his address. He was just such a minister as the devout and accomplished Mary St. Clair would have full confidence in. She was delighted to think that she had been so fortunate as to meet such a friend and spiritual counsellor at such a time; and she at once gave utterance to the warm feelings ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various
... time, bright, animated, full of earnest and cordial talk, pleasing and being pleased, the life of the company, was apt to think how delightful he must always be,—and so he was; but these times of bright talk were like angels' visits; and he smiled with peculiar benignity on his retiring guest, as if blessing him not the less for leaving him to himself. I question if there ever lived a man so much in the midst of men, and in the midst of his own children,[20] in whom the silences, ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... the grave, measured soliloquy of a blackbird hidden in the flame-flowered chestnut. Hazel felt that she would like to go on picking currants for ever, growing more and more like Mrs. Marston every day, and at least becoming (possibly through sheer benignity) a grandmother. There seemed no place in her life for Reddin, no time for Hunter's Spinney. She thought, 'I wunna go. I'll stay along of Ed'ard, and no harm'll come to me.' But a peremptory voice said that she must ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... mention of Araunah, who was a wealthy man among the Jebusites, but was not slain by David in the siege of Jerusalem, because of the good-will he bore to the Hebrews, and a particular benignity and affection which he had to the king himself; which I shall take a more seasonable opportunity to speak of a little afterwards. Now David married other wives over and above those which he had before: he had also concubines. ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... occasionally, be observed lighted up, as it were, from within by a passing dream—its expression is frequently one of peculiar mildness and benignity; the breathing may be slow, but it is calm and uniform: the pulse not so rapid as in the waking state, but soft and regular; the composure of the whole body may continue trance-like and perfect. There is, indeed, no sign of innocence more touching than the ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... of the balances: right or wrong, he is resolved to destroy our lives. As we have no asylum or hope except from your Highness, and as the Almighty has formed your mind to be a distributor of justice in these times, I therefore hope from the benignity of your Highness, that you will inquire and do justice in this matter, and that an aumeen may be appointed from the presence, that, having discovered the crimes or innocence of Baboo Durbege Sing, he may report to the presence. Further particulars ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... a thousand sweet emotions mingled with them. The abbess suffered her to weep without interruption, and watched over her with a look of benignity, that might have characterized the countenance of a guardian angel. Emily, when she became tranquil, was encouraged to speak without reserve, and to mention the motive, that made her unwilling to quit the ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... into our pulpit the most gracious of mortals, with a face all benignity, who gave out the first hymn and made the first prayer as an angel might have read and prayed. Our choir was a pretty good one, but its best was coarse and discordant ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... terrible indictment of 'Napoleon the Little'. On the other hand, the greatest qualities of Parnassian poetry were exemplified in many splendid pieces of the other two works, together with a large benignity which their austere Stoicism rarely permits, and I shall take as illustration of the finest achievement of poetry in this whole first phase the closing stanzas of his famous Boaz Endormi in the Legende, whose beauty even translation ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... Shakespeare may prove to them in older years enrichers of the fancy, strengtheners of virtue, a withdrawing from all selfish and mercenary thoughts, a lesson of all sweet and honourable thoughts and actions, to teach courtesy, benignity, generosity, humanity: for of examples, teaching these virtues, ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... And he protested against the still more horrid cruelty which reduced unfortunate children born out of wedlock to something like the status of the mediaeval serf. Robespierre's compositions at this time do not rise above the ordinary level of declaiming mediocrity, but they promised a manhood of benignity and enlightenment. To compose prize essays on political reforms was better than to ignore or to oppose political reform. But the course of events afterwards owed their least desirable bias to the fact that such compositions were the nearest approach to political training that ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley
... L20,000 Clyde-built side-wheeler, bought out of the proceeds of a single former trip. Even if torpedoes and cannon missed, the Fort and blockaders outside would be thankful for the alarm, and make sure of him. A few hundred dollars was an amount, but the benignity in Driscoll's whimsical brown eyes meant a great deal more, such for instance, as cotton and steamer and Don Anastasio plunging to the bottom ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... Patoff's insanity. Be that as it may, the result was obtained very easily by the professor; and when Hermione left him, before lunch, it is probable that in the solitude of the conservatory the man of science rubbed his gigantic hands together, and beamed upon the orchids with unusual benignity. ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... musician's look of mingled voluptuous rapture and cold, grave, listening intellect, he had a certain majesty. The mother, too, all devout concentration, was an artist of the right sort; the girls had the gentle benignity that comes of sincere self-dedication. They pleased Mrs. Forrester greatly and, as she listened, her severity towards Gregory shaped itself anew and more forcibly. Narrow, blind, bigoted young man. And it was amusing to think, as a comment on his fierce consciousness of Herr ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... respect. Excluded from all participation in the control of affairs, she fawned upon power where her ambitious nature would have sought to rule. Concealing her chagrin beneath an exterior of contentment, she exhibited, if we may believe the Venetian Soranzo, such benignity of disposition, especially to her own countrymen, that it would be impossible to convey an idea of the love entertained for her both by the court and ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... known to possess inheritable elements are generosity, piousness, independence, industry, will-power, faithfulness, fairness, sociability, reliability, self-reliance, tendency to work hard, perseverance, carefulness, impulsiveness, temperance, high-spiritedness, joviality, benignity, quietness, cheerfulness, hospitality, sympathy, humorousness, love of fun, neighborliness, love of frontier life, love of travel and of adventure. The same may be said of immoral traits, such as criminality, ...
— How to Live - Rules for Healthful Living Based on Modern Science • Irving Fisher and Eugene Fisk
... and especially that of the Holy People, in whom was blended the noble Trojan blood; to that office it was elected by God. Wherefore, since, to obtain it, not without very great power could it be approached, and to employ it a most exalted and most humane benignity was required, this was the people which was most fitly prepared for it. Hence not by Force was it assumed in the first place by the Roman People but by Divine Ordinance, which is above all Reason. And Virgil is in harmony with this ...
— The Banquet (Il Convito) • Dante Alighieri
... Johnson was in the house, and thus mentions the event: 'I felt almost the last flutter of his pulse, and looked for the last time upon the face that for fifteen years had never been turned upon me but with respect and benignity[279].' Upon that day there was a Call of the LITERARY CLUB; but Johnson apologised for his absence by the ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... distinctly, as if it were yesterday, the lineaments and expressions of the object on which I fixed my parting gaze: it was a picture of the lovely ——, which hung over the mantelpiece, the eyes and mouth of which were so beautiful, and the whole countenance so radiant with benignity and divine tranquillity, that I had a thousand times laid down my pen, or my book, to gather consolation from it, as a devotee from his patron saint. While I was yet gazing upon it, the deep tones of —— clock proclaimed that it was four o'clock. I went up to the picture, kissed it, and then gently ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... predestination should be received as truth, without producing such a modification of the entire system of divine revelation, as would impress on it a new and completely different character. Christianity, in its unadulterated simplicity, is distinguished by the consolatory views it imparts of the benignity and grace of God, and by the direct and cogent motives it suggests for holiness and righteousness of life. But the first article of the Calvinistic creed throws a veil of awful and suspicious mystery over the divine goodness, ...
