"Benignant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... suffer'd; lo! they see "Their mouldering cot, e'en for the pair too small, "Change to a temple; pillars rear on high, "In place of crotchets; yellow turns the straw, "The roof seems gilded; sculptur'd shine the gates; "And marble pavement covers all the floor. "Then Saturn's son, in these benignant words "The pair address'd;—O, ancient man, most just! "And thou, O woman! worthy of thy spouse, "Declare your wishes.—Baucis spoke awhile "With old Philemon; then their joint desire "The latter to the deities declar'd.— ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... was interrupted by a message from the captain, who desired to speak with me in his cabin. I went down; he received me with the benignant smile ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... said Balthasar, in his benignant way, "the mission is yet a purpose in the bosom of God. All I think about it is wrung from the words of the Voice in connection with the prayer to which they were in answer. Shall we refer to ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... Catholic form of worship prevailed in that country it was greatly resorted to, and old persons yet remember to have seen offerings left at the fountain in gratitude for benefits received from the benignant influence of the Saint's blessing on the water. At length it is said that a daughter of Donald, the son of Connal, expressed a wish to be baptized, and the father restrained her by violence. He also, with the aid of the Druids, forced ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... eminently social, and to this club he was especially attached. Dr. Holmes says of it in his volume on Emerson, who was one of its most constant members: "At one end of the table sat Longfellow, florid, quiet, benignant, soft-voiced, a most agreeable rather than a brilliant talker, but a man upon whom it was always pleasant to look,—whose silence was better than many another man's conversation. At the other end sat Agassiz, ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... sisters," she said, with a complacent look of benignant condescension, "I hope soon to know how you approve of our dinner. It is my constant study to make you happy, and my efforts are unceasing to afford you every gratification in ...
— Folk-lore and Legends: German • Anonymous
... who write, a subject fit, A subject, not too mighty for your wit! And ere you lay your shoulders to the wheel, Weigh well their strength, and all their weakness feel! He, who his subject happily can chuse, Wins to his favour the benignant Muse; The aid of eloquence he ne'er shall lack, And order shall dispose and ...
— The Art Of Poetry An Epistle To The Pisos - Q. Horatii Flacci Epistola Ad Pisones, De Arte Poetica. • Horace
... candle. Noticing the boy's gloomy face, he patted him on the head with a benignant ...
— The Texan Star - The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Europe. They ranged the seas and learned the value of the land; and while they fed the great despot of the Middle Ages, the light of intelligence, born of energy and nurtured by activity, cast its benignant gleams from the central island of the Rhine, and drove from their mountain nooks the owls and bats of tyranny and superstition. They fought first, these lords of the soil, among themselves, for local privileges, advancing in their continuous struggles upon the very threshold of the ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... when the professor knocked the ashes out of his second pipe, and laid his hand upon the latch of Bressant's door, the expression upon his strongly-cut features was neither gloomy nor severe. There was a look in his eyes of benignant sweetness, all the more impressive because it made one wonder how it could find a place beneath such stern eyebrows and so deeply lined a forehead. But, cutting off an offending right hand, although ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... and ambitious a prince as the good Philip boded evil to the cause of freedom in the Netherlands. The spirit of liberty seemed to have been typified in the fair form of the benignant and unhappy Jacqueline, and to be buried in her grave. The usurper, who had crushed her out of existence, now strode forward to trample upon all the laws and privileges of the provinces which had ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... the game of politics according to his own rules, the underlying principle of which is audacity. He knows very well that the weak spot in the armor of nearly all politicians of the old school is their assumption of superiority, a sort of mask of benignant political venerability. They dread satire. They shrink from ridicule. A well-directed critical outburst freezes them. Such has been the Harvey method of approach. Having reduced his subjects to a state of terror, he flatters them, cajoles them, and ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
... cured by fasting, but this is very, very doubtful. It is often difficult to differentiate between cancer and benignant tumors at first. Benignant tumors frequently disappear on a limited diet. I have seen many tumors disappear under rational treatment, without resorting to the knife, but I have never seen an undoubted case of cancer do so, though some of ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker
... into the course of the elements, destroying their benignant influence. The wind, prince of air, raged through his kingdom, lashing the sea into fury, and subduing the rebel earth into some sort ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... pay homage to a divine day on a fire-blue lake, amid the hush of the eternal hills. Lesser souls may find themselves speaking in few and low-pitched words, under the holy spell of such surroundings. But to loftier types of holiday-seekers, the benignant silences of the wilderness are put there by an all-wise Providence for the purpose of being fractured by any racket denoting care-free merriment;—the louder the merrier. There is nothing so racket-breeding as a perfect day ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... recourse to the 'horror vacui' as an efficient cause. This view of the subject can offend or startle those only who, in their passion for wonderment, virtually exclude the agency of Providence from any share in the realizing of its own benignant scheme; as if the disposition of events by which the whole world of human history, from north and south, east and west, directed their march to one central point, the establishment of Christendom, were not the most stupendous of miracles! It is a yet ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge
... stood up, marvellously alike in strength and beauty, yet absolutely different in expression and bearing, the one serene and benignant, the other fierce and threatening. The quiet one was still pleading, with a hand laid upon the other's shoulder. But he shook it off, and thrust his companion away with ...
