"Gentle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his 'ead at him. "I haven't got your great-uncle, Henery," he ses, very gentle. "I know the name is the same, but wot of it? There's more than one Josiah Walker in the world. This one is no relation to you at all; he's a ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... be explained, was due to the fact that he had been merely stunned, and had speedily recovered consciousness under the ministering hands of his gentle friends in the cabin, upon which, though his head ached most violently, he lost no time in returning ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... ill, my lady. I fear that she could not bear the motion of the chair so soon. But I will tell her of your gentle bidding to the feast, when the God Bacchus is ...
— Virgilia - or, Out of the Lion's Mouth • Felicia Buttz Clark
... Philadelphia, she returned to her father's house, where she diligently sought every opportunity to improve her mind by various and useful reading. She charmed the circle of her friends by the suavity of her disposition and the most gentle and engaging manners. She delighted and blessed her own family by her uniformly correct and affectionate conduct. Though not formed to mingle and shine in the noisy haunts of dissipation, she was eminently fitted to increase the store of domestic happiness, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... blessed this providential error, without which I should have probably vegetated as a country watchmaker! My life would have been spent in gentle monotony; I should have been spared many sufferings, emotions, and shocks: but, on the other hand, what lively sensations, what profound delight ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... said aloud: "Then, as you say, he came to fight me. I hear that he is dead," he added in a tone still more softened. He had not the heart to meet her scorn with scorn. As he said, it didn't matter if she hated him. It would be worth while remembering, when he had gone, that he had been gentle with her and had spared her the shame of knowing that she had married not only a selfish brute, but a coward and a would be assassin as well. He had only heard rumors of her life since he had last seen her, twelve years before, but he knew enough to be sure that ...
— An Unpardonable Liar • Gilbert Parker
... arrow, with the waist of a boy. His face was dark, his eyebrows very heavy and black, and his dark, full beard, his scant trousers held up with a brilliant scarf, and his generally ferocious appearance, gave him a peculiarly wild and outlandish look, although personally he was gentle ...
— Young Alaskans in the Far North • Emerson Hough
... love a hoss is no man at all. I don't think he can be religious. A hoss makes a man humane and tender-hearted, teaches him to feel for others, to share his food, and be unselfish; to anticipate wants and supply them; to be gentle and patient. Then the hoss improves him otherwise. He makes him rise early, attend to meal hours, and to be cleanly. He softens and improves the heart. Who is there that ever went into a stable of a morning, and his critter whinnered ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... not familiar; it reproduces all that it represents, and the impersonations clothed in its Elysian light stand thenceforward in the minds of those who have once contemplated them, as memorials of that gentle and exalted content which extends itself over all thoughts and actions with which it coexists. The great secret of morals is love; or a going out of our own nature, and an identification of ourselves with the beautiful which exists in thought, action, or person, not our own. A man, to be ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... parenthesis that comes between, so doth a good life here flow into an eternal life, without any consideration what manner of death we die. But whether the gate of my prison be opened with an oiled key (by a gentle and preparing sickness), or the gate be hewn down by a violent death, or the gate be burnt down by a raging and frantic fever, a gate into heaven I shall have, for from the Lord is the cause of my life, and with God the Lord are the issues of death. And further we carry not this second acceptation ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne
... marriage of my grandmother, Rebecca was induced to live with her for some years. My great-aunt, Martha Grindall, an ancient spinster, now living, remembers her well at that time, describing her as a young woman of a sweet and gentle disposition, and much beloved by all the members of the family. Her father, hearing of her misfortunes, wrote to her, kindly inviting her to return to New England, and live with him, and she at last resolved to do so. My great-uncle, Robert, having an office under ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... appears to have attended school in Westminster until his fifteenth year, when he was apprenticed to Sir William, who had learned the gentle art of goldsmith from his nephew's father. Though Robert's indentures bound him for ten years, Sir William is supposed to have offered no remonstrance when he was asked, long before that term expired, to cancel the engagement and ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... cabin over your chaste wife and naked children! Alas! what noble materials for composing a national character, of which humanity might be justly proud, do the lower orders of the Irish possess, if raised and cultivated by an enlightened education! Pardon me, gentle reader, for this momentary ebullition; I grant I am a little dark now. I assure you, however, the tear of enthusiastic admiration is warm on my eye-lids, when I remember the flitches of bacon, the ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton
... Majesties Esquiers, and Gouernour of the Colony in Virginia, aboue mentioned, for the time there resident, to the gentle Reader wisheth all ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of - the English Nation. Vol. XIII. America. Part II. • Richard Hakluyt
... days which are like summer. There is an almost cloudless sky, a gentle warm breeze, and a bright sun filling the fields with a glow of light. The air, though soft and genial, is dry, and perhaps it is this quality which gives so peculiar a definition to hedge, tree, and hill. A firm, almost hard, outline brings copse and wood into clear relief; the distance ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... division of Ithamar, and win fresh laurels ere we meet again. Gentle Asriel, let ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... leading down to the level of the rails, and made there for certain purposes of traffic. As he did so the pundit called to him, and then made a rush at him,—for our friend's back was turned to the coming train. But Lopez heeded not the call, and the rush was too late. With quick, but still with gentle and apparently unhurried steps, he walked down before the flying engine—and in a moment had been knocked into ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... as "poor Thomas," and mark their disapprobation of his peculiar conduct by refusing with an unvarying steadiness to subscribe even a single shilling to a missionary society. How "poor Thomas" speaks of them in the place where he is we may wonder, but as yet we cannot know—probably with the gentle love and charity that marked his every action upon earth. But ...