— On Calvinism • William Hull
... much scholarship, you will not be angry with me for telling you. Levana was the Roman goddess that performed for the newborn infant the earliest office of ennobling kindness—typical, by its mode, of that grandeur which belongs to man every where, and of that benignity in powers invisible, which even in Pagan worlds sometimes descends to sustain it. At the very moment of birth, just as the infant tasted for the first time the atmosphere of our troubled planet, it was ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... the Primitive Man, ADAM KADMON. As such, it has revealed itself in ten emanations or Sephiroth, which are not ten different beings, nor even beings at all; but sources of life, vessels of Omnipotence, and types of Creation. They are Sovereignty or Will, Wisdom, Intelligence, Benignity, Severity, Beauty, Victory, Glory, Permanency, and Empire. These are attributes of God; and this idea, that God reveals Himself by His attributes, and that the human mind cannot perceive or discern God Himself, in his works, but only his ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... as might befit one who is conscious of having done his duty to the uttermost. He drove down the Lungh' Arno, and through the Piazza, and past the Duomo. There was no further need to keep the blinds closed, and as he drove on he looked out upon the inhabitants of Florence with a grand benignity of expression to which no language can do justice. Many things conspired to fill his breast with the serenest satisfaction and self-complacency. First, he had saved himself from being humbugged. Secondly, he had been the victor in two very ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... eyes To see ancient rivals on joint messmate duty. A French ship in our waters and not as a prize Might once have perturbed British Valour and Beauty. But now Father NEPTUNE, "At Home," calmly grips His trident, and smiles with most friendly benignity. We welcome French Sailors, and shout for French ships, Without an abatement of patriot dignity. To see any friend of JOHN BULL NEP's delighted. He holds out his paws, And will drink to the Cause Of Peace on the Ocean and ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 22, 1891 • Various
... predominant and somewhat rank odor of egoism. Even now, that she is walking up and down with a little triumphant flutter of her girlish heart at the sense that she is loved by the person of chief consequence in her small world, you may see in her hazel eyes an ever-present sunny benignity, in which the momentary harmless flashes of personal vanity are quite lost; and if she is happy in thinking of her lover, it is because the thought of him mingles readily with all the gentle affections and good-natured ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... overwhelmingly complacent Cornucopia. With the hope of rendering himself more youthful for this belated adventure with the babbling widow he had been treated by a hair specialist. The result was, as usual, farcically pathetic. His nice white hair which had given him a charming benignity and cleanness had been turned into a dead and musty black which made him look unearthly and unreal. His smart and carefully cherished moustache which once had laid upon his upper lip like cotton wool had been treated with the same ink-colored mixture. His clothes, once ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... you read calm health in his cheek, flushed with ungovernable propensities of hatred for the human race? Did Muley Ismail's pulse beat evenly? was his skin transparent? did his eyes beam with healthfulness, and its invariable concomitants, cheerfulness and benignity? ...
— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott
... you have something you wish to say, I am ready to listen to it," said Madam, with an air of extreme benignity. ...
— The Maidens' Lodge - None of Self and All of Thee, (In the Reign of Queen Anne) • Emily Sarah Holt
... relieve him from it? I dare not think it arises from her want of filial regard; I do not know anything so likely to abate the ardour of my attachment as a knowledge of that; but it is an ungenerous suggestion, unworthy the benignity and tenderness ...
— The Politician Out-Witted • Samuel Low
... "cursing" of the fig-tree formed the alone exception to His miracles of mercy.[35] All the others were proofs and illustrations of beneficence, compassion, love. But He seems to interpose this ONE, in case we should forget, in the affluence of benignity and kindness, that the same God, whose name and memorial is "merciful and gracious," has solemnly added that "He can by no means clear the guilty." He would have us to remember that there is a point beyond which even His ...
— Memories of Bethany • John Ross Macduff
... privilege was so to roam on the winter and the spring afternoons. Mild M. Ansiot, "under" whom I for some three hours each forenoon sat sole and underided—and actually by himself too—was a curiosity, a benignity, a futility even, I gather; but save for a felt and remembered impulse in me to open the window of our scene of study as soon as he had gone was in no degree an ideal. He might rise here, could ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... breakfast being ready, in came the empress of my heart, irradiating all around her, as with a glory—a benignity and graciousness in her aspect, that, though natural to it, had been ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... department. Her duties were more exhausting than they had been downstairs That suggested penance. On the other hand, they had more variety and amusement, for there were five hundred different kinds of toys to sell to five hundred different types of people. That suggested benignity. ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... place in the universe. Nor did he rouse himself from his meditations until the door of the inn had closed behind him and he found himself in its common room. Then he became the Emanuel Swedenborg of benignity, geniality, and courtesy, the ...
— Historic Ghosts and Ghost Hunters • H. Addington Bruce
... and made her some bows, which were more respectful than graceful. She called me cousin very affably, and helped to transfer the present of jelly from her silver dish into our crockery pan with much benignity. The Doctor tasted the sweetmeat, and pronounced it to be excellent. "The great, sir," says he, "are fortunate in every way. They can engage the most skilful practitioners of the culinary art, as they can assemble the most amiable wits round their table. If, as you think, sir, and, from ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Persecution is not an original feature in any religion; but it is alway the strongly-marked feature of all law-religions, or religions established by law. Take away the law-establishment, and every religion re-assumes its original benignity. In America, a catholic priest is a good citizen, a good character, and a good neighbour; an episcopalian minister is of the same description: and this proceeds independently of the men, from there being no ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... of waiting it was before me at last. The great face was so sad, so earnest, so longing, so patient. There was a dignity not of earth in its mien, and in its countenance a benignity such as never anything human wore. It was stone, but it seemed sentient. If ever image of stone thought, it was thinking. It was looking toward the verge of the landscape, yet looking at nothing—nothing but distance and ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... the Queen's majesty let us pray Unto God to keep her in health and wealth night and day, And that, of his mere mercy and great benignity, He will defend and maintain her estate and dignity; That she, being grieved with any outward hostility, May against her enemies always ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Robert Dodsley
... state of mind, Mr. Rawlinson one day placed both of his palms on Stas' shoulders and, looking him straight in the eyes, said with an angelic benignity: ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... colleagues; that Lord John would submit no point to colleagues 'affecting his personal honour'—to such degrees of heat can the quicksilver mount even in a cabinet thermometer. If such quarrels of the great are painful, there is some compensation in the firmness, patience, and benignity with which a man like Lord Aberdeen strove to appease them. Some of his colleagues actually thought that Lord John would make this paltry affair a plea for resigning, while others suspected that he might find a better excuse in the revival ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... this has been the happiest night of my life!" she exclaimed. "I do adore music," she said, as she thanked Rachel. "It just seems to say all the things one can't say oneself." She gave a nervous little laugh and looked from one to another with great benignity, as though she would like to say something but could not find the words in which to express it. "Every one's been so kind—so very kind," she said. Then ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... invective; and while with one hand they affected to conciliate the people, with the other they scattered the seeds of disaffection widely through the land by the most inflammatory and ill-judged libels upon the country and its claims. Thus, in the hands of those men, the benignity of the Sovereign was perverted into an instrument of discontent, and those rich concessions which, if judiciously administered, would have bound Ireland to Britain by indissoluble ties, were made means of exciting in numbers ...
— The Causes of the Rebellion in Ireland Disclosed • Anonymous
... and the golden crown, before which even Bishops crossed themselves, was less in evidence than usual, for the expected guests were mostly heretics. She stood retired behind the flower-pots, and veiled her benignity with the leaves ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... illustrious extraction a generosity that runs in the blood above the allay of the rest of mankind. And being moreover at so much ease of honour and fortune, that they are free from the gripes of avarice and twinges of ambition, they are the more disposed to an universal benignity toward their subjects. What prince that sees so many millions of men, either labouring industriously toward his revenue, or adventuring their lives in his service, and all of them performing his commands with a religious obedience, but conceives at the same time a relenting ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... the 28th of June, 1461, after a reign of four months and three days, he was dethroned, and the Emir Khosh Kadem, a former slave of the Sultan Sheikh, of Greek descent, was proclaimed in his stead. Khosh Kadem reigned for seven years with equity and benignity, and under one of his immediate successors, El-Ashraf Kait Bey, a struggle was begun with the Ottoman Turks. On the death of Muhammed II., dissensions had arisen between Bayazid II. and Jem. Jem, being defeated by Bayazid, retired to Egypt, which led to the invasion ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... the provisions of the militia act. Happily for the peace and security of Canada, the influence of the Bishop and Roman Catholic clergy, who looked with horror on the murderous acts of the revolutionists of France, was successfully exerted for the support of British rule, whose justice and benignity their church had felt ever since the conquest. The name of Bishop Plessis must always be mentioned in terms of sincere praise by every English writer who reviews the history of those trying times, when British interests would have been more than once in jeopardy had it ...