— The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke
... to others the talent hidden with all a miser's vigilance in my bosom casket. I had lisped in rhyme,—I had improvised in rhyme,—I had dreamed in poetry, when the moon and stars were looking down on me with benignant lustre;—I had thought poetry at the sunset hour, amid twilight shadows and midnight darkness. I had scribbled it at early morn in my own little room, at noonday recess at my solitary desk; but no human being, save my mother, knew of the ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... Cook! Ambition's lofty flame, So oft directed to destroy, Led thee to circle with thy name, The smile of Love, and Hope, and Joy! Those fires, that lend the dangerous blaze The devious comet trails afar, Might form the pure benignant rays That gild the morning's gentle star— Sure, where the Hero's ashes rest, The nations late emerg'd from night Still base—with love's unwearied care That spot in lavish flowers is dress'd, And fancy's dear inventive rite Still paid with ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... the tangle or ran pattering up the tree-trunks. Both the men, according to their several creeds, felt the full thunder of the psalm of life as they had never heard it before; MacIan felt God the Father, benignant in all His energies, and Turnbull that ultimate anonymous energy, that Natura Naturans, which is the whole theme of Lucretius. It was down this clamorous ladder of life that ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... Nor, when soft Pleasure boasts of lasting powers, With boundless trust the Promiser surveys. It is the same dread Jove, who thro' the sky Hurls the loud storms, that darken as they fly; And whose benignant hand withdraws the gloom, And spreads rekindling light, in all its ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... rest here: for I am way-weary and life-weary; I will rest here, were it but to die: to die or to live is alike to me; alike insignificant.'—And again: 'Here, then, as I lay in that CENTRE OF INDIFFERENCE; cast, doubtless by benignant upper Influence, into a healing sleep, the heavy dreams rolled gradually away, and I awoke to a new Heaven and a new Earth. The first preliminary moral Act, Annihilation of Self (Selbst-toedtung), had been happily accomplished; and my mind's eyes were now unsealed, ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... yet thou dost wear The Godhead's most benignant grace; Nor know we anything so fair As is the smile upon thy face; Flowers laugh before thee on their beds; And fragrance in thy footing treads; Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong; And the most ancient heavens, through Thee, are fresh ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... anxious solicitude never ceases, and whose hearty and affectionate greetings never fail to welcome him home. In this cold, calculating, ambitious world of ours, there are few ties more heart-felt, or of more benignant influence, than those which mutually bind the master and the slave, under our ancient system, handed down from the father ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... little strolls!" exclaimed Mrs. Portheris, with benignant humour. "I suppose we must condone them now!" and she waved her hand, rolling away, as if she gave ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... characteristics and having peculiar fitness for the signally providential parts assigned them in this great work, which ought to fire the heart of every Christian in the land. One we have, thank God, still among us, equally loved and revered, who has long stood at the front in this mighty and benignant enterprise—may the day be slow in coming when his great heart shall be missed from these yearly councils! And still we may be sure that the resources neither of our humanity nor of the grace of God are in any danger ...
— The American Missionary, Volume 42, No. 12, December, 1888 • Various
... in obedience to his careful monitor, bowed lowly before the dignified presence; and, hardly raising his eyes, he stands abashed at his awful situation, waiting the supreme pleasure of the supposed officer. A benignant smile lights up the tutor's grave countenance; he enters strangely enough into familiar talk with the recently admitted collegiate; in pathetic terms he describes the temptations of this great city, the thousand dangers to which he will be exposed, the vortex of ruin ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... sacrifice; but its loss was soon observed by the Indians, who promptly reclaimed it, and restored it to the exact position which it occupied before. There is, in fact, such a subtle and universal belief in the doctrine and agency of minor spirits of malign or benignant influence among the Indians who surround the cantonment, or visit the agency, and who are encamped at this season in great numbers in the open spaces of the village or its vicinity, that we are in constant danger of trespassing against some Indian custom, and of giving offence where it ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... sweet and winning face, as beautiful a face as I have ever known. Reposeful, gentle, benignant; the face of a saint at peace with all the world and placidly beaming upon it the sunshine of love that filled ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... right together and their thoughts drifted into a region of benignant aspirations. Then came Jenny and presently the detective followed her into a garden of flowers behind ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... I lie, I oft his beauteous, bleeding form review; A mild, benignant lustre lights his eye, As come to bid a ...
— Elegies and Other Small Poems • Matilda Betham
... pleasure myself from these American courtesies, expressed not merely in the magazines, but in the newspapers; a heap of which has been sent to me by my correspondent—the 'New York Tribune,' 'The Union,' 'The Union Flag,' &c.—all scattered over with extracts from my books and benignant words about their writer. Among the extracts is the whole of the review of Wordsworth from the London 'Athenaeum,' an unconscious compliment, as they do not guess at the authorship, and one which you won't thank them for. Keep the magazines, ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... chapter.] the ocean and snowy Alps were beyond the range of his affections. His love of nature was heartfelt, but his nature was not ours; it was nature as we see it in those Roman landscapes at Pompeii; nature ancillary to human needs, in her benignant and comfortable moods. Virgil's lachrymae rerum hints at mystic and extra-human yearnings; to the troubadours nature was conventionally stereotyped—a scenic decoration to set off sentiments more or less sincere; the roman-ticists wallow in her rugged aspects. Horace ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... you not perceive," said Philothea, "that yourself had armed the benignant goddess with a scourge? Thus do the best gifts from the Divine Fountain become changed by the will of those who receive them. But, dearest Eudora, though your heart retains its fire, a change has passed over your countenance. The cares of this world have driven ...