— The Wizard • H. Rider Haggard
... her—she is a proud woman, calm, fair, and lovely as a saint. You will never know how much I love her until you have seen her. She fills the old manor-house with sunshine and music. I love to hear the gentle sound of her voice, sweet and low as the sound of a lute—the frou-frou of her dress as she moves about. I am even more in love with her than when I married her, and I should not have thought that possible. Make haste home, John, my dear old ...
— The Tragedy of the Chain Pier - Everyday Life Library No. 3 • Charlotte M. Braeme
... the back of her head. Her face, a fine oval, and beaming with health, was remarkable for an aristocratic air which she certainly did not derive from either her father or her mother. Her eyes, of a light brown, were totally devoid of that gentle, calm, and almost timid expression natural to the eyes of young girls. Lively, animated, and always well in health, Cecile spoiled, by a sort of bourgeois matter-of-factness, and the manners of a petted child, all that her person presented of romantic charm. Still, a husband capable of reforming ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... see the wainscoting in that drawing-room, Joe! And those Astrakhan rug portieres. And Clementina has such a funny little cough. I hope she is stronger than she looks. Oh, I really am getting attached to her, she is so gentle and high bred. Gen. Pinkney's brother was ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... once. He was naturally impetuous and hasty in thought and action. Only the sore troubles through which he had passed, and the knowledge that he had brought so much unhappiness on his mother as well as on himself by his quick temper, had had power to make him as calm and gentle as he had shown himself to Estelle. It was as if a fire smouldered within him always, but was held in restraint by ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... 1786, he was appointed director and master of the Academy of Arts. There he painted and etched in aquatint a variety of works, those by which he is best known—as the "Scotch Wedding,'' the "Highland Dance,'' the "Repentance Stool,'' and his "Illustrations of the Gentle Shepherd''—being remarkable for their comic humour. He was called the "Scottish Hogarth''; but his drolleries hardly entitle him to this comparison. Allan died at Edinburgh on the 6th of August ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... of all greenwood and leaf-cuttings, it is well to remember that they should have a gentle bottom heat; the soil should be such that it will hold moisture and yet not remain wet; the air about the tops should not become close and stagnant, else the plants will damp off; and the tops should be shaded for ...
— Manual of Gardening (Second Edition) • L. H. Bailey
... extending her kid boots towards the cheerful blaze that came from the fire, fell with a sigh into a comfortable meditation. Mr. Sagittarius, on the other hand, assumed a look of rather hectoring authority, and was about to utter what the Prophet had very little doubt was a command when there came a gentle tap ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... men then living one of the best able to cope with such an untimely situation as this. A contriving, sagacious, gentle-mannered man, a philosopher who saw that the only constant attribute of life is change, he held that, as long as she lives, there is nothing finite in the most impassioned attitude a woman may take up. In twelve ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy
... the fur trade, arrived with a good crew. Everything was placed on board, including the two young moose, that already would eat the young branches gathered for them by the boys. A strong yard, inclosed with planks and logs, was made for them, and they soon became quite tame and gentle. ...
— Three Boys in the Wild North Land • Egerton Ryerson Young
... was gentle, almost hypnotic—"of course you know who the woman is that Mr. Warren ...
— Midnight • Octavus Roy Cohen
... the distant church, then one, then two. It was the darkest hour of the night. The clouds were drifting low, and there was not a star in the sky. An owl was hooting somewhere among the rocks, but no other sound, save the gentle sough of the wind, came to my ears. And then suddenly I heard it! From far away down the tunnel came those muffled steps, so soft and yet so ponderous. I heard also the rattle of stones as they gave ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... to both his musical and his heavenly attributes; for there is a 'moving together' alike in music and in the harmony of the spheres. The second lambda is inserted in order to avoid the ill-omened sound of destruction. The Muses are so called—apo tou mosthai. The gentle Leto or Letho is named from her willingness (ethelemon), or because she is ready to forgive and forget (lethe). Artemis is so called from her healthy well-balanced nature, dia to artemes, or as aretes istor; ...