— Canada under British Rule 1760-1900 • John G. Bourinot
... summary of a very long history that could and ought to be composed, of the massacres and devastation that have taken place. 8. I supplicate Your Highness to receive and read it with the clemency, and royal benignity he usually shows to his creatures, and servants, who desire to serve solely for the public good and for the prosperity of the State. 9. Having seen and understood the monstrous injustice done to these innocent people in destroying ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... in older years—enrichers of the fancy, strengtheners of virtue, a withdrawing from all selfish and mercenary thoughts, a lesson of all sweet and honourable thoughts and actions, to teach you courtesy, benignity, generosity, humanity: for of examples, teaching these virtues, his ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... hand with an air perfectly unaffected and unobtrusive, yet which was almost paternal in its benignity. Her look was one almost of reverence as she hurried on her way ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... of the humble, the simplicity of the primitive Church. But such a revival of innocence and sobriety would never have been possible in a northern land. The enchantment of Nature, the frugality of a people whom the sunlight nourished, the benignity of mendicancy on roads for ever warm, were needed to effect it. And yet how was it possible that a St. Francis, glowing with brotherly love, could have appeared in a land which nowadays so seldom practises ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... perform his daily occupations, if his father or his mother or his sister or his brother or his wife or his son or his daughter might not be finally forgiven for the frailties of an imperfect nature which he had inherited? The Catholic Church, in its benignity,—at what time I do not know,—opened the future of hope amid the speculations of despair. She saved the Middle Ages from universal gloom. If speculation or logic or tradition or scripture pointed to a hell of reprobation, there must be also a purgatory as the field of expiation,—for expiation ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord
... a feeling of relief in the thought, that, before the tribunal to which he so long ago passed, the mercy we all shall need, which comprehends all motives and allows for all infirmities, has been extended to him, in its infinite wisdom and benignity. ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... indicating to the shrewd ears of Tayoga the presence of two or three hundred warriors. Robert knew, too, that a large force was now before them. How long could the thirty hold back the Indian hosts? Yet he had the word of Tayoga that Tododaho looked down upon them with benignity and that all the omens and presages were favorable. There was a flash at his elbow and a rifle sang its deadly song in his ear. Then Tayoga uttered a sigh ...
— The Rulers of the Lakes - A Story of George and Champlain • Joseph A. Altsheler
... love her child, inevitably cast upon her protection from the first moment of his being; the father who extends a father's care over his children finds in that care a constant source of love; and the children, waking into conscious life under the ministries of parental benignity and kindness, have no emotion so early, and no early emotion so strong, as filial love. It may be doubted whether there is among the members of the same family a natural affection, independent of relations practically recognized in domestic life. It is very certain that at both extremities ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody
... calm and innocent expression. The woman's dark hair waved gracefully on her high forehead, and caught his attention. Her eyes were subtly sweet, her mouth full of pathos. She pressed forward to speak to him; the Dean, all benignity, bent his head ...
— The Woman Who Did • Grant Allen
... place the nature of the one in the sphere of the good, and the nature of the dual in the opposite many times. Often he declares a good man to be [Greek omitted] "kind" and the adjective from it is "benignity"; as ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... necessary effect which the free circulation of grain throughout the whole Roman world had in depressing the agriculture of Italy, Gaul, and Greece. They were unable to withstand the competition of Egypt, Lybia, and Sicily—the storehouses of the world; where the benignity of the climate, and the riches of the soil, rewarded seventy or an hundred fold the labours of the husbandman. Gaul, where the increase was only seven-fold—Italy, where it seldom exceeded twelve—Spain, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... subjection of the gross to the incorporeal, of body to soul, of the animal to the human. The finest and most characteristic acts of a lady involve a spiritual ascension, a growing out of herself. In her being and bearing, patience, generosity, benignity are the graces that give shape to the ...
— Our Deportment - Or the Manners, Conduct and Dress of the Most Refined Society • John H. Young
... and women are divided into castes and classes, and it is rarely that extremes in character or manners can approximate. To blend into one harmonious picture the utmost grace and refinement of sentiment, and the broadest effects of humor; the most poignant wit, and the most indulgent benignity;—in short, to bring before us in the same scene, Viola and Olivia, with Malvolio and Sir Toby, belonged only to Nature and ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... buried many of my hopes and pleasures. About five, I think, on Wednesday morning he expired. I felt almost the last flutter of his pulse, and looked for the last time upon the face that for fifteen years had never been turned upon me but with respect or benignity."-ED.] ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... join with them in their detestable rebellion. And although his Majesty, in the sincerity of his royal heart, cannot apprehend any such disloyalty or treachery in the person of the clansmen of the Isles, who have had so large a proof of his Majesty's clemency, benignity, and favour, that now, so unworthily and unnecessarily, they will reject his Majesty's favour, and, to the inevitable hazard and peril of their estates, join with these miserable miscreants in their rebellion yet to take ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... both numerous and magnificent. He is usually represented as a man of noble and imposing mien, his countenance expressing all the lofty majesty of the omnipotent ruler of the universe, combined with the gracious, yet serious, benignity of the father and friend of mankind. He may be recognized by his rich flowing beard, and the thick masses of hair, which rise straight from the high and intellectual forehead and fall to his shoulders in clustering locks. ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... traits of his person. His features, however, were so marked by prominent characteristics, which appear in all likenesses of him, that a stranger could not be mistaken in the man; he was remarkably dignified in his manners, and had an air of benignity over his features which his visitant did not expect, being rather prepared for sternness of countenance.... his smile was extraordinarily attractive. It was observed to me that there was an expression in ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... would not be room. It is also equally evident that, if individuals did not die, they could never have any other life than the present. The foregoing considerations, fathomed and appreciated, transform the institution of death from caprice and punishment into necessity and benignity. In the timid sentimentalist's view, death is horrible. Nature unrolls the chart of organic existence, a convulsed and lurid list of murderers, from the spider in the window to the tiger in the jungle, from the shark at the bottom of the sea to the eagle against the floor of the sky. As the perfumed ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... situation must be very disagreeable, I will certainly take an early opportunity of removing you, provided your conduct to your present captain be such that another may not refuse to receive you." The gentleness and benignity of his disposition never made him forget what was due to discipline. Being on one occasion applied to, to save a young officer from a court-martial, which he had provoked by his misconduct, his reply was, "That he would do everything in his power ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... and gratulation. For were our best wishes not, nor ever, hindered, sure it is that the still better wishes of destiny in our behalf would be hindered yet worse. Sure it is, I say, that Hindrance, both outward and inward, comes to us not through any improvidence or defect of benignity in Nature, but in answer to our need, and as part of the best bounty which enriches our days. And to make this indubitably clear, let us hasten to meditate that simple and central law which governs this matter and at ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... qualifications ought to have been the same, or differing only as sixteen differs from seventeen; and also as sixteen overflowing with levity differs from seventeen prematurely thoughtful. Edward Penson was early noticed for his high principle, for his benignity, and for a thoughtfulness somewhat sorrowful, that seemed to have caught in childhood some fugitive glimpse of his own too brief career. At noonday, in some part of Bengal, he went out of doors bareheaded, and ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... ten times more and greater, would have been neutralised by that supreme expression of her features, to the unity of which every lineament in the fixed parts, and every undulation in the moving parts of her countenance, concurred, viz., a sunny benignity, a radiant graciousness, such as in this world I never ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... was an enormously fat gentleman, one half of whose head was bound up with a dirty white handkerchief, over which a torn piece of hat was stuck, very much to one side. He had a most roguish eye, and a smile of inviting benignity on his dirty countenance. In one hand he held and tingled a guitar, while he most ingeniously swept in the copper with the other. By his side sat two wretched-looking women, with long matted hair, their elbows on the table, and their great eyes fixed upon ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... from His celestial purity; falsehood can leave no stain on Him who is incarnate truth; injustice is forgotten beside His errorless equity; the very possibility of avarice is swallowed up in His benignity and love; the very idea of ambition is lost in His divine ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... The Count Harrach, who was greatly favoured by the Duke of Saxony, begged of him, as a present, a few of the many relics which the duke preserved in his treasury, assuredly less out of devotion than for the sake of their rarity and value. The duke, with his usual benignity, acceded to this request, and gave orders that sundry vials should be dispatched to the count, filled with most indubitable relics of Our Lord, of the Blessed Virgin, of the Apostles, of the Innocents, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 74, March 29, 1851 • Various