— Philothea - A Grecian Romance • Lydia Maria Child
... said Sir John, in his most benignant way. 'There—which is a most remarkable circumstance for a man of your punctuality and exactness, Haredale—you fall into error. I don't belong to the body; I have an immense respect for its members, but I don't belong to it; although I ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... of his doubts and his fears, and filling him with the desire to go on—the desire to fight it out, to punish himself as he deserved to be punished, and to win in the end. Father Roland, glancing back in benignant solicitude, saw the new glow in David's eyes. He saw, also, his parted lips and the quickness of his breath. With a sharp command he stopped Mukoki ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood
... Description meet. In the poor mother's mind Reason forsook its throne. Her last hope gone, Torn by a torrent from her death-like grasp, Having no anchor on the eternal Rock, She plunged beside it, into gulphs profound. —She slept not, ate not, heeded no kind word, Caress of fondness, or benignant prayer: She only shriek'd, "My boy! my beautiful! They bind his hands!" And then with frantic cries She struggled 'gainst imaginary foes, Till strength was gone. Through the long syncope Her never-resting lips essay'd to form ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney
... tenet of the society of "Madre Natura" is denoted by its name. They could conceive nothing more benignant and more beautiful, more provident and more powerful, more essentially divine, than that system of creative order to which they owed their being, and in which it was their privilege to exist. But they differed from other schools of philosophy that have held this faith, in this singular ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... I have seen And have known, Benignant eyes, nobility of mien, A scarf from off a perfect shoulder blown, Solicitude, white ardor in a face, Motions like water under the moon's grace,— I wonder much how men can be so ...
— Perpetual Light • William Rose Benet
... a benevolent, good-hearted, good-natured, portly, and jovial personage, with the most laissez-aller air and expression conceivable. He looks like one on whom the good things of this world have fallen in a constant and benignant shower, which shower hath fallen on a rich and fertile soil. He is generally to be seen leaning back in his carriage, dressed in purple, with amethyst cross, and giving his benediction to the people as he passes. He seems engaged in a pleasant revery, ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... inhabitants of earth, to man alone Creative Wisdom gave to lift his eye To Truth's eternal measures; thence to frame 540 The sacred laws of action and of will, Discerning justice from unequal deeds, And temperance from folly. But beyond This energy of Truth, whose dictates bind Assenting reason, the benignant Sire, To deck the honour'd paths of just and good, Has added bright Imagination's rays: Where Virtue, rising from the awful depth Of Truth's mysterious bosom, [Endnote H] doth forsake The unadorn'd condition of her birth; 550 And dress'd by Fancy in ten thousand hues, Assumes a various feature, ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... polity? Whatever the vigor and vitality of the stock from which he sprang, its mere vigor and soundness do not explain where this man got his great heart that seemed to comprehend all mankind in its catholic and benignant sympathy, the mind that sat enthroned behind those brooding, melancholy eyes, whose vision swept many an horizon which those about him dreamed not of,—that mind that comprehended what it had never seen, and understood the language of affairs with the ready ease of one to the manner ...
— President Wilson's Addresses • Woodrow Wilson
... in speechless grief, Mourn'd o'er her infant's unprotected state, Benignant charity affords relief, And bids her bosom glow, with ...
— Poetic Sketches • Thomas Gent
... certain it is at any rate that half the beauty of the whole exposed second floor of a modiste just opposite, for instance, with the fittings and figurings, as well as the intent immobilities, of busy young women descried through frank, and, as it were, benignant apertures, and of such bright fine strain that they but asked to work far into the night, came from the effect on the part of these things of so exactly crowning and comforting I couldn't have said what momentous young dream. I might have been right ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... also to an old woman's heart? Did I win the latter? or did I only fancy it? Did the motherly creature believe me lost? or was her astonishment only feigned? Was she really, despite her poverty, ready to share her last crust with a stranger? or was the benignant glance which gave me in my loneliness the sense of adoption ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... deteriorated, but perhaps improved. For the benignant clime of California has such effect; the soft breezes of the South Sea fanning as fair cheeks as were ever kissed by ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... younger than he, yet her acquired calmness had given her a matronly air and made her the one to assume protection and a gentle way of giving. As she stood there in the doorway, lamp in hand, she looked like a benignant mother waiting to greet a ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... showed the natural effect of abandoning belief in another life by his energetic interest in arrangements for improving the lot of man in this life. But it would be far better to share the superstitious opinions of a virtuous and benignant priest like the Bishop in Victor Hugo's Miserables, than to hold those good opinions of Chaumette as he held them, with a rancorous intolerance, a reckless disregard of the rights and feelings of others, and a shallow ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley
... and far from thy border, By the grace of my godhead benignant I order The blight which may blacken the bloom of the trees. Far from thy border, and far from thy dwelling, Be the hot blast which shrivels the bud in its swelling, The seed-rotting taint, and the creeping disease. Thy flocks be ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... and "Tannhuser" and "Die Walkre" had to wait for appreciation until fortuitous circumstances caused fashion, fame, and fortune to smile for a space upon the German establishment at the Metropolitan. It may have been a benignant fate which preserved "Euryanthe" from representation in the interval. The work is one which it is impossible for a serious music lover to approach without affection, but appreciation of all its beauties is conditioned upon the ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... antohs and attract benignant ones is the problem in the life philosophy of the Dayaks. The evil ones not only make him ill and cause his death, but they are at the bottom of all troubles in life. In order to attract the good ones sacrifices are made of a fowl, a pig, a water-buffalo, or, formerly, a slave. ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... lead them to his hut; but he hesitated, and moved slowly in the direction to which he had pointed. Consulting his apparent feelings they desisted, and parted in friendship. This was the first man they had seen in the island. His countenance, they describe as unusually benignant; his features less negro-like than common, and his manners frank and open. He exhibited neither curiosity nor fear, nor did he seem attracted by any part of their dress, except ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... A smile benignant kindling in his eyes, O happy realm! the glad Columbus cries, Far in the midland, safe from every foe, Thy arts shall flourish as thy virtues grow, To endless years thy rising fame extend, And sires of nations from thy sons descend. May no gold-thirsty race thy temples tread, ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... dost wear The godhead's most benignant grace; Nor know we anything so fair As is the smile upon thy face. Flowers laugh before thee on their beds, And fragrance in thy footing treads; Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong; And the most ancient heavens, through thee, are ...
