"Serene" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the sifted sands and caverns hoar; And all the winds wandering along the shore Undulate with the undulating tide. There are thick woods where sylvan forms abide; And many a fountain, rivulet, and pond, As clear as elemental diamond, Or serene morning air. And far beyond, The mossy tracks made by the goats and deer (Which the rough shepherd treads but once a year) Pierce into glades, caverns, and bowers, and halls Built round with ivy, which the waterfalls ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... this spirit of noble independence the prestige of rank, beauty, and fortune; a temper of mingled sweetness and strength; versatile gifts controlled by an admirable reason; a serene and tranquil character; a playful humor, free from the caprices of a too exacting sensibility; a perfect savoir-faire, and we have the unusual combination which enabled her to hold her sway for so many years, without a word of censure from even the ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... grandiose, and included Constantinople as capital. "Pourquoi pas?" he asked. It would prevent the Great Powers from quarrelling over it, and therefore make for peace! His curled mustachios, his perfumes, his incomparable aplomb, his airs of a "Serene Highness" formed a magnificent stock-in-trade. But even the fact that he offered me a magnificent salary to be Maid of Honour or Lady-in-Waiting (I forget which) at the Court of Albania did not persuade me to espouse his cause, which disappeared into thin air so soon as the ...
— Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith
... said the child, sadly; but he dared not say that he generally remained much later. He did not wish to be troublesome to his mother, nor to meet again such an expression in her ordinarily serene and laughing eyes, as had so startled ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... "Here comes an arch-heretic," he exclaimed, loud enough to be heard by Egmont himself, who, surprised at these words, stopped and changed color. But when the duke, in order to repair his imprudence, went up to him with a serene countenance, and greeted him with a friendly embrace, the Fleming was ashamed of his fears, and made light of this warning, by putting some frivolous interpretation upon it. Egmont sealed this new friendship with a present of ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... clock rang out. They broke apart. They had to run to the pier. Without a word they set out, arms and hands entwined, keeping step—a little quick, firm step, like hers. The road was deserted: no creature was abroad: they could not see ten yards ahead of them: they went, serene and sure, into the beloved night. They never stumbled over the pebbles on the road. As they were late they took a short cut. The path led for some way down through vines and then began to ascend and wind up the side of the hill. Through the mist they could hear the roar of ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... becomes an interesting object to all those who approach him: he enjoys every instant, he reads with satisfaction the contentment, he contemplates with pleasure the joy which he has diffused over all countenances: his wife, his children, his friends, his servants greet him with gay, serene faces, indicative of that content, harbingers of that peace, which he recognizes for his own work: every thing that environs him is ready to partake his pleasures; to share his pains; cherished, respected, looked up to by others, every thing conducts him to agreeable reflections; ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach
... be met with. And, then, it is not the only kind to be found in his music. There is also a healthy vigour, which, for instance, in the A major Polonaise assumes a brilliantly-heroic form. Nor are serene and even joyous moods so rare that it would be permissible to ignore them. While thus controverting the so-called vox Dei (are not popular opinions generally popular prejudices?) and the pseudo-critics who create or ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... "All serene," thought Kvashin, as he lay down on the well-filled feather bed. "Though they are regular tradesmen's wives, though they are Philistines, yet they have a charm of their own, and one can spend a day or two of the week here with enjoyment. . ...
— The Chorus Girl and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... who went away. She had been undecided, emotional, a trifle vain, self-conscious, guilty of moods— no small offence in society; this glorious creature was a queen, a goddess, always calm, always serene, always a trifle bored, always superbly the same. Her house she re-furnished altogether. The three Saratoga trunks were now represented by nine or ten English ones, dress baskets, large packing cases, and one mysterious long box which when opened contained several panels of old Florentine ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... tower room of Queretaro's old Capuchin church, and against the wall was an improvised altar. But the sacrament waited. The tapers on the snow-white cloth were as yet unlighted. Instead the Most Serene Archduke—Emperor no longer—read from a battered volume of Universal History, which, with a book's queer vagaries, had strayed into his cell. He read how Charles of England had died, then he paused, blinking at the two candles on the ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... blaze, the midnight scene, The dawn, or twilight's sweet serene, The glow of life, the dying hour, Shall own my Father's ...
— Hymns for Christian Devotion - Especially Adapted to the Universalist Denomination • J.G. Adams
... city spread out at the foot of the serene mountains. Then you would come to an immense castle, so nigh the mountain that it seemed to grow out of it with its ivied walls and lofty towers pierced with quaintly paned windows. Crowds of sightseers passin' in and ...
— Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition • Marietta Holley
... superstition, egotism, imposture, shrieking, hissing, barking, writhing, screaming always the same calumnies, shaking always the same clenched fist, spitting, since Christ, the same saliva, have whirled like a cloud-storm about thy serene face, ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... the lawn, lavishly bestrewn with huge heaps of driven snow, and broken, twisted branches, presented the appearance of a titanic battlefield. In marked contrast to the disturbed condition of the ground, the sky was singularly serene, and broad beams of phosphorescent light poured in through the diamond window-panes on to the bed, in which I was ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... every day, And often the sad tear has started, And often I've brush'd it away; When the thought of thy sweet smile come o'er me Like a sunbeam the tempest between, And the hope of thy love shone before me So brilliantly bright and serene, I remember thy last vow that made me Forget all my sorrow and care, And I think of the dear voice that bade me Awake from ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume XIII, No. 369, Saturday, May 9, 1829. • Various
... nature for the residence and organ of serene and gentle emotions; but it surprised, and at the same time filled me more almost with consternation than with pity, to observe that in those eyes a light of sadness had settled more profound than seemed possible for youth, ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... with him, a golden dream, A milky way, where all's serene. Wit's treasured stores his humour wait,— His volume, man in every state,— From grave to gay, from rich to poor, From gilded dome to rustic door. Through all degrees life's varied page, He shows the ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... with a look of such serene conviction that he persisted, 'I'd be sorry if we came to it—but if this spirit grows, this rebellion against all forms ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... Harriet, but in life he had not had the joy of seeing her spend it that he might have had if he could have gazed back from placid death. "Do you make the same allowance of affection to him in the light of the moon that you do in the dark?" she further demanded of the serene Letitia. ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... of gold, And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; Round many western islands have I been Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. Oft of one wide expanse had I been told That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne; Yet did I never breathe its pure serene Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold: Then felt I like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken; Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes He stared at the Pacific—and all his men Look'd at ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... the hours roll on; serene and fair The Master keeps his watch, but who can tell The thoughts that in His tender spirit swell, As one by ...
— Quiet Talks with World Winners • S. D. Gordon
... one in the other, smiling and with a tender pity. They did not tire of that divine sentiment which is the purest form of love. At last they tore themselves from their contemplation and Luce, with eyes again serene, perceived once more the gentle hue of the sky, the sweetness of the renewing trees and ...
— Pierre and Luce • Romain Rolland
... 3.—Down every day in the solitude of the creek. A serene autumn sun and westerly breeze to-day (3d) as I sit here, the water surface prettily moving in wind-ripples before me. On a stout old beech at the edge, decayed and slanting, almost fallen to the stream, yet with life and leaves in its mossy ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... his cap for a moment, looking at the serene sky. The rising discontent in his brother's heart was stilled by the gesture. Both worked assiduously, till Andy, with an unusual twinkle in his eyes, summoned them ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... have been most serene and pure and truly fortunate? Those in which there has been no discipline, no restraint, no common faith, no mutual love? Or those in which sincere religion has swayed life to its stern and gracious laws, those in which parents and children have walked together to the House ...
— Joy & Power • Henry van Dyke
... from 'Siah to 'Siah, so frequent was the name "Josiah," the best known is perhaps the Josiah Quincy who was Mayor of Boston for six years and president of Harvard for sixteen. The portrait of his long, thin face is part of every New England history, and his busy, serene life, "compacted of Roman and Puritan virtues," is still upheld to all American children as a model of ...
— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery
... Mount! with thy sky-pointing peaks, Oft from whose[168] feet the avalanche, unheard, Shoots downward, glittering through the pure serene Into the depth of clouds that veil thy breast— Thou too again, stupendous Mountain! thou That, as I raise my head, awhile bowed low In adoration—upward from thy base Slow-travelling with dim eyes suffused with tears— Solemnly seemest, like a vapoury cloud, To rise before me! rise, ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... they being very silent, and not much given to setting themselves forth to questioners,—apt to be contemptuously reserved no less than unselfishly). But in such writings and sayings as we possess of theirs we may trace a quite curious gentleness and serene courtesy. Rubens's letters are almost ludicrous in their unhurried politeness. Reynolds, swiftest of painters, was gentlest of companions; so also ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... that small basis of reality which is to be found in the effects of superstition and excited imagination,—but the essential truth of the martyrdom of a young, beautiful, and rich Roman girl, of her suffering and her serene faith, and of the veneration and honor in which her memory was held by those who had known her, may be accepted without reserve. At least, it is certain, that as early as the beginning of the fourth century the name of St. Cecilia was reverenced in Rome, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... bare arms, framing face and eyes dancing with merriment and maliciousness. Unquestionably she was the prettiest girl beneath the arcs, never to be suspected as the woman who had braved the terrors of a film fire to rescue the man she loved. Enid was stately and serene in the gown of Marie Antoinette. In the bright glare her features took on a round innocence and she was as successful in portraying sweetness as Marilyn was in the simulation of the mocking evil of ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve
... at eve, and o'er the green The weary toilers pass; The shadows fall, the sky's serene, And dew is on the grass: A light breaks in upon the scene— The hour has come that gladness brings, The Master rings, the Master ...
— The Loom of Life • Cotton Noe
... calm, serene, sedate, Sets his foot on haughty fate; Firm and steadfast, come what will, Keeps his mien unconquered still; Him the rage of furious seas, Tossing high wild menaces, Nor the flames from smoky forges That Vesuvius disgorges, Nor the bolt that ...