— Cratylus • Plato
... name of that little hamlet in western Pennsylvania. Any gentle reader with a cynic strain there may verify this chronicle and find fresh confirmation for the ancient adage that "Fact is ...
— In the Claws of the German Eagle • Albert Rhys Williams
... girl,—much more beautiful, Kate was sure, than she, who thought herself small and dark,—and the maiden had died, and his capacity to love had died with her. He loved her memory,—that was the only thing he would care for now. He was quiet, gentle, clever, humorous, and very kind in his manner; but if any one save Mildred had said to her that if he came three times a week to Posilippo, it was for anything but to pass his time (he had told them he didn't know another soul in Naples), she would have felt that this ...
— Georgina's Reasons • Henry James
... who remained unmoved. It was de Barral himself. He preserved his serene, gentle expression, I am told (for I have not witnessed those scenes myself), and looked around at the people with an air of placid sufficiency which was the first hint to the world of the man's overweening, unmeasurable conceit, hidden ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... from heaven. This image the virgin-state bears,—integrity bears it, holiness and truth bear it; rules of discipline mindful of God bear it, retaining justice with religion, firm in the faith, humble in fear, strong to endure all things, gentle to receive an injury, readily disposed to pity, with one mind and with one heart in brotherly peace. All which ye ought, O good virgins, to observe, to love and fulfil; ye who, retired for the service ...
— Primitive Christian Worship • James Endell Tyler
... pretty, Madame de Listomere has white teeth, a dazzling skin, and very red lips; she is tall and well-made; her foot is small and slender, and she does not put it forth; her eyes, far from being dulled like those of so many Parisian women, have a gentle glow which becomes quite magical if, by chance, she is animated. A soul is then divined behind that rather indefinite form. If she takes an interest in the conversation she displays a grace which is otherwise buried beneath the precautions of cold demeanor, and then ...
— Study of a Woman • Honore de Balzac
... war gear. The foremost of these men were a gray-haired old chief and a young man of about my own age, who was plainly his son; and I thought it certain that these two were the leaders of the foe. They were well armed at all points, and richly clad enough, and I could but think them of gentle birth. The men who followed them were hard-featured warriors, whose dress and ...
— A Sea Queen's Sailing • Charles Whistler
... as the most courageous and at the same time the most peaceable man in the settlement. Louis Peltier was singular in possessing the latter quality, for assuredly the half-breeds, whatever other good points they boast, cannot lay claim to very gentle or dove-like dispositions. His grey capote and blue leggings were decorated with no unusual ornaments, and the scarlet belt which encircled his massive figure was the only bit of ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... to sin. Men who swim exceedingly well are not those who have taken courses in the theory of swimming at natatoriums from professors of the amphibian art—they were boys who just jumped in. Correspondence-schools for the taming of broncos are as naught; and treatises on the gentle art of wooing are of no avail—follow Nature's lead. Grammar is the appendenda vermiformis of pedagogics: it is as useless as the letter q in the alphabet, or as the proverbial two tails to a cat, which no cat ever had, and ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... peered at the black baffling sky. The air had, almost suddenly, grown warmer. Above, in the regions unseen, mysterious activities were in movement, as if marshalling vast forces. The stars had vanished. A gentle but equivocal wind on the cheek presaged rain, and seemed to be bearing downwards into the homeliness of the earth some strange vibration out of infinite space. The primeval elements of the summer night encouraged and intensified Hilda's mood, half joyous, ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... summer time, when the weather’s warm, this hut is nice and cool, And you’ll find the gentle breezes blowing in through every hole. You can leave the old door open, or you can leave it shut, There’s no fear of suffocation ...
— The Old Bush Songs • A. B. Paterson
... Nonjuring bishops Nelson was acquainted with, but not very intimately, were Bancroft and Frampton. The former he loved and admired; and spoke very highly of his learning and wisdom, his prudent zeal for the honour of God, his piety and self-denying integrity.[11] The little weaknesses and gentle intolerances of the good old man were not such as he would censure, nor would he be altogether out of sympathy with them. Bishop Frampton was in a manner an hereditary friend. He had gone out to Aleppo as a young man, half a century before, ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... all this. We do not know the reason why you are so afflicted, but we will know sometime." With such comforting words she many times soothed my troubled spirit. God blessed me with a dear Christian mother. Her gentle, patient life—so loving and Christlike—stamped upon my soul in early childhood the ideal of real Christian character. I had before me constantly an example of what I ought to be. As I look back at those days, my association with ...
— Trials and Triumphs of Faith • Mary Cole
... lessened rapidly a feeling of inadequacy came upon her, and the glitter of the wonderful coach in which she was riding was forgotten. Could she help? The only thing that was very clear to her was that much patience would be necessary. At Uncle Nathan's they had been gentle and loving and tolerant. ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... men must have been a great temptation to the Boer gunners, who, however, were either not ready or exercised much self-restraint. After scrambling through a remarkably steep valley, the brigade halted in a gentle depression, where it was safe from the random bullets that were falling near. A long pause ensued, and the men were able ...