... character of the saint. The successor of the apostles might have inculcated with decent firmness the guilt of blood, and the necessity of repentance; he is content to celebrate the deliverance of the people and the fall of the oppressor; to rejoice that the piety and benignity of Phocas have been raised by Providence to the Imperial throne; to pray that his hands may be strengthened against all his enemies; and to express a wish, perhaps a prophecy, that, after a long and triumphant reign, he may be transferred from a temporal to an everlasting kingdom. [48] I have already ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... Applause, as tis depressed by Neglect and Contempt: But tis only Persons far above the common Level who are thus affected with either of these Extreams; as in a Thermometer, tis only the purest and most sublimated Spirit that is either contracted or dilated by the Benignity or Inclemency of ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... favor of the gods, and considered that beauty only worth adorning and transmitting which was unmarred by outward manifestations of hard and haughty feeling. According to their ideal, beauty must be the expression of attractive qualities within—such as cheerfulness, benignity, contentment, and love. ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... had been all spoken by the pensionary, the Emperor, whose cue was now to appear struggling with mingled emotions of reasonable wrath and of natural benignity, performed his part with much dramatic effect. "He held himself coyly for a little time," says the eye-witness, "without saying a word; deporting himself as though he were considering whether or not he would grant the pardon for which the culprits had prayed." ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... feeling I shall pray For thee when I am far away: For never saw I mien, or face, In which more plainly I could trace Benignity and home-bred sense Ripening in perfect innocence. Here scatter'd like a random seed, Remote from men, thou dost not need The embarrass'd look of shy distress, And maidenly shamefacedness: Thou wear'st upon thy forehead clear The freedom of a mountaineer: A face with gladness ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... uttermost. He drove down the Lungh' Arno, and through the Piazza, and past the Duomo. There was no further need to keep the blinds closed, and as he drove on he looked out upon the inhabitants of Florence with a grand benignity of expression to which no language can do justice. Many things conspired to fill his breast with the serenest satisfaction and self-complacency. First, he had saved himself from being humbugged. Secondly, he had ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... unsophisticated peasant that he is, and there is fully as much virtue in him, using the word in its true sense, as in the white peasant; indeed, much more than in the poor whites who grew up by his side; while there is often a benignity and a depth of human experience and sympathy about some of these dark faces that comes home to one like the best one sees in art or reads ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... is the spoudaiotes the high and excellent seriousness, which Aristotle assigns as one of the grand virtues of poetry. The substance of Chaucer's poetry, his view of things and his criticism of life, has largeness, freedom, shrewdness, benignity; but it has not this high seriousness. Homer's criticism of life has it, Dante's has it, Shakespeare's has it. It is this chiefly which gives to our spirits what they can rest upon; and with the increasing demands of our modern ages upon poetry, this virtue of giving ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... there is between these two sorts of Merit, this difference, that In Contract, I Merit by vertue of my own power, and the Contractors need; but in this case of Free Gift, I am enabled to Merit onely by the benignity of the Giver; In Contract, I merit at The Contractors hand that hee should depart with his right; In this case of gift, I Merit not that the giver should part with his right; but that when he has parted with it, it should be mine, rather ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... your cousin?" said my companion. Another of those penetrative glances fell on me. They were peculiar; they flashed upon me, or through me, as keen and clear as the flash of a sabre in the sun; and out of eyes in which a sunlight of merriment or benignity was even then glowing. Both glowed upon me just at this moment, so I did not mind the keen investigation. Indeed, I never minded it. I learned to know it as one of Mr. Thorold's peculiarities. Now, Dr. Sandford had a good eye for reading ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... the benevolent Mr. Wilkinson fell flat on his face in the road, but continued to laugh softly, and turned towards his flying companion a face of peculiar peace and benignity. Evan's mind went through a crisis of instantaneous casuistry, in which it may be that he decided wrongly; but about how he decided his biographer can profess no doubt. Two minutes afterwards he had overtaken Turnbull and ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... to the house of Ori-a-Ori, the chief of the district. The chief, an excessively tall man, quite six and a half feet and big all over, but not fat, like many natives, was very dark and slightly grizzled. He had a singular solemnity of address, a benignity and detachment which were the externals of a thoughtful, simple, generous nature, no longer interested deeply in trifles. His house was toward the farther end of the main street, and set upon a spacious lawn a hundred feet from the street, ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... doth keep the very form and mold Of our great martyr's face. Yes, this is he: That brow all wisdom, all benignity; That human, humorous mouth; those cheeks that hold Like some harsh landscape all the summer's gold; That spirit fit for sorrow, as the sea For storms to beat on; the lone agony Those silent, patient lips ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... The hand lifted. The form of the sleeper expanded with power. Her face took on benignity and lofty serenity. She rose slowly, impressively, and with her hand upraised in a peculiar gesture, laid a blessing upon the head of her hostess. There was so much of sweetness and tolerance in her face, so much of dignity and power in every ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... benignity," cried the captain, as they led him away, "I congratulate myself that insignificant as I am the king yet deigns to notice my existence ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... could not be seen without being praised by the Greeks and feared and adored by the barbarians. And therefore if a poor man of this earth so commanded by edict concerning his image, how much more reason have the ecclesiastical or secular princes to take care to order that no one shall paint the benignity and meekness of our Redeemer or the purity of Our Lady and the Saints but the most illustrious painters to be found in their domains and provinces? And this would be a very famous and much praised work in any lord. And even in the Old Testament God the Father wished that those ...
— Michael Angelo Buonarroti • Charles Holroyd
... proceeded to take his leave. To Sarah and her aunt he paid his compliments with ease and kindness; but when he came to Frances, he paused a moment, while his face assumed an expression of more than ordinary benignity. His eye repeated the blessing which had before fallen from his lips, and the girl felt her cheeks glow, and her heart beat with a quicker pulsation, as he spoke his adieus. There was a mutual exchange of polite courtesy between the host and his parting guest; but as Harper ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... three edges. Did she not visit you in prison two weeks ago? I speak to you, Count Ammiani. She applied to the Archduke and the Marshal for permission to visit you. It was accorded. To the devil with our days of benignity! She was from Turin. The shuffle has made her my hostess for the nonce. I will go to her. You, sir," the count turned to Wilfrid—"you will stay below. Are you in the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... myself, and the efforts I had made to escape, elicited no small amount of admiration from the chief. I could, of course, only guess at what he said, but I caught a word here and there; and he looked down on me and smiled with such benignity as his stern features were capable of assuming. At all events, I thought that these people, whatever they might do, would not torture me or put ...
— Afar in the Forest • W.H.G. Kingston
... might have been, Mr. Atkins made no mention of politics. He was urbanity itself. He drew up to the table, partook of the ice cream and cake, and greeted his friends and neighbors with charming benignity. ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... "Babes in the Wood," with Di for a somewhat peckish robin to cover the small martyrs with any vegetable substance that lay at hand. Nan sighed, as she thought of these things, and John regarded the battered thimble on his finger-tip with increased benignity of aspect as he heard ...
— A Modern Cinderella - or The Little Old Show and Other Stories • Louisa May Alcott
... intimation from the supernal and spanking hand of Hon'ble Mr Punch, that he smiled with fatherly benignity at my humble request that he should offer myself as a regular poorly-paid contributor, I blessed my stars and was as if to jump over the moon for ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... whole, there were to be rational creatures produced, allowed to rise in excellency by the exercise of powers implanted for that purpose; if benignity itself thought fit to call into existence a creature above the brutes, who could think and improve himself, why should that inestimable gift, for a gift it was, if a man was so created as to have a capacity to rise above the ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... years afterwards preferred first to a bishopric, and then to an archbishopric; and having been found faithful in a little, had authority given him over much. But, as Cicero says, "Nature had made nothing entirely perfect;" when he came into power, not laying aside that sweet innate benignity which he had always shewn when a private man, sustaining his people with his staff rather than chastising them with rods, feeding them as it were with the milk of a mother, and not making use of the scourges of the father, he incurred public scandal for his remissness. ...