— The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible • R. Heber Newton
... of the pedantry would almost disarm the present members of that Critical Regiment, of which the Abbe, in his turn, was not so much a chaplain as a most combatant officer. The very title goes on to neutralise its attractiveness by explaining—with that benignant condescension which is natural to at least some of its author's class—that it "contains the Moral Philosophy of the Stoics under the veil of several agreeable adventures in the form of a Romance"; and that we may not forget this, various side-notes ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... "you don't object! You know, of course, I've given up sport," he added ruefully; "but only just as companions!—Ain't you, Rollo?" he added, almost with tears in his eyes, and a hand on the smooth black head, belonging to such a wise benignant face, that Rosamond was tempted to pronounce the dog the more clerical ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to hers, that she was almost ready to believe it could "get on her by itself,"—and how she felt sure it was expressly manufactured to do good in the world,—until she had so glorified the lowly skimped delaine, that Madeline began to feel in it like a queen, whose benignant star has forever exalted her above the vulgar sensation of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... the Princess of Saxe-Royale," she said to him, with a benignant smile; "and you have got through that ...
— Bimbi • Louise de la Ramee
... Sir Morgan Walladmor was sitting in his library, and reviewing the case of Captain Nicholas. Many noble traits of character, which had come to Sir Morgan's knowledge in past years,—his talents,—and his youth,—all pleaded for him powerfully: the benignant old man felt concerned that he should in any way have been made instrumental to his condemnation: for of that he had not much doubt; and he was considering through what channel he could best exert his influence in obtaining some mitigation ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. II. • Thomas De Quincey
... is one going through all humanity; antediluvian in Cain and Abel, diluvian in Ham and Shem. And the question for the public of any given period is not whether they are a constitutional or unconstitutional vulgus, but whether they are a benignant or malignant vulgus. So also, whether it is indeed the gods who have given any gentleman the grace to despise the rabble, depends wholly on whether it is indeed the rabble, or he, who are the ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... reciteth the Holy Name, shall Brahma and Chakra the great king bring homage, and about him shall heavenly beings and benignant deities keep watch throughout ...
— Buddhist Psalms • Shinran Shonin
... glory. Whatever troubles may yet assail them, there is ground to rejoice that the foundation of the spiritual temple of Jehovah has there been firmly laid, and its superstructure commenced, which is to rise in future generations. The builders there and elsewhere have many adversaries; but the benignant Lamb shall overcome them. His servants must be multiplied, and many a heart, constrained by the love of Christ, will ...
— Daughters of the Cross: or Woman's Mission • Daniel C. Eddy
... vast realm where tender memories brood O'er sacred haunts of time, That woo his spirit to a nobler mood And more benignant clime,— ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... that he was in training for public office. Selma did not quite know what to make of it at first. She had expected that he would crush their opponents beneath an avalanche of righteous invective. Instead he took his seat with an expression of countenance which was no less benignant than dignified. When the hearing was declared closed, a few minutes later, he looked in her direction, and in the course of his passage to where she was sitting stopped to exchange affable greetings ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... at his companion. He had much to think of, in association with a print that hung up in another place, where, in the centre of a wondering group, one figure that he knew, a figure with a light about its head—benignant, ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... and waters, Till he relent, and can no more endure To be a jarring and a dissonant thing, Amid this general dance and minstrelsy; But, bursting into tears, wins back his way, His angry spirit healed and harmonized By the benignant touch of love ...
— Lyrical Ballads 1798 • Wordsworth and Coleridge
... has made me so?" This ghastly laughter gives occasion, moreover, for the one strain of tenderness running through the web of this unpleasant story: the love of the blind girl Dea, for the monster. It is a most benignant providence that thus harmoniously brings together these two misfortunes; it is one of those compensations, one of those afterthoughts of a relenting destiny, that reconcile us from time to time to the ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... over! Verdict found 'Not guilty'—prisoner forthwith set free, Mid cheers the Court pretends to disregard! Now Portia, now for Daniel, late severe, At last appeased, benignant! 'This young man— Hem—has the young man's foibles but no fault. He's virgin soil—a friend must cultivate. I think no plant called "love" grows wild—a friend May introduce, and name the bloom, the fruit!' Here somebody dares wave a handkerchief— She'll ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... to ask," said he, and this time with his most benignant smile. "Miss Butterworth, do you object to sitting up for a few ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... benignant eyes have sudden gleams of gladness and surprise, like woodland brooks that cross ...