— The Second Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers in the South African War - With a Description of the Operations in the Aden Hinterland • Cecil Francis Romer and Arthur Edward Mainwaring
... days. I had Kaetchen to help me in the housework, and whatever we did pleased my brave old father, who was always gentle and indulgent towards us women, though he was stern enough with the apprentices in the mill. Karl, the oldest of these, was his favourite; and I can see now that my father wished him to marry me, and that Karl himself was desirous to do so. But Karl was rough-spoken, and passionate—not ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... youth was angling, "the most fitting practice for quiet men and lovers of peace," the "Brothers of the Angle," according to Izaak Walton, "being mostly men of mild and gentle disposition." From the ruder athletic games of the school he was debarred, not being robust, and this was a constant source of morbid misery to him, entailing as it did separation from the other boys. The prosecution of his favorite geometry now occupied his thoughts ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie
... had in all other respects a very pleasant and agreeable situation, yet we were rather worse troubled with the unwelcome visits of wild beasts here than in the wilderness itself; for as the deer and other gentle creatures came hither for shelter and food, so the lions and tigers and leopards haunted ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe
... rather calculate, where there's no ditter petticoats to shelter you," said Dunning, raising the chapfallen Peters by the collar, and drawing him along back, amidst the exulting shouts of the revolutionists, by whom he and his friend Brush were then forced away, in no very gentle manner, to join their fellow-prisoners, in the same dungeon where the victims of their last night's outrage were so unfeelingly ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... face shadowed by an eccentric hat, without recognizing it. But it was only for an instant. Then, with a shock of surprise which was almost horror, he realized that this lovely, low-necked bird of Paradise creature was the same gentle girl ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... his absorption in his steering, and his care to look past them as they sat in more than fraternal affection on the deck, with the bottle between them, it was somehow forced on him, probably by the noise they made, that they proceeded from a gentle cheerfulness through a wild and songful hilarity, broken by interludes in which either described to the other with eloquent enthusiasm the charms of the lass who loved him best, to a tearful melancholy, from which they were rapt away into a sodden ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson
... the beneficiaries of the American Education Society, and was now at an Academy, preparing for College. James was living with a farmer in the neighborhood, and was now on the green with Arthur. These changes had already taken place, and now, could she part with Arthur,—her sweet-tempered, gentle Arthur? That was the question which agitated and saddened her. An offer had been made her, by Mr. Martin, who lived in an adjoining town, and whom she knew to be an excellent man. He wished to take Arthur, and keep him till he was twenty-one; ...
— Arthur Hamilton, and His Dog • Anonymous
... "What an excellent son! That old cock-o'-wax, the Admirable Crichton, was nowhere. You'd have beaten him into fits, Dick. Go on, say something else; it does me good; only be gentle. I couldn't bear to be made such a saint as you ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... of the island two volcanic peaks, Troodes and Olympos, face each other, and rise to a height of nearly 7000 feet, the range of mountains to which they belong—that of Aous—forming the framework of the island. The spurs of this range fall by a gentle gradient towards the south, and spread out either into stony slopes favourable to the culture of the vine, or into great maritime flats fringed with brackish lagoons. The valley which lies on the northern side of this chain runs from sea to sea in an almost unbroken level. ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... destruction of his laborious English, as he dwelt on the glories of his beloved rocks rent by fierce sea winds and waves into fantastic, grotesque, or lovely shapes, with fiords of exquisite blue sea between, the variety of which had been to him as the gentle foliage of tamer countries. Not a tree stood near the 'town' of Ballymakilty, but the wild crags, the sparkling waters, the broad open hills, and the bogs, with their intensely purple horizon, held fast upon his heart; and he told of white sands, reported ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the happiness of loving in the voice, of sharing the nothingness of sleep, the swiftly passing images flouting in the brain, the hallucinations of the roaring night.... The Rhine laps in a little creek by the house; in the distance his waters over the dams and breakwaters make a sound as of a gentle rain falling on sand. The hull of the boat cracks and groans under the weight of water. The chain by which it is tied sags and grows taut with a rusty clattering. The voice of the river rises: it fills the ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... Bismarck, though through an interpreter, much interest as to the sentiment in my own country about the war. At this time William the First of Prussia was seventy-three years of age, and, dressed in the uniform of the Guards, he seemed to be the very ideal soldier, and graced with most gentle and courteous manners. The conversation, which was brief, as neither of us spoke the other's native tongue, concluded by his Majesty's requesting me in the most cordial way to accompany his headquarters during the campaign. Thanking him for his kindness, I rejoined Count Bismarck's ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 6 • P. H. Sheridan
... rest, the good food, the soft turf, and gentle exercise, soon began to tell on my condition and my spirits. I had a good constitution from my mother, and I was never strained when I was young, so that I had a better chance than many horses who have been worked before they came to their full strength. During the winter ...