— The Itinerary of Archibishop Baldwin through Wales • Giraldus Cambrensis
... their conceptions of divine perfection; to realise the expression of that character of mind which they imputed to the deities whose temples they were to adorn: It was grace, or strength, or majesty, or the benignity of divine power, which they were to represent by the figures of Venus, of Hercules, of Jupiter, or of Apollo. Their artists accordingly were led to aim at the expression of general character; to exclude passion, or emotion, or suffering, from their design, and represent ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... lower price than any other people can. It occurred to me, that their agency might be engaged for our prisoners at Algiers. I have had interviews with them, and the last night a long one with the General of the order. They offer their services with all the benignity and cordiality possible. The General told me, he could not expect to redeem our prisoners as cheap as their own, but that he would use all the means in his power to do it on the best terms possible, which will be the better, as there shall be the less suspicion that he acts for our ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... beauty, the monarch for some moment believed her to be (the goddess) Sri herself. Next he regarded her to be the embodiment of the rays emanating from Surya. In splendour of her person she resembled a flame of fire, though in benignity and loveliness she resembled a spotless digit of the moon. And standing on the mountain-breast, the black-eyed maiden appeared like a bright statue of gold. The mountain itself with its creepers and plants, because of the beauty and attire of that damsel, seemed to be ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... superadded. Quickly the waitress returns bearing what is apparently a model of the Tower of Babel but what is really a pile of plates and flat tin dish-covers. Mr. Smallweed, approving of what is set before him, conveys intelligent benignity into his ancient eye and winks upon her. Then, amid a constant coming in, and going out, and running about, and a clatter of crockery, and a rumbling up and down of the machine which brings the nice cuts from the kitchen, and a shrill ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... given no memorable example of gentleness, or humanity, or civil virtue; and Marcellus seems first to have shown to the Greeks, that his countrymen were most illustrious for their justice. For such was his moderation to all with whom he had anything to do, and such his benignity also to many cities and private men, that, if anything hard or severe was decreed concerning the people of Enna, Megara, or Syracuse, the blame was thought to belong rather to those upon whom the storm fell, than to those who brought it upon them. One example of many I will commemorate. ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... soliloquy of a blackbird hidden in the flame-flowered chestnut. Hazel felt that she would like to go on picking currants for ever, growing more and more like Mrs. Marston every day, and at least becoming (possibly through sheer benignity) a grandmother. There seemed no place in her life for Reddin, no time for Hunter's Spinney. She thought, 'I wunna go. I'll stay along of Ed'ard, and no harm'll come to me.' But a peremptory voice said that ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... relating to worldly matters, he united the deepest learning to the most elevated piety, while the thoroughly practical character of his religion, carried, as it was, into all the minor details of everyday life, imparted a gentleness and benignity to his manner which seemed to elevate him above the level of ordinary mortals. If he had a fault (I suppose, merely for the sake of proving him human, I must allow him one), it was a want of moral courage, which made it so disagreeable to him to find fault with any of us, that he would ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... of more serious nature, and supposing it still in things merely indifferent, to take pleasure in the good of another, and a disposition contrariwise to take distaste at the good of another, which is that properly which we call good-nature, or ill-nature, benignity or malignity.' Is not this a field for science, then, with such differences as these lying on the surface of it,—does not it begin to open up with a somewhat inviting aspect? This so remarkable product of nature, with such extraordinary ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... treasure that she thither lad,* *took And, sooth to say, of victual great plenty, They have her giv'n, and clothes eke she had And forth she sailed in the salte sea: O my Constance, full of benignity, O emperores younge daughter dear, He that is lord of fortune be ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... mind at the time, made me peculiarly susceptible to external influences, and fixed minute circumstances more intensely on my memory; so that I now vividly recall the thought which then occurred to me—that I had never before seen so much gentleness and calm quiet benignity in a man. The impression then rapidly formed has lasted ever since, for in all the long years from that day until his death I never had cause to abate one jot of the reverential feeling with which he then inspired me. I have had hundreds of business transactions ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards
... and the gold spectacles were fixed on us with bland benignity. Aunt Louisa writing a song scena and ordering a chorus, just like Mr. GEORGE EDWARDES, was not the least of the miracles ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 18, 1914 • Various
... love, benignity, philanthropy, beneficence, bounty, liberality, tolerance. Associated Words: ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... which we have heard much of, the fury of the blood which the benignity of the law allows for upon sudden provocation, is supposd to be of short duration—the shooting a man dead upon the spot, must have stoppd the current in the breast of him who shot him, if he had not been bent upon ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... a tall woman of forty, her ample form, her wide bosom, the falling folds of her black dress, her loosely girdled waist, suggesting, with the cloistral analogies, the mournful benignity of a bereaved Madonna. Seen as she stood there, leaning her head to watch her son's approach, she was an almost intimidating presence, black, still, and stately. But when the door opened and the young man came in, when, not moving to meet him, she turned her head with a slight smile of ...
— Amabel Channice • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... the arch of his palate with a soft mellow cheer. His gaze fell upon us as his head tilted gently backward. We wish there had been a painter there—someone like F. Walter Taylor—to rush onto canvas the gorgeous benignity of his aspect. It would have been a portrait of the rich Flemish school. Dove's eyes were full of a tender emotion, mingled with a charmed and wistful surprise. It was as though the poet was saying he had not realized there was anything so good left on earth. His bearing ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... were perfect. While we were talking to him, a surly person, a steward or bailiff, or something of the sort, came into the room unexpectedly and addressed him in German, which none of us understand. We were impressed by the singular urbanity and benignity of the nobleman's demeanour towards this sullen dependant. He evidently explained to the fellow what sort of people we were, and remonstrated with him in a very gentle way for interrupting us. The steward understood, and clearly regretted his insolent air; for after a few sentences ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen
... he had yielded to any extravagance; to-day his palate demanded wine, and with wine he solaced it. When he went forth again into the roaring highway things glowed before him in a mellow light: the sounds of Fleet Street made music to his ears; he looked with joyous benignity into the faces of men and women, and nowhere discovered a countenance inharmonious with ...
— Eve's Ransom • George Gissing
... endure These crawling centuries of lonely woe Unshamed by weak complaining, but for thee, Loneliest, save me, of all created things, Mild-eyed Astarte, my best comforter,[21] 330 With thy pale smile of sad benignity? ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... present. And agitation and overturning shall not cease until the final realization is reached. Society shall yet be rewrought and born again. All rule shall be justice, and obedience liberty. Government shall be the reflection of the infinite kingdom, the incarnation of truth, wisdom, benignity, power, the protector and help of all, inviting and assisting each to full realization of the utmost possibilities of attainment and strength for the individual soul, building to perfect freedom, building also to perfect unity. Service, sacrament, supreme reverence—this ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... day an audience of a full senate was given to Hannibal, when the first part of his address was full of graciousness and benignity, in which he thanked the Campanians for having preferred his friendship to an alliance with the Romans, and held out among his other magnificent promises "that Capua should soon become the capital of all Italy, ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... nothing but reprove." Practical wisdom enough to make the course of any household run smooth! The instincts of a happy, placid temper have taught Olivia that there is as little of Christian virtue as of natural benignity in stinging away the spirit of kindness with a tongue of acid and acrimonious pietism. Her firm and healthy pulse beats in sympathy with the sportiveness in which the proper decorum of her station may not permit her to bear an active part. And she ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... veteran made no observation in particular. He replied to my questions about Saharan travelling:—"Don't fear, the Touaricks will do you no harm. You can go to Timbuctoo in safety." I was making ghusub water, and asked him to drink of it. "No," he said, smiling with benignity, "you must drink ghusub water with me, not I with you. This is the fashion of us Touaricks." Ghusub water, is water poured on ghusub grain after the grain has been par-boiled or otherwise prepared. A milky ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... I had ended, for some time in deep meditation; now and then casting his eyes toward me and then taking them away, as if fearful of offending my sensibility and again falling into thought. At length, fixing them more firmly and with an open benignity of countenance, he thus ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... the prisoners had been soothed with flattering tales of the benignity of the Governor of Virginia, Sir Thomas Dale; of his love of the French, and his respect for the memory of Henry the Fourth, to whom, they were told, he was much beholden for countenance and favor. ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... creatures, the bounty that supplies their wants, the care taken of their lives, the happiness, expressed in songs or merry gambols or mazy dances, which He has poured into their hearts. The whole earth is full of the glory of God's infinite benignity and good will. Insignificant as I—a speck on earth, and earth itself but a speck in creation—seem to myself when, standing below the starry vault, I look up into the heavens, yet, apart from the thought that I am a sinner, I cannot say, What is man, that thou art mindful of ...