— Fifteen Thousand Useful Phrases • Grenville Kleiser
... finished work before the first mellow touch of decay has come. The full, rich foliage still shelters the paths upon which the leaves have not yet fallen; the meadows are green; the skies soft and benignant. The conquest of summer is still intact, but here and there one sees slight but unmistakable evidence that the garrison, under cover of night, is beginning its long retreat. In such a moment one feels a sudden sense of loneliness, ...
— Under the Trees and Elsewhere • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... these was available, a benignant Providence provided him with friends entirely to his taste. For the great brown hound, Punch, was surely, despite the name men had given him, a nobleman by birth and breeding. Powerful and beautifully made, the sight ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... meet or no, the company has existed continuously from this time and has recently been remodelled, as is related in the new articles of the company approved by the Most Illustrious Lord, Duke Cosimo, the very benignant protector of these arts ...
— The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors & Architects, Volume 1 (of 8) • Giorgio Vasari
... steel-bowed glasses resting on his nose, and the good man's dressing-gown trailing magnificently behind. Bub's manner showed that he felt his consequence much increased by his clerical outfit, and the benignant gravity of his face was ...
— The Cabin on the Prairie • C. H. (Charles Henry) Pearson
... devise for the promotion of peace on this continent and throughout the world, and I trust that the time is nigh when, with the universal assent of civilized peoples, all international differences shall be determined without resort to arms by the benignant ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Chester A. Arthur • Chester A. Arthur
... Spooner, the miscellanies of Margaret Fuller, the histories of Hildreth, Bancroft and Motley, Ticknor's History of Spanish Literature, Judd's Margaret, the political treatises of Calhoun, the rich, benignant poems of Longfellow, the ballads of Whittier, the delicate songs of Philip Pendleton Cooke, the weird poetry of Edgar Poe, the wizard tales of Hawthorne, Irving's Knickerbocker, Delia Bacon's splendid sibyllic book on Shakespeare, ...
— Walt Whitman Yesterday and Today • Henry Eduard Legler
... to mark the Graces, when they come Down from Olympus, still and secretly, To join the Oreads in their festival, Beneath the light of the benignant moon. There lies the poet, watching them unseen, The whilst they chant the sweetest songs of heaven, Or, floating o'er the sward without a sound, Lead on the mystic wonder of the dance. All that is great in heaven, or fair on earth, Unveils its ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... the carpenters and were leaning over the new fence, then just erected, but not yet painted. Down the gravel walk of the mansion across the road came strolling its owner, silk-hatted, side-whiskered, benignant. ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... supremacy, shall speedily be confirmed. "Let the heavens rejoice and let the earth be glad" [Psalm 96:11], and let the whole people of the republic, hitherto afflicted exceedingly, grow cheerful for your benignant deeds. Let the proud minds of enemies be subdued to the yoke of your domination. Let the sad and depressed spirit of subjects be relieved by your mercy. Let the power of heavenly grace make you terrible to your enemies; let piety make you kind to your subjects. Let the whole republic ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... is as though he were cradled on a peak; and thereafter, wherever his wanderings may take him, and whether into Congress, Cabinet, or White House, he travels always downhill. It is this to account for that benignant urbanity, the inevitable mark of a Southern man, which teaches him faith in you as corollary of completest confidence in himself. It is a beautiful, even though an unreasonable trait, and as such the admiration of Richard ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... disturb us? Thou livest in thy pavilion, beautiful Alida, remote from towns and envy, like some favored damsel, over whose happy and charmed life presides a benignant genius. See, here are all the pretty materials, with which thy sex seeks innocent and happy amusement. Thou touchest this lute, when melancholy renders thought pleasing; here are colors to mock, or to eclipse, the beauties of the fields and the mountain, the ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... Lani-wahine. A benignant mo'o, or water-nymph, sometimes taking the form of a woman, that is said to have haunted the lagoon of Uko'a, Waialua, Oahu. There is a long ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... features of Battle Abbey is to vulgarise it. One comes away with confused memories of grey walls embraced by white clematis and red rose; gloomy underground caverns with double rows of arches, where the Brothers might not speak; benignant cedars blessing the turf with extended hands; fragrant limes waving their delicate leaves; an old rose garden with fantastic beds; a long yew walk where the Brothers might meditatively pace—turning, perhaps, an epigram, regretting, perhaps, the world. Nothing now remains of the Refectory, ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... troth, their words of love renewed, more earnest for long suppression. The beautiful ice spread before them, like their life to come, a pathway untouched by any sorrowful or weary footstep. The blue sky was cloudless. The keen air stirred the pulses like the vapor of frozen wine. The benignant mountains westward kindly surveyed the happy pair, and the sun seemed created ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... many minds of another mould—minds which our modern life, with its hard positive forms, tends to produce. And as in certain climates plants and herbs, peculiarly adapted as antidotes to those diseases most prevalent in the atmosphere, are profusely sown, as it were, by the benignant providence of nature—so it may be that the softer and more romantic species of poetry, which comes forth in harsh, money-making, unromantic times, is intended as curatives and counter-poisons. The world is so much with us, now-a-days, that we need have something that prates to us, albeit ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... eye that darted forth the living fire of intelligence and love; a long thin nose, winding in a slight and not ungraceful curve toward the right shoulder; an eloquent gesture, a clarion voice, and a face benignant and bland as the ...
— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee
... all our life a tempter prowls malignant, The cruel Nidhug from the world below. He hates that asa-light whose rays benignant On th' hero's brow ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... the elms, with her straight white folds and uncovered hair, for her sun-bonnet lay on the turf beside her, her wistful eyes looking far away seaward, one could have compared her to a Norman or a Druidical priestess under the shadow of the sacred oak; there is at once something so benignant and strong, so full of pathos, ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all—she is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will recommend the general cause, by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example:—she well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... skeleton I procured in person from the Hunterian department of the Royal College of Surgeons in London. It is a masterpiece of art. But we have no time to examine it now. Delicacy forbids that I should amplify at a juncture like this"—casting an almost benignant glance toward the patient, now beginning to open his eyes; "but let me point out to you upon this thigh-bone"—disengaging it from the skeleton, with a gentle twist—"the precise place where I propose to perform the ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... eager heads, what grim silence of foregone dissent!" To Concord came many kindred spirits, drawn by Emerson's magnetic attraction. Thither came, from Connecticut, Amos Bronson Alcott, born a few years before Emerson, whom he outlived; a quaint and benignant figure, a visionary and a mystic even among the transcendentalists themselves, and one who lived in unworldly simplicity the life of the soul. Alcott had taught school at Cheshire, Conn., and afterward at Boston on an original plan—compelling his scholars, for example, ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... eyes were fastened on the crowd now issuing from the cottage door; the coffin, carried by men, came first, the people pressing hurriedly after—among them one whom I instinctively felt to be the clergyman—a thick-set man with hair turning white, and a most noble, benignant face. As the procession formed he took his place at the head; Daniel and his mother climbing into a wagon directly behind the hearse; the former looked utterly broken down, as if the light of his eyes ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter
... sad experience and was a changed man. They interpreted his pacific speeches by their experience of his actions; and thus his overweening conduct in the past blotted out all hope of his crowning a romantic career by a peaceful and benignant close. The declaration of outlawry was followed, on March 25th, by the conclusion of treaties between the Powers, which virtually renewed those framed at Chaumont. In quick succession the smaller States gave ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... The benignant expression of old Van Quintem's face vanished instantly, and a just rage gleamed on every feature. "Unnatural son! monster! fiend!" he cried, raising his hands aloft; "at last you have gone too far. Leave ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... know that it is often unsafe to talk with unknown people upon a journey; and in any case she would not have feared such a benignant old gentleman as this. She ended her talk with ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond
... in your case, are not visible. That you have not always found the pleasure anticipated—that you have looked restlessly away from the present, longing for some other good than that laid by the hand of a benignant Providence at your feet, I can well believe; for this is my own history, as well as yours: it is the history ...
— The Good Time Coming • T. S. Arthur
... for a time there was silence, while I sat immovable revolving the situation, and the Zulus regarded me with a benignant interest. Goza took his snuff-box from his ear, shook out some into the palm of his hand and, after offering it to me ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard
... the object of his visit had perhaps been misunderstood, but the prelate's eyes were bright with benignant enthusiasm and ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... of the Islands was, upon the whole, benignant with respect to the natives who manifested submission. Apart from the unconcealed animosity of the monastic party, the Gov.-General's liberty of action was always very much locally restrained by the Supreme ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... paused a moment, and, casting on me a benignant glance, makes this reply: 'Then, I will rejoice, rejoice,' he gasped; 'for we shall both be in the right. You will become an anarchist like me and not against the wretched authorities of the world, but against your real enemies, Instinct ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... Commissioners of Lunacy inspecting Accomb House, extracted nothing from Mrs. Turner, but that she was happy and comfortable under the benignant sway of Metcalf the mild—there present. It was only by a miracle the public learned the truth, and ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... shields; For white-piled clouds that float against the blue; For tender green of far-off upland slopes; For fringing forests and far-gleaming spires; For those white peaks, serene and grand and still; For that deep sea—a shallow to Thy love; For round green hills, earth's full benignant breasts; For sun-chased shadows flitting o'er the plain; For gleam and gloom; for all life's counter-change; For hope that quickens under darkening skies; For all we see; for all that underlies,— We ...
— Bees in Amber - A Little Book Of Thoughtful Verse • John Oxenham
... four, in her turret, serene and benignant, Sat in the midst of her children and maidens, a household mother; Want, and the sons of penury dwell not among her neighbours; Full is her heart of love: her hands wipe the tears of another, Yet brings she the gold and the pearls of her manifold labours, To add to that ...