— Black Beauty • Anna Sewell
... kindly received, to others I seemed ridiculous, to still others something worse; for the terror of your name and the threat of Church censures prevailed. At last, since I could do nothing else, it seemed good that I should offer at least a gentle resistance to them, i. e., question and discuss their teachings. Therefore I published a set of theses, inviting only the more learned to dispute with me if they wished; as should be evident, even to my adversaries, from ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... can, I start tomorrow for the Golden shore Of Alaska, over rough seas, swollen rivers, rocky coasts and shaggy hillsides. But I shall return again—From that wilderness, to enjoy and make glad the gentle loving people in the States where the stars and stripes defend, And where maidens and lovers, husbands and wives, enjoy sweet life and charities beyond the possibility of any race in any other land ...
— Black Beaver - The Trapper • James Campbell Lewis
... it listeth. But, however, I will venture to affirm this: that before ever you can speak peace to your heart, whether by shorter or longer continuance of your convictions, whether in a more pungent or in a more; gentle way, you must undergo what I shall hereafter lay down in the ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 3 - Massillon to Mason • Grenville Kleiser
... That gentle fluttering was a sweet lullaby, and Bobby slept and dreamed—he dreamed that the fluttering became louder and louder, and that, instead of birds, it was a group of angels that shook their wings and stood ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... hard-living Paul Gauguin became as a child, simulating as well as could an artificial civilised Parisian with sick nerves the childlike attitude toward nature that he observed in his companions, the gentle Tahitians. He married a Maori, a trial marriage, oblivious of the fact that he had left behind him in France a wife and children, and, clothed in the native girdle, he roamed the island naked, unashamed, free, happy. With the burden of European customs from his shoulders, his almost ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... by comparing, first, Gen. i. and Rom. viii., and then continuing: "Parabolically, however, by the wild beasts, wild and cruel nations are understood, which are to be converted to Christ; or violent men who, by the Spirit of Christ, are rendered meek and gentle, just as Paul, from a wolf, was changed into a lamb." We are the less permitted to lose sight of the reference to the lions and bears on the spiritual territory, that ver. 6 is, in the first instance, connected with vers. 4 and 5, ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg
... from any attempt to see her, his mood presently changed; his heart became as water, and he fell into a maudlin state about her. Dwelling constantly on memories of his Briseis—whose name, by the way, was Julia—having her shape and complexion, her gentle touch and her smile, always in his mind, while he was unable in the body to see so much as the hem of her gown, Achilles grew weaker in will as he grew stronger in body. Headstrong and reckless by nature, unaccustomed to thwart a desire ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... soon forgotten in the exquisite solemnising music, as the deep double-bass tones of the adult singers in the background—carefully selected for the occasion in all parts of the Empire—peal forth as from a great organ, and blend marvellously with the clear, soft, gentle notes of the red-robed chorister boys in front of the Iconostase. Listening with intense emotion, I involuntarily recall to mind Fra Angelico's pictures of angelic choirs, and cannot help thinking that the pious old Florentine, whose soul was ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... planet to the great centre of all attraction, is ten thousand times ten thousand times more powerful. We say the bright lightning is mighty; so it is when it rends the gnarled oak into splinters, or splits solid battlements into fragments; but it is not half so powerful as the gentle light that comes so softly from the skies that we do not feel it, that travels at an inconceivable speed, strikes and yet is not felt, but exercises an influence so great that the earth is clothed ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... wonder, Miss Gresham," and Carroll's voice was very, very gentle, "if you would wait in that room yonder for a ...
— Midnight • Octavus Roy Cohen
... Christopher Carson at fifteen years of age had never been to school a day, but he was "one of the Four Hundred" equal to any man in his district. He was a fine marksman, excellent horseman, of strong character and sound judgment. His disposition was quiet, amiable and gentle. One of those boys who did things without boasting and did everything ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... out a line for defending the Court House. I selected a place about three-fourths of a mile northwest of the crossroads, and Custer coming up quickly with Capehart's brigade, took position on the left of the road to Five Forks in some open ground along the crest of a gentle ridge. Custer got Capehart into place just in time to lend a hand to Smith, who, severely pressed, came back on us here from his retreat along Chamberlain's "bed"—the vernacular for a woody swamp such as that through which Smith retired. A little later the brigades of Gregg and Gibbs, ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 5 • P. H. Sheridan
... would find her helpful," responded Miss Blake. "She loves children, and they know it and love her back again. She is very gentle with them, and I know you may trust her, for she is as ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... baronial hall, with the remains of a drawbridge in the grounds, is equally impossible; if we do that, Lady Marjorimallow will be having our luggage examined, to see if we carry wigwams and war-whoops about with us. No, it is clearly necessary that we master the gentle art of eating eggs tidily and daintily from the shell. I have seen English women—very dull ones, too—do it without apparent effort; I have even seen an English infant do it, and that without soiling her apron, or, as Salemina would say, 'messing her ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... manner of slow and gentle speech. He impressed one, at first sight, as being a man lacking in "ginger," which was a great mistake, as many a midshipman ...