— The Angels' Song • Thomas Guthrie
... going, I never heard him speak harshly or express the least displeasure. An extreme, rather heavy, benignity—the benignity of one sure to be obeyed—marked his demeanour; so that I was at times reminded of Samuel Richardson in his circle of admiring women. The wives spoke up and seemed to volunteer opinions, like our wives at home—or, say, like doting but respectable aunts. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... accidental succession of single heirs, that brought an undivided patrimony down to the present generation. One cannot help regretting that the estate is to be cut up now into five shares or more. Eleven thousand acres of fertile hill and dale, sinking and swelling gently, so as to attract all the benignity of sun or breeze—not more densely wooded than is common on our own western shores, and watered to an ornamental perfection—truly on any civilized land, such is a ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... American constellation; they circle around their centre, and the heavens beam with a new light. Beneath this illumination, let us walk the course of life, and at its close devoutly commend our beloved country, the common parent of us all, to the Divine Benignity." ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... size. Her hair was sandy, or approaching to a pale red; her features were coarse, but regular; and her whole figure that of a well-made and powerful woman. In her countenance might be read a peculiar blending of sternness and benignity, each evidently softened down by an expression of melancholy—perhaps of suffering—as if some secret care lay brooding at her heart. The inside of the hovel itself had every mark of poverty and destitution about it. Two or three stools, a pot or ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton
... text to art, we behold the golden lakes of joy, the mountain of gems, the floating female angels with their marvellous drapery and lovely faces, the gentle benignity of the goddesses of mercy, the rays of light and the glory streaming from face and head of the holy ones, the splendors of costume, the varied beauties of the lotus, the hosts of ministering intelligences, the luxuriant symbolism, the purple clouds, the wheel of the law, the swastika[29] ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... and began to stir gently the melting ice on the plate before him, but his eyes were fixed on the wall opposite, where, across the shining table, from a mellow gold frame, a portrait of his grandfather smiled with a benignity, utterly belying his traditional character, into the shadows above the candles. But Adrian was not thinking of his grandfather just then, he was thinking of his uncle—and Mrs. Denby. What in the world——! Dangerously ill, and yet here had been his uncle able ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... is one of the most prominent and efficient of the philanthropists of modern days. An air of benignity and easy good nature veils and conceals in him the most unflinching perseverance and energy of purpose. He has for many years been a zealous advocate of the antislavery cause in England, taking up efficiently the work begun by Clarkson and Wilberforce. He, with a friend of the same ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... story of Handel, who used to get very angry if any one talked in the room, even when he was only giving lessons to the Prince and Princess of Wales. At such times, as Barney relates, the Princess of Wales, with her accustomed mildness and benignity, used to say: "Hush! hush! Handel is in a passion." And Liszt never gave a finer exhibition of his wit and artistic courage than when, at an imperial soiree in the Russian capital, he suddenly ceased playing in the midst of a piece, because the Czar was ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... sanctum. The very atmosphere of the chamber, filled with the perfume of the cedar wood employed as a specific against the ravages of the moth and bookworm, seemed to the young man redolent of midnight learning; and the superb front of the presiding god, calm in the grandeur of its ineffable benignity, who appeared to his excited fancy to smile serene protection on the pursuits of the blameless consul, inspired him with a sense of awful veneration, that did not easily or ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... of his care; or, if a mere mortal, should I not recognize some one, whom, benefits imparted and received had prompted to love me? What were the limits and duration of his guardianship? Was the genius of my birth entrusted by divine benignity with this province? Are human faculties adequate to receive stronger proofs of the existence of unfettered and beneficent intelligences ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... generosity may prove prejudicial to thy future fortunes. Many, many are the women amongst the faithful who would feel proud to accept the offers which thou seemest to treat with unbecoming disregard. But trifle not with the benignity of my disposition; for Caneri, though an outcast, and a sovereign only of wild mountains and deserted villages, has yet power enough to enforce his commands, and inflict a summary vengeance upon those who dare thwart his wishes. ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... the words for his own encouragement, with a heart less brave than he could have wished. But the information was pleasantly echoed about, as the ranks of the Servi parted and an old man, with a face full of benignity, came forward, holding the hand of a boy with blue eyes and light hair, who walked timidly with him to the pulpit on the left, where the older man encouraged the shrinking disputant ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... had never seen upon the countenance of a green Martian warrior. It bespoke an inward and mighty battle with self, with heredity, with age-old custom, and as he opened his mouth to speak, a look almost of benignity, of kindliness, momentarily lighted up his fierce ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... played Hamlet) declared the performance was little, if at all, inferior to that of his deceased friend Garrick. With the very same breath in which we read the paragraph we declared it to be a falsehood. Mr. Fox had too much judgment to institute the comparison—Mr. Fox had too much benignity to utter such a malicious libel upon ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold
... almost swallowed her sat Alice, gazing dreamily into the embers. Family portraits hung upon the wall, and one of these, stiff and haughty in the regimentals of a soldado de cuero, seemed to look down upon the domestic picture with a certain austere benignity. This was the painting of Francisco Garvez of hidalgo lineage, who had stood beside Ortega, the Pathfinder, when that honored scout of Portola had found the bay of San Francisco and the ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... his heart and bowed to the Queen with dignified courtesy. If he felt any surprise at seeing the Queen crawling along the ground on her stomach he did not show it. His face expressed paternal but quite respectful benignity. The Queen returned from this expedition very much heated, with her hair dishevelled. Kalliope spent some time trying to rub the dirt off the front ...
— The Island Mystery • George A. Birmingham
... crime, if I may be pardoned for taking part in it; for consider, O Rajah! In your benignity, that I am but a slave, and my master compelled me to act the part I did," answered Bikoo, trembling ...
— The Young Rajah • W.H.G. Kingston
... kind-heartedness, munificence, beneficence, generosity, kindliness, philanthropy, benignity, good-will, kindness, sympathy, bounty, humanity, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... negro, with a smile of expansive benignity; "I's not 'fraid ob dat. I's bin a slabe once, got used to lickin's. Don't care nuffin' ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... Things high and humble, the enthroned gods, And tenants of the far unvisited huts Of wildernesses, she alike subdues Unto the awe of perfect harmony? What else but sweetness tempered all one way, And looks of sociable benignity? Which when she chooseth to be all herself, She doth put on, and in the act thereof, Such thousand graces lacquey her about, And in her smile such plenitude of joy— The extreme perfection of the divine gods— Shines affable, as, to partake thereof, Hath oftentimes ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... sun shining brightly through the casement, Miss Craig (afterwards Mrs. Henry Duncan) was afraid the light might be too much for him, and rose to let down the window-blinds. Burns immediately guessed what she meant, and regarding the young lady with a look of great benignity, said, 'Thank you, my dear, for your kind attention; but oh! let him shine; he will not shine ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... virtue is of power the source, And all her magic to thy eyes is given; We own their empire, while we feel their force, Beaming with the benignity of heaven. ...
— The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius - with some other poems • James Beattie
... While pleading at the bar, he always sought out the grievances of the poorest and most despised persons, entered into their wrongs with his whole soul, and never took a fee. Who can read his admirable letters without being touched by their tenderness and warmed by their benignity and philanthropy: and yet, this tender-hearted Pliny coolly plied with excruciating torture two spotless females, who had served as deaconesses in the Christian church, hoping to extort from them matter of accusation against ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... collected, had looked upon me with anything but flattering regards; some turned up their noses, some grinned, all appeared astonished, and all disgusted. At the conclusion of this speech, I was surprised at the benignity which beamed upon me from under their variously shaped and coloured eyebrows. There was magic in the words "for his father's ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... the learned Stillingfleet observes in his Irenicum: "The unity and peace that was then among Christians made religion amiable in the judgment of impartial heathens: Christians were then known by the benignity and sweetness of their dispositions, by the candour and ingenuity of their spirits, by their mutual love, forbearance, and condescension to one another. But either this is not the practice of Christianity (viz., a duty that Christians are now bound to observe), or else it ...
— An Exhortation to Peace and Unity • Attributed (incorrectly) to John Bunyan
... with their gentleness, suffered them to scrutinise him, and won them by his benignity. The natives were equally objects of curiosity to the Spaniards. They were naked, painted all over with a variety of colours and designs. Their complexion was tawny, and they were destitute of beards; their hair not crisp, like that of negroes, but straight and coarse; their ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith
... it from me, Fanny," she replied, with her wonted sweetness and benignity, "to ask any one to tamper with duty; but, my child, our faults, our pride frequently mislead us. You shall go to-night, if you please; but I wish, for my sake, you could stay at least till to-morrow morning. I have ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... ecclesiastics paid court to civil despots from the commencement of the famous 1260 years, let the following instance serve for a sample. Addressing the monster Phocas, Pope Gregory, as the mouth of the clergy and laity,[4] uses this language: "We rejoice that the benignity of your piety(!) has reached the pinnacle of imperial power. Let the heavens he glad and the earth rejoice."—Now let us hear the character of Phocas from the pen of an infidel:—"Ignorant of letters, of laws, and even of arms, he indulged in the supreme rank a more ample privilege of lust ...