— The Consolation of Philosophy • Boethius
... rose from that storm of wrath and prayer for help she was serene, calm, sure—a changed woman. She would do her duty as she saw it, live her life as her own truth guided her. She might never be able to marry a man of her choice, but she certainly never would become the wife ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... out across the marsh to examine the enemy's position more clearly, and I fancied there was a shade of anxiety on his usually serene face. It was a heavy responsibility he had to bear, for, should his troops be defeated, the Huguenot Cause was lost. There was no other army to replace ...
— For The Admiral • W.J. Marx
... "Then I might suggest that, first, you will not be allowed to operate in my territory." He considered for a moment, grinning inwardly, but on the surface his expression serene. He added, "And second, that you will probably have difficulties procuring an exit ...
— Border, Breed Nor Birth • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... it may be the gout, what execrations, and, dear me, to hear him talk of money, taking out his leather purse and grudging even the smallest silver coin, secretive and suspicious as an old peasant woman with all her lies. Strange paralysis and constriction—marvellous illumination. Serene over it all rides the great full brow, and sometimes asleep or in the quiet spaces of the night you might fancy that on a pillow of ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... Then followed the suite of the marshals and generals, and the procession was closed by the carriage of old Romanzoff, Alexander's minister of state. Enthusiastic cheers resounded along the whole road, and now Napoleon, with a serene bow, saluted the multitude. Amid the peals of bells, the booming of cannon, and the cheers of the soldiers and the populace, the two emperors made their entry, halting in front of the hotel. Napoleon alighted first to welcome his guest, and conduct him to the ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... life was not as serene and happy as Jerry's, for it was not pleasant for him to hear, as he often did, that he was a charity student, supported by Arthur Tracy. Such remarks were very galling to the high-spirited boy, ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... Virginie shed tears—the first that had fallen from her since she entered the prison. So, they were summoned and went together, at the fatal call of the muster-roll of victims the next morning. He, feeble from his wounds and his injured health; she, calm and serene, only petitioning to be allowed to walk next to him, in order that she might hold him up when he turned faint and giddy from his ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... and forty transports filled with men and arms; seventy store-ships laden with provisions; and fifty stout galleys, well prepared for the encounter of an enemy. [54] While the wind was favorable, the sky serene, and the water smooth, every eye was fixed with wonder and delight on the scene of military and naval pomp which overspread the sea. [541] The shields of the knights and squires, at once an ornament and a defence, were arranged on either ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... air is serene in the sultry solstice of summer, Suddenly gathers a storm, and the deadly sling of the hailstones Beats down the farmer's corn in the field and shatters his windows, Hiding the sun, and strewing the ground with thatch from the house roofs, Bellowing ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... a stately mansion rose, With arboured lawns, like visions of repose Serene in summer loveliness, and fair As if no passion e'er was dweller there Save innocence and love; for they alone Within the smiling vale of peace were known. But fairer and more lovely far than all, Like Spring's first flowers, was Helen of the Hall— ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton
... facing the sea, and, with nostrils distended, breathing deep breaths of the air from the northeast; then turn and walk back to Meg Partan's kitchen, to resume his ministration of light. These his sallies were so frequent, and his absences so short, that a more serene temper than hers might have been fretted by them. But there was something about his look and behaviour that, while it perplexed, restrained her; and instead of breaking out upon him, she ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... stranger for an effigy. Perhaps he never would have moved, but at last a speaker made such a particularly ripping and blood-stirring remark about him that the audience rose and roared and yelled and stamped and clapped an entire minute—Grant sitting as serene as ever—when Gen. Sherman stepped to him, laid his hand affectionately on his shoulder, bent respectfully down and whispered in his ear. Gen. Grant got up and bowed, and the storm of applause swelled into a hurricane. He sat down, took about the same position and froze to it till ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Cardigan we came out from the stunted under-growth and found ourselves traversing the smooth granite mass which constitutes the entire mountain top. The rock is full of minute particles of mica, which glitter and flash in the sun like "gems of purest ray serene." A brisk wind was blowing and the rarefied air infused us with new strength to make ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 5 • Various
... commend a serene indifference to hubbub. I like Archimedes, Leonardo da Vinci, Goethe, Balzac, Darwin, and other sages, for having been so concentrated on this or that eternal verity in art or science or philosophy, that they paid no heed to alarums ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... to the crown; and that you yourselves from this province Be transported to other lands. God grant you may dwell there Ever as faithful subjects, a happy and peaceable people! Prisoners now I declare you; for such is his Majesty's pleasure!" As, when the air is serene in sultry solstice of summer, Suddenly gathers a storm, and the deadly sling of the hailstones Beats down the farmer's corn in the field and shatters his windows, Hiding the sun, and strewing the ground ...
— The Children's Own Longfellow • Henry W. Longfellow
... and serene, and yet to be full of energy and hope of higher things,—this comes to him whose life ...
— Heart's-ease • Phillips Brooks
... sedate, still, composed, peaceful, self-possessed, tranquil, cool, placid, serene, undisturbed, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... The serene calm of both mother and daughters in the midst of this poverty is truly admirable. They have indeed other ideas running through the brain than mere housekeeping details. One has plaited her hair like ...
— Artists' Wives • Alphonse Daudet
... in tracing the causes of the sympathy between the magnet