— Dave Darrin's First Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock
... alarm Dallas had laid a hand upon his cousin's temples, to find them burning: but the poor fellow yielded to the gentle pressure, and slowly subsided on to the rough couch they had made, and there he lay muttering for a time, but starting at intervals to cough, as if his injured throat troubled him with a choking sensation, till his ravings ...
— To Win or to Die - A Tale of the Klondike Gold Craze • George Manville Fenn
... cynicism, which he sprinkles like a quasi-intellectual pepper over the strong meat of risky conversation. Moreover, he is constantly self-satisfied, and self-possessed. Yet he manages to avoid giving offence by occasionally assuming a gentle humility of manner, to which he almost succeeds in imparting a natural air, and he studiously refrains from saying or doing anything which, since it may cause other men to provoke him, may possibly result in his being forced to pretend that he himself has been ruffled. Yet it ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, Sept. 27, 1890 • Various
... sell; I wish I were a mile hence. It's easy to bid one rack one's brain, I'm sure my poor head aches again, I scratched it so, and all in vain. Oh, for a trap, a trap, a trap!" Just as he said this, what should hap At the chamber door but a gentle tap. "Bless us!" cried the Mayor, "what's that? Anything like the sound of a rat Makes my ...
— The Evolution of Expression Vol. I • Charles Wesley Emerson
... any change in my costume, and the maid carried off Minima to do what she could with her. There came a gentle knock at my door, and Miss Carey entered. Here was the fitting personage to dwell in a house like this. A delicate gray-silk dress, a dainty lace cap, a perfect self-possession, a dignified presence. My heart sank low. But she kissed me affectionately, ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... Darling" or "kiddy." What's the use then of the instructors of ethics at grammar schools or middle schools teaching children not to tell a lie or to be honest. Better rather make a bold departure and teach at schools the gentle art of lying or the trick of distrusting others, or show pupils how to do others. That would be beneficial for the person thus taught and for the public as well. When Red Shirt laughed, he laughed at my simplicity. My word! what chances ...
— Botchan (Master Darling) • Mr. Kin-nosuke Natsume, trans. by Yasotaro Morri
... passage; the confusion was indescribable, all the little animals were with their legs in the air, claret and brandy poured in rivulets down the streets, coolies screamed as they threw themselves into the doors and windows; and at one fell swoop the angry gentle man demolished the major part of the comforts of the officers, who were little aware how much they were to sacrifice for the sake of an extra tent. With my eyes I followed my friend in his reckless career, until he was enveloped and hid from my view in a cloud of dust, and that was ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... it, monsieur, partly for Lucien and partly because you are kind and gentle and," she added with a little blush and ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty
... and to make an effort, however futile, to induce her husband to take her home. In the mean time, they waited for an answer to the rector's letter. Helen had written, but she knew no answer would come to her. She understood too well that sweet and gentle nature, which yielded readily in small things, and was possessed of invincible determination in crises, to hope that John could change. Yet she had written; she had shared her hopelessness as well as her grief with him, when she told him how impossible ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... flung him a pardon.' According to the popular rumour it was a gift for a tangible consideration. He had to beggar himself to buy it. His office of Vice-Admiral of Devon was forfeited, and it was filled by Eliot. He slunk away first to his home at Afton, where all, gentle and poor, banned him, and thence to Lundy Isle. There, amid the ruins of Morisco's Castle, he died mad on August 29, 1620. His treason has conferred on his obscure name an infamous immortality. He was equally an enemy to himself and to King James, ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... did not stir; his little eyes watched his line eagerly; he was no novice in "the gentle craft." He was waiting till it was time to draw ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, May, 1878, No. 7. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... whistled o'er his head. And now he smil'd with joy, and now, apace, The crystal tears bedew'd his alter'd face. Like the young Fondling on his Mother's breast, Who cries for absent joys, and thinks them best: 'Mid smiles, and tears, and frowns, he onward came, With gentle pace,—and APRIL was ...
— The First of April - Or, The Triumphs of Folly: A Poem Dedicated to a Celebrated - Duchess. By the author of The Diaboliad. • William Combe
... of guests in the entry as Dr. Cissie Bluff. In the attic, which had a north-light favourable to their work, were two girls, who were studying art at the Museum; one of them looked delicate at first sight, and afterwards seemed merely very gentle, with a clear-eyed pallor which was not unhealth. A student in the Law School sat at the table with these girls, and seemed sometimes to go with them to concerts and lectures. From his talk, which was almost the ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... cropped out plain When German gold was squandered to slay the honest Dane. I fed you dreams of empire, and dreams of lust and greed And the age old lust of conquest that taints all of your breed. The strain that showed in Nero, cropped out alike in you, You killed your gentle mother, but not as Nero slew. I gave you hate of Albion, for all the world will tell That could I kill that Anglo strain, I'd use the earth ...