— Notes On The Apocalypse • David Steele
... a vast extent. The splendour, power, and intolerance of national hierarchies is mistaken for the humble benignity of the Bible system of Christianity or personal religion. Antichrist, tricked out in robes and gewgaws, is, by ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... to his car and, awakening his chauffeur, told him to drive to Black Rock House. But when he reached home, the set look that his face had worn for so many weeks had disappeared. And in its place among the relaxed muscles which showed his years, sat the benignity of ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... Mr Squeers, who lost no opportunity of advertising gratuitously, placed his hands upon his knees, and looked at the pupils with as much benignity as he could possibly affect, while Nicholas, blushing with shame, handed round the ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... me with shame, strive rather to gain the affections of those who govern me. The Baron esteems you. My Aunt, to others ever harsh proud and contemptuous, remembers that you rescued her from the hands of Murderers, and wears with you alone the appearance of kindness and benignity. Try then your influence over my Guardians. If they consent to our union my hand is yours: From your account of my Brother, I cannot doubt your obtaining his approbation: And when they find the impossibility of executing their design, I trust that my Parents will excuse my disobedience, ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... to say "friend," but a look into the grand benignity of the countenance completed the conquest, and he turned it into "father." Friedel at the same instant bent his knee, exclaiming, "It is true what Ebbo says! We have both longed for this day. Bless us, honoured uncle, as you ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... up to the door of the house and knocked. The old gentleman whom Watson had seen soon stood before them. The lamp which he held above him shone upon a face full of benignity and peacefulness. His features were handsome; his eyes twinkled genially, as if he loved ...
— Chasing an Iron Horse - Or, A Boy's Adventures in the Civil War • Edward Robins
... is the conclusion which is particularly forced upon us by a consideration of the play which is in many ways most typical of Shakespeare's later work, and the one which critics most consistently point to as containing the very essence of his final benignity—The Tempest. There can be no doubt that the peculiar characteristics which distinguish Cymbeline and The Winter's Tale from the dramas of Shakespeare's prime, are present here in a still greater ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... that each of the reverend brethren should be daily supplied with a service of boiled almonds, rice and milk, pease, or the like, to be called the King's mess, and that without the ordinary service of their table being either disturbed in quantity or quality. But this was not the only mark of the benignity of good King Robert towards the monks of Melrose, since, by a charter of the dale 29th May, 1326, he conferred on the Abbot of Melrose the sum of two thousand pounds sterling, for rebuilding: the church of St. Mary's, ruined by ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... but a thousand sweet emotions mingled with them. The abbess suffered her to weep without interruption, and watched over her with a look of benignity, that might have characterized the countenance of a guardian angel. Emily, when she became tranquil, was encouraged to speak without reserve, and to mention the motive, that made her unwilling to quit the cottage, which the abbess did not oppose even by a hint; ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... to make up the resemblance fuller, the bounty and benignity of his influence upon the world, the flowings forth of his infinite goodness, that enrich the whole earth. Look, as the sun is the greatest and most universal benefactor,—his influence and heat is the very renovation of the world. It makes ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... his finely chiselled face; but what I noticed first and last was the pair of lustrous, dark brown eyes that glowed and dilated with every deep emotion. He had the quiet, assured manner of a master; yet I was not so instantly conscious of that, as of an air of reverence and benignity, which, combined with the somewhat Oriental tendency of feature and colour, made his whole personality suggest that of a ...
— A Day with Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy • George Sampson
... animated, full of earnest and cordial talk, pleasing and being pleased, the life of the company, was apt to think how delightful he must always be,—and so he was; but these times of bright talk were like angels' visits; and he smiled with peculiar benignity on his retiring guest, as if blessing him not the less for leaving him to himself. I question if there ever lived a man so much in the midst of men, and in the midst of his own children,[20] in whom the silences, as Mr. Carlyle would say, were so predominant. Every Sabbath he spoke out of the abundance ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... feelings. As we passed over a rising ground which commanded something of a prospect, the sounds of rustic merriment now and then reached our ears; the Squire paused for a few moments, and looked around with an air of inexpressible benignity. The beauty of the day was of itself sufficient to inspire philanthropy. Notwithstanding the frostiness of the morning, the sun in his cloudless journey had acquired sufficient power to melt away the thin covering of snow from every southern ...
— Old Christmas From the Sketch Book of Washington Irving • Washington Irving
... proportions; a circle of beams, dimming sunlight, broke forth around his head; hyacinthine locks clustered on his shoulders, his eyes sparkled with supernatural radiance; a quiver depended at his back; an unstrung bow occupied his hand; the majesty and benignity of his presence alike seemed augmented tenfold. Eubulides and the crowd sank simultaneously on their knees, ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... too often, ungrateful people, she was full of tender pity—the yearning of the single-hearted missionary, for the welfare of his flock. They were steeped in darkness, but she carried the light—nay, she was the light! and with a benignity, often evinced by self-sacrifice—she poured ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... deceive thee into a false esteem of Him and His love. But if it be the greatest madness imaginable to entertain any such thought but that His tears were sincere and unartificial, the natural, genuine expression of undissembled benignity and pity, thou art then to consider what love and compassion thou art now sinning against; what bowels thou spurnest; and that if thou perishest, 'tis under such guilt as the devils themselves are not liable to, who never had a Redeemer bleeding for them, nor, that we ever ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Vol. 2 (of 10) • Grenville Kleiser
... allowed to exclude kindliness to communities who stand nearer to us in nature. For the future of the freed slaves we may well be concerned; but the future of the whole country, involving the future of the blacks, urges a paramount claim upon our anxiety. Effective benignity, like the Nile, is not narrow in its bounty, and true policy is always broad. To be sure, it is vain to seek to glide, with moulded words, over the difficulties of the situation. And for them who are neither partisans, nor enthusiasts, ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville
... Saviour. She is seldom found in the Catacombs, but frequently in the Mosaic work of churches dedicated to her worship, and on Byzantine coins from the tenth century forwards. The face is oval, similar to that of a youthful matron of ancient Rome, and carrying always the expression of a calm benignity. The head is covered with a veil and surrounded by a nimbus. Next to Mary and her Son, Peter and Paul, the chief apostles of the Pagan and Judaic world, are most frequently represented. They were both objects of devotion, even to those who still lingered without the pale ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... my adventures, he looked upon me with so much humour and benignity that I could scarce contain my satisfaction. I had been so long wandering with lawless people, and making my bed upon the hills and under the bare sky, that to sit once more in a clean, covered house, and to talk amicably with a gentleman in broadcloth, ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the middle height, spare, but vigorous and graceful. His face was cast, I thought, in a foreign mould. His forehead receded beyond the usual degree in visages which I had seen. His eyes large and prominent, but imparting no marks of benignity and habitual joy. The rest of his face forcibly suggested the idea of a convex edge. His whole figure impressed me with emotions of veneration and awe. A gravity that almost amounted to sadness invariably attended him when ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... think,' she said, beginning to recover her benignity—'I think I could lay out a ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... Feast of the Nativity! H eaven made thy lowly shrine R esplendent with the gift of the eternal Deity I n whom we live and move, whose large benignity S pared not His Son divine: T hat well-beloved Son by God was given, M ankind to save with His redeeming blood; A nd Jesus freely left the bliss of Heaven, S uffering death, to achieve ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... utterance to in hours! They were silent—yet discoursed, how eloquently? till, after a moment's reflection, Maria drew her chair by the side of his, and, with a composed sweetness of voice, and supernatural benignity of countenance, said, "I must open my whole heart to you; you must be told who I am, why I am here, and why, telling you I am a wife, I blush not to"—the blush spoke ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... now Edwin had always expressed his thoughts. But now the words fell half-formed from his trembling lips, and the sounds died away before they were uttered. "Were I to speak, Imogen, who has always beheld me with an aspect of benignity, might be offended. I should say no more than the truth; but Imogen is modest. She does not suspect that she possesses half the superiority over such as are called fair, which I see in her. And who could bear to incur the resentment of Imogen? Who would irritate a temper so amiable and mild? I should ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... exaggerated. It seemed impossible that anyone could be so clean, so polished and scoured, so groomed and tailored, so bedecked, so high-heeled and loftily coiffed. His mean little countenance with its grotesquely waxed mustache and imperial wore an expression of gracious benignity that assured his guests they ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... conduct were the outcome not solely of a deep sense of duty and of stoical reflection; in my constant intercourse with this man—an extraordinary man to those who knew him well—I felt vast depths beneath his toil, beneath his acts of politeness, his mask of benignity, his assumption of resignation, which so closely resembled calmness that it is easy to mistake it. Just as when walking through forest-lands certain soils give forth under our feet a sound which enables us to guess whether they are dense masses of stone or a void; so intense ...