— The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems • Kate Seymour Maclean
... jealous of the maintenance of laws which had proved their benefactors. In the happy leisure of affluence, they forsake the narrow circle of immediate wants, and learn to thirst after higher and nobler gratifications. The new views of truth whose benignant dawn now broke over Europe cast a fertilizing beam on this favored clime, and the free burgher admitted with joy the light which opprest and miserable slaves shut out. A spirit of independence, which is the ordinary companion of prosperity ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II. • Various
... you remorselessly," he said with a benignant smile. "You thought to escape my munificence, but it is in vain. Listen ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... acquaintance was our opportunity of intercourse with a venerable bachelor residing in the city of Antwerp. It was so urged upon us, that the least we could do was to present it, expecting only a few minutes' agreeable conversation. Shall we ever forget the instant welcome that beamed from his benignant face, or how he honored the draft upon him by immediately calling upon all the members of our travelling-party? how literally, against all our expostulations, he gave himself up to us, attending us to picture-galleries ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... replied in August, having paid in the meantime but little heed to its precepts. Now that the Emperor, who at first was benignant, had begun to frown on his undertaking, he did not slacken in his own endeavours to set his army on foot. One by one, those among the princes of the empire who had been most stanch in his cause, and were still most friendly to his person, grew colder as tyranny became stronger; ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... 1538, the old feud between Pizarro and Almagro culminated in a battle between their two factions, and Almagro was defeated and killed. Pizarro now ruled the country with red-handed despotism. The benignant laws of the Incas were replaced by the rapine of the conquerors. Not only gold and silver, but the land itself and its former peaceful occupants, were apportioned among them; and slavery and concubinage prevailed in their most revolting forms. The rumors ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... has wrecked my pardner's happiness and almost reasen. I looked in and I see plain that his agitation was nothin' to be wondered at. It did truly seem to be the hombliest, frightfulest lookin' little thing that wuz ever made by a benignant Providence or a taxy-dermis. I couldn't tell which made it. I see it all, but I see also, so firm, sot is my reasun onto its high throne on my heart, I see that to preserve my pardner's sanity, I must control my reasun at the sight ...
— Samantha at Saratoga • Marietta Holley
... Sujah Dowlah—that prince who with a savage heart had still great lines of character, and who, with all his ferocity in war, had, with a cultivating hand, preserved to his country the wealth which it derived from benignant skies and a prolific soil—if, ignorant of all that had happened in the short interval, and observing the wide and general devastation of fields unclothed and brown; of vegetation burned up and extinguished; of villages depopulated and in ruins; ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... women," still holding Bessie's hand, "will agree with me. You need not sit through the service. Hiram can bring you down after it has begun; and you may sit in the vestry till the clerk calls you. I'll preach a short sermon to-night," with a benignant chuckle. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... furnished occasional provocation to scoffers among the profane, and to critics among the orthodox, there was always such sweetness and tenderness, and love so broad, deep, rich and pure, that few earnest or thoughtful minds ever heard him without being moved and elevated by his benignant spirit. ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... them, that his sinews will bide the strain of exceptional task? Such a man may gaze with envy at those who "sweat in the eye of Phoebus," but he knows that no choice was offered him. And if life has so far been benignant as to grant him frequent tranquillity of studious hours, let him look from the reapers to the golden harvest, and ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... perverted by the hardening animus of a dogmatic drill transmitted through generations. To trace the origin of such notions, expose their baselessness, obliterate their sway, and replace them with conceptions of a more rational and benignant order, is a task which still needs to be done, and to be done in many forms, over and over, again and again. Though each repetition ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... if they are the crown upon the head of a benignant despotism, are the very lifeblood in the ...
— Heart's-ease • Phillips Brooks
... wondrous power of art in improving nature. In some of these, art chiefly engages our admiration; in others, nature and art contend for our applause; but, in the last, the former seems to triumph. Here Nature appears in her richest attire, and Art, dressed with the modestest simplicity, attends her benignant mistress. Here Nature indeed pours forth the choicest treasures which she hath lavished on this world; and here human nature presents you with an object which can be exceeded only ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... lenient, benignant, benign, clement, benevolent, charitable, gracious, humane, sympathetic.> (With this group ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... of its influence, not because it appealed to those who opposed it. The church, in those days, was not a philanthropical institution, or an educational enterprise, or a network of agencies and "instrumentalities" to bring to bear on society at large certain ameliorating influences or benignant reforms. These were beyond its reach. But it was a secret body of believers, a kind of freemasonry which aimed to control and reform those who belonged to it. Its rules were for members, not the outside world. Hence the history of the early church refers ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... all this it would "ally his name with Washington and Jackson as a defender of the liberty of the country" and if "in delivering Mexico he should model its States in form and principle to adapt them to our Union and add a new Southern constellation to its benignant sky," he would attain further glory. This and more talk of like kind seemed to command Davis' attention, for Mr. Blair says he pronounced the scheme "possible to be solved." Mr. Davis declared he was "thoroughly ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... consulars and pallid magistrates rushed to the Temple of Vesta to proffer their last hurried vows, before speeding away to Capua, their refuge; Fabia stood all day beside the altar, stately, gracious, yet awe-inspiring, the fitting personification of the benignant Hearth Goddess, who was above the petty passions of mortals and granted ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... bright winter's morning looked almost hypocritically serene and benignant. The sunlight bathed the stern cliff which yesterday had buffeted back the wind with a roar as fierce as itself; and in the quiet spring-like