— Rhymes of a Roughneck • Pat O'Cotter
... greatness as a star is of its light, he shed upon all around him a benignant radiance. In a word, he walked with God. This controlled his character, this shaped his manners. Steeped in holy love, he could not be otherwise than serene and gentle. He published a volume of philosophical criticisms, in which he discusses with uncommon depth and subtlety, but in language of exquisite clearness and force, some of the highest problems in philosophy and morals, and dissects the ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... France and England were again at war and in the course of the conflict the fortunes of the d'Amours in Acadia were involved in utter ruin. The gentle spirit of Marguerite Guyon d'Amours did not survive the struggle, and with the close of the century she passed from the scene of her trials. Louis d'Amours, while serving his country in arms, was taken by the English, and for more than two years remained a prisoner in Boston. ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... Flushing slept, and Hirst slept. Hewet alone lay awake looking straight up into the sky. The gentle motion and the black shapes that were drawn ceaselessly across his eyes had the effect of making it impossible for him to think. Rachel's presence so near him lulled thought asleep. Being so near him, only a few paces off at the other end of the boat, she made it as impossible for him ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... were suffering from acute bronchitis, such as is caused by inhalation of an irritant gas. Their statements were that when in the trenches they had been overwhelmed by an irritant gas produced in front of the German trenches and carried toward them by a gentle breeze. ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... only sing like a lark, or a Mrs. Billington, and dance like Hillisberg or Parisot; and embroider beautifully; and spell as well as a Dixonary itself; but she had such a kindly, smiling, tender, gentle, generous heart of her own, as won the love of everybody who came near her, from Minerva herself down to the poor girl in the scullery, and the one-eyed tart-woman's daughter, who was permitted to vend her wares once a week ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Southwest, investors and merchants from Tucson, buffalo-hunters from western Kansas, Texas, and Colorado, gamblers from Dodge City, El Paso, and Santa Fe, Indian-fighters, cattle-rustlers, professional claim-jumpers, and some gentle-voiced desperadoes of the real breed, equally willing to slay from behind or take a long chance in front, according to the way the play came up. Few of these men wore coats; a great many of them carried single-action revolvers in holsters beside the thigh; ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... a very good and gentle prince, but his very gentleness seemed to have led him into error, for he became too friendly with the idolatrous House of Ahab in Samaria, and allowed his son Jehoram to take to wife the child of Ahab and Jezebel, Athaliah, who proved even more wicked than her mother. Jehoshaphat was in alliance ...
— The Chosen People - A Compendium Of Sacred And Church History For School-Children • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... dark-brown walls, had the regular outlines of their doors and windows obliterated by the crumbling of years, until they looked as if they had been afterthoughts of the builder, rudely opened by pick and crowbar, and finished by the gentle auxiliary architecture of birds and squirrels. Yet these openings at times permitted glimpses of a picturesque past in the occasional view of a lace-edged pillow or silken counterpane, striped hangings, or dyed ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte
... as best he could, and began to examine her attentively as they conversed together. "She was," he said, "a woman naturally courageous and fearless; naturally gentle and good; not easily excited; clever and penetrating, seeing things very clearly in her mind, and expressing herself well and in few but careful words; easily finding a way out of a difficulty, and choosing ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... did so join in heart, That th' one from th' other could not part: And who indeed (not made of stones) Would separate such lovely ones? The one is beautiful, and fair As orient pearls and rubies are; And sweet as, after gentle showers, The breath is of some thousand flowers: For due proportion, such an air Circles the other, and so fair, That it her brownness beautifies, And ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney
... to explain, "that Mrs. Jeffrey showed an unexpected tenderness toward me by taking all the blame of our misunderstanding upon herself. It was generous of her and will do much toward making my memory of her a gentle one." ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... duty it is to watch over it, and whose existence as a people depends upon it. But this, perhaps, will ever be the case, till some misfortune awakens us into reason, and the instance now before us is but a gentle beginning of what America must expect, unless she guards her union with nicer care and stricter honor. United, she is formidable, and that with the least possible charge a nation can be so; separated, she is a medley ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... her place as a member of the little houseboat family as quietly as though she had always been a part of it. She was shy and gentle, and rarely talked. She was more like a timid child than a woman. She liked to cook, to wash the dishes, to do the things to which she was accustomed, and to be left alone. At first the houseboat girls tried to interest her ...
— Madge Morton, Captain of the Merry Maid • Amy D. V. Chalmers
... think of no better guide to the principles and techniques of composting than Steve Solomon. Whether you live in an urban condo or farm many acres, you will find in these pages practical, complete and accessible information that serves your needs, served up with the warmth and gentle humor that characterizes ...
— Organic Gardener's Composting • Steve Solomon
... into the house had to pay into Bobberts' bank ten per cent., and every luxury thirty per cent. Kitty was a dear, as was Mrs. Fenelby, but they were as different as cousins could well be, for while Mrs. Fenelby was the man's ideal of a gentle domestic person, Kitty was the man's ideal of a forceful, jolly girl, and as full of liveliness as a well behaved young lady could be. She was properly interested in Bobberts and admired him loudly, but in her heart she was not ...
— The Cheerful Smugglers • Ellis Parker Butler
... Dennis approved of Alfonso's bride, and I think the lady was conscious of it. She had a soft voice, and very gentle manners, and to Dennis she chatted away so briskly that I wondered what she could have found to talk about, till I discovered from what Dennis said to Alister afterwards, that the subject of her conversation was Alfonso's ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... sheds his blood with me Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile This day shall gentle his condition." (Act ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy
... about the head and throat, and moving slowly with the aid of a stick. He never breakfasted with us—we were kept in the kitchen, to save firing—but he came down late in the forenoon, and when it was warm and sunshiny he would take a gentle stroll into the fields, never townward. We dined at a late hour, and there were always delicacies for my father; and after dinner he sat over his wine, smoking cigars and reading the newspapers, till it was time to go to bed. He took little notice of Gabrielle ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... proof of my having an intention to take the government of the province out of his hands by force. He also applied to Sir Everard Fawkener, the postmaster-general, to deprive me of my office; but it had no other effect than to procure from Sir Everard a gentle admonition. ...
— The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... I am indebted to you, I said, now that you have grown gentle towards me and have left off scolding. Nevertheless, I have not been well entertained; but that was my own fault and not yours. As an epicure snatches a taste of every dish which is successively brought to table, he not having ...
— The Republic • Plato
... A wind, gentle and musical, began to blow. "Wabun (the East Wind)," he murmured. He personified the winds, because it was in his nature to do so, and because the Indians with whom he had dwelt did it. It was this gift of his, based on a powerful imagination, ...
— The Riflemen of the Ohio - A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River" • Joseph A. Altsheler
... pleasant for Steve, lying there on his back, and feeling the gentle breeze fan his heated face; for around about noon the sun's rays began to grow pretty fervid, and Steve often mopped his perspiring and beaming face, though taking it ...
— Jack Winters' Campmates • Mark Overton
... off by an overhanging branch, until I felt satisfied that he had been rightly named. At last he realised that I was master, and after that I hardly remember one occasion on which he gave any trouble; for the three years that I afterwards possessed him, we were the best of friends, and he the most gentle and biddable of beasts. Alas! that I should have had to end his days with a bullet, and leave his bones to be picked by the dingoes of ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... a mournful silence and let his head sink dejectedly. He pondered a long while and at last smiled again, but his smile was sad and gentle. ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... expected to be kind, gentle and soothing in his manners to the patients, and use every means in his power to tranquilize those who are excited, and to allay the fears and apprehensions of the timid; he will pay particular attention to the sick, the suicidal, and those recently admitted; will ...
— Rules and Regulations of the Insane Asylum of California - Prescribed by the Resident Physician, August 1, 1861 • Stockton State Hospital
... so balanced on the edge of the steep hill that a gentle pressure moved it, was a mass of rock weighing several tons, the moving of which would have been a hopeless task for twenty men to attempt, but it stood balanced on the extreme edge of the turn of the hill, and the little slip ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne
... moving from one end of the town to the other in summer time is by water, on that spacious gentle stream the Thames, on which you travel two miles for sixpence, if you have two watermen, and for threepence if you have but one; and to any village up or down the river you go with company for a trifle. But the greatest advantage reaped ...
— London in 1731 • Don Manoel Gonzales
... his death, he made in his Journal the following entry, which is typical of his gentle, ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... now and then, one like Melissa, the daughter of a valley farmer, erect, agile, spirited, intelligent. On the other side were the boys, in physical characteristics the same and suggesting the same social divisions: at the top the farmer—now and then a slave-holder and perhaps of gentle blood—who had dropped by the way on the westward march of civilization and had cleared some rich river bottom and a neighboring summit of the mountains, where he sent his sheep and cattle to graze; where a creek opened into this valley some free-settler, whose grandfather ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... return to his palace, where he abdicated "like a child being sent to sleep," as Frederick the Great expressed it. He then called on his wife, "after which," Catherine tells us, "I sent the deposed emperor, under the command of Alexis Orlof accompanied by four officers and a detachment of gentle and reasonable men, to a place called Ropcha, fifteen miles from Peterhof, a secluded spot, but very pleasant." Four days later Peter III was dead. Catherine declared that he died of colic "with the blood flying ...
— The Story of Russia • R. Van Bergen |