— Honorine • Honore de Balzac
... that any man becomes capable of so governing others as to take true part in any system of national economy. Nor is there any other eternal distinction between the upper and lower classes than this form of liberty, Eleutheria, or benignity, in the one, and its opposite of slavery, Douleia, or malignity, in the other; the separation of these two orders of men, and the firm government of the lower by the higher, being the first conditions of possible wealth and economy in any state,—the Gods giving it no greater gift than the power ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... both sexes. And if everything around Mrs. Downey was on a liberal scale, so was Mrs. Downey herself. She was expansive in her person, prodigal in sympathy, exuberant in dress. If she had one eye to the main chance, the other smiled at you in pure benignity. On her round face was a festal flush, flooding and effacing the little care-worn lines and wrinkles which appeared on it by day. It wore the colour of the hour which, evening after evening, renewed for her the great drama ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... the clothes of the whole company. As soon as I saw them I could not help smiling to myself to remember the anxiety with which I had approached. They received me and my hastily-concocted story, that I had been walking from Peebles and had lost my way, with incoherent benignity; jostled me among them into the room where they had been sitting, a plain hedgerow alehouse parlour with a roaring fire in the chimney and a prodigious number of empty bottles on the floor; and informed me that I was made, by this reception, a temporary member ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... I do not come to trespass so far upon your benignity," he answered, as he bent before her. "I come to express, rather, my regret that you should ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... my own way," said she, putting her spectacles on the top of her head, and looking around her with remarkable benignity. "If the spirit moves me one way, I cannot go another. But I will try my best, for may-be it's the last time some of you will ever listen to old Thusa's tales. She's never felt just right since they tangled up her heart-strings with ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... which full plainly I can trace Benignity, and home-bred sense, Ripening in perfect innocence. Here scattered, like a random seed, Remote from men, thou dost not need The embarrassed look of shy distress And maidenly shamefacedness. Thou wear'st upon thy forehead clear The freedom of a mountaineer. ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... condescending to purr! Now we'll come and disport ourselves under the trees, and you shall watch the birds from a safe distance. I know your wicked ways, and I must teach you how to treat your inferiors with proper benignity ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... you an associate like M. d'Orleans, to whom I give my nomination to the cardinalship." At this word the Bishop, who little expected such a scene, fell at the King's feet and embraced his knees. He was a man whose face spoke at once of the virtue and benignity he possessed. In youth he was so pious, that young and old were afraid to say afoul word in his presence. Although very rich, he appropriated scarcely any of his wealth to himself, but gave it away for good works. The modesty and the simplicity with which M. d'Orleans sustained ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... light gray, ancient sandals, and a golden key hanging by a cord from his waist. In the serene beauty of his noble features I saw justice and mercy had met and were reconciled. I cannot describe the majesty of his bearing or the benignity of his appearance. It is needless to say that I stood before St. Peter, who sits at ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... benevolence, Christian charity; God's love, God's grace; good will; philanthropy &c. 910; unselfishness &c. 942. good nature, good feeling, good wishes; kindness, kindliness &c. adj.; loving-kindness, benignity, brotherly love, charity, humanity, fellow- feeling, sympathy: goodness of heart, warmth of heart; bonhomie; kind- heartedness; amiability, milk of human kindness, tenderness; love &c. 897; friendship &c. 888. toleration, consideration, generosity; mercy &c. (pity) 914. charitableness ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... the twelve fruits of the Holy Ghost? A. The twelve fruits of the Holy Ghost are charity, joy, peace, patience, benignity, goodness, long-suffering, mildness, faith, modesty, ...
— Baltimore Catechism No. 4 (of 4) - An Explanation Of The Baltimore Catechism of Christian Doctrine • Thomas L. Kinkead
... your most illustrious Order, which, as your eminence in your said letters so honourably commemorates, so will we studiously endeavour to imitate, and even to surpass. From our admiral, Sir John Narbrough, knight, and also from other parties, we have heard with how much benignity your eminence lately received him, and caused him and the other officers of our fleet to be supplied with what was requisite for our ships of war, which we consider not less worthy of the piety and valour of your Order than of our friendship; and we on our part, on opportunity presenting itself, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 237, May 13, 1854 • Various
... gold. His only head ornament was a bunch of feathers of the royal green color. A man about forty; tall and rather thin; black hair, cut rather short for a person of rank; dignified in his movements; his features wearing an expression of benignity not to be expected ...
— The Story of Extinct Civilizations of the West • Robert E. Anderson
... Serenity of soul, benignity, Sway of the silent Spirit, constant stress To sanctify the Nature,—these things make Good rite, and ...
— The Bhagavad-Gita • Sir Edwin Arnold
... down on Phemy with such a face of loving benignity that the poor miserable girl threw her arms round her neck, and laid her head on her bosom. Instinctively the mother began to hush and soothe her, and in a moment more was singing a lullaby to her. Phemy fell fast asleep. Then Kirsty told ...
— Heather and Snow • George MacDonald
... and judicious writer has not accurately distinguished the deficiencies and demands of the different conditions of human life, which, from a degree of savageness and independence, in which all laws are vain, passes or may pass, by innumerable gradations, to a state of reciprocal benignity, in which laws shall be no longer necessary. Men are first wild and unsocial, living each man to himself, taking from the weak, and losing to the strong. In their first coalitions of society, much of this ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... understands you! He understands your feeble love, your longings, desires, hopes, faults, ambitions, crosses; and that, after all, is what counts! Of course you don't understand Him! You are overshadowed by His love, His power, His benignity, His wisdom; that is as it should be! Why, Rebecca, dear, if you could stand erect and unabashed in God's presence, as one who perfectly comprehended His nature or His purposes, it would be sacrilege! Don't be puzzled out of your blessed inheritance ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... lustier manhood, and had held a larger audience together by the power of his belief; but now he was helpless to attract any but the children. Whether it was the pathos of his white hairs, his garb of shreds and patches, or the mild benignity of his eye that moved me, I know not, but among all the Sunday shouters in Hyde Park it seemed to me that that quavering voice of the past spoke ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... unto me, that in the whole series of Bridlegoose's juridical decrees there hath been I know not what of extraordinary savouring of the unspeakable benignity of God, that all those his preceding sentences, awards, and judgments, have been confirmed and approved of by yourselves in this your own venerable and sovereign court. For it is usual, as you know well, with him whose ways are inscrutable, to manifest his own ineffable ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... resumed Dr. Middleton, having now returned to the usual benignity of his manner—"the reason why I desired that none of you should go to that building," pointing out of the window, "was this:—I had been informed that a gang of gipsies had slept there the night before I spoke to you, one of whom was dangerously ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... as broken by Jesus. We find exactly the same comparison in Milton. The Sabbath, he believes, was made for God. "Yet when the good of man comes into the scales, we have that voice of infinite goodness and benignity, that 'Sabbath was made for man and not man for Sabbath.' What thing ever was made more for man alone, and less for God, than marriage?" (op. cit., Bk. i, Ch. XI). "If man be lord of the Sabbath, can he be less than lord ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... the room, and candles were brought. Lady Desmond was all smiles and benignity, as she had been for this last week past, while Herbert Fitzgerald had been coming and going almost daily at Desmond Court. But Clara understood this benignity, and ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... in a summer evening, I went to call on the old lady to whom my reader is now introduced, I was received by her with all her usual affection and benignity; while, at the same time, she seemed abstracted and disposed to silence. I asked her the reason. "They have been clearing out the old chapel," she said; "John Clayhudgeons having, it seems, discovered that the stuff within—being, ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... stripling, he had the shoulders of Samson, the chest of Hercules, and the limbs of Apollo. He was tall also—over six feet—but his unusual breadth deceived people as to this till they stood close to him. Fair hair, close and curly, with bright blue eyes and a permanent look of grave benignity, ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... which we mean by this word, should ever impress us with moral solemnity. And when we associate with this majestic Being the idea of Father, clothe him in a Father's love, fill him with a Father's care and benignity, he appears to us infinitely lovely and attractive as well as infinitely great and good. It is no common thought that gives to the universe of spiritual creatures a Father, that binds them all in ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... indescribable, but they said in effect, "Rather than have any misunderstanding come between me and my close personal friends I would give you free anything in my possession." The blood rushed to his face and a smile of heavenly benignity came over it as he handed us the things at the price we had ...
— Letters from China and Japan • John Dewey
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