air the peaceful bleating of sheep was the only sound to be heard ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... considerable insight into his condition. It is a well known fact that in a malignant psychosis, self-knowledge does not exist, and this in part is responsible for its malignancy. On the other hand the benignant nature of a psychoneurosis may be in part attributed to the ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... old man, M. La Marche. He was pale and trembling, and his fainting heart, in view of the approaching terror, almost ceased to beat. She sustained him by her arm, and addressed to him words of consolation and encouragement, in cheerful accents and with a benignant smile. The poor old man felt that God had sent an angel to strengthen him in the dark hour of death. As the cart heavily rumbled along the pavement, drawing nearer and nearer to the guillotine, two or three times, by her cheerful ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... benignant day was yet to come. A quick footstep followed her, and erelong a voice, near at hand, called ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... "I thank benignant nature most for this,— A force of sympathy, or call it lack Of character firm-planted, loosing me From the pent chamber of habitual self To dwell enlarged in alien modes of thought, Haply distasteful, wholesomer for that, And through imagination to possess, ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... a most active fancy, has no understanding: otherwise, among the innumerable conjectures with which my brain has been busied within this hour, the truth would certainly have suggested itself. But, instead of supposing I was transported to the benignant regions of science, I thought myself certain of being in the purlieus of the damned; in the ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... Spain had been to make the Inquisition more vigilant and the commonalty more bigoted. The times of refreshing came to all neighbouring countries. One people alone remained, like the fleece of the Hebrew warrior, dry in the midst of that benignant and fertilising dew. While other nations were putting away childish things, the Spaniard still thought as a child and understood as a child. Among the men of the seventeenth century, he was the man of the fifteenth century ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... judge. Martin had met him a number of times and had failed to like him. He and Ruth's father were discussing labor union politics, the local situation, and socialism, and Mr. Morse was endeavoring to twit Martin on the latter topic. At last Judge Blount looked across the table with benignant and fatherly pity. Martin smiled ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... and conducted her to the grotto. Sophia Dorothea felt disarmed by her son's resolute bearing, and she was almost convinced that she had done him injustice, and that no one was concealed in the grotto. With a benignant smile she had turned to her son, to say a few soothing words, when she heard a low rustle among the shrubbery, and saw something white flitting through ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... signal of unwilling separation. Mrs. Almayer had undertaken the easy task of watching her husband lest he should interrupt the smooth course of her daughter's love affair, in which she took a great and benignant interest. She was happy and proud to see Dain's infatuation, believing him to be a great and powerful chief, and she found also a gratification of her mercenary instincts in Dain's ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad
... sprang to his feet in dismay. The sun was almost directly over his head, showing him how late it was. He looked at his horse as if to reproach his good comrade for not waking him sooner, but Old Jack's large mild eyes gave him such a gaze of benignant unconcern that the boy was ashamed ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler
... left his countenance even when he lay in his coffin. It was an eighty-six years' smile—not the smile of inanimation, but of Christian courage and of Christian hope. At the other end of the table was a beautiful, benignant, hard-working, aged Christian housekeeper, my mother. She was very tired. I am glad she has so good a place to rest in. "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord; they rest from their labors, and ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... other than their ordinary attire; perhaps that was one reason why their maintenance of their characters was not quite so perfect as that of the principal two. Hamilton stretched forward his wooden sceptre to the queen with benignant haste and dignity. Daisy, only too glad to shrink away, closed her eyes and lay back in the arms of her attendants in a manner that was really very satisfactory. But the attendants themselves were ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... Catholic theology, it must be remembered, as has been said, that they were current coin in her day, common to orthodox and unorthodox; and that though their restoration is by no means desirable, yet they are still susceptive of a "benignant" interpretation. "I pray Almighty God," says Mother Juliana in concluding, "that this book come not but into the hands of those that will be His faithful lovers, and that will submit them to the faith of ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... though a madness divine and irresistible. In view of its continuance he called upon Mackinnon and inquired whether at any time, if the occasion should arise, he could count upon an advance of salary. Mackinnon, solid, impenetrable, but benignant, replied that very possibly it might be so. This Rickman interpreted as a distinct encouragement to dally with the Tragic Muse. It was followed by a request from Mackinnon that Rickman on his part should oblige him with a few columns in advance. This he did. He was now, though he was blissfully ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... Beauty, Rome for Order, stood, And Israel for the Good; Our message to the world is Liberty; Not the rude freedom of anarchic hordes, But reasoned kindness, whose benignant code Upon the emblazoned walls of history We carved with our good swords, And crimsoned with our blood. Last, from our eye we plucked the obscuring mote, (Not without tears expelled, and sharpest pain,) ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... that she never had seen a person at Mrs. Kitson's advanced stage of life with such a healthy, rosy visage. But every one has some pet weakness. Mrs. Kitson's was always fancying herself ill and nervous. Now, Flora had no very benignant feelings towards the old lady's long catalogue of imaginary ailments; so she changed the dreaded subject, by inquiring after the health of the ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... occasion of triumph, the whole world the scene of his glory, he, a certain ruin to pirates, the successful protector of commerce; useful through his familiarity, not low; after having ruled the sailors and the soldiers, a rough sort of people, in a fatherly and efficaciously benignant manner; after fifty battles in which he was commander or in which he played a great part; after incredible victories, after the highest honours though below his merits, he at last in the war against ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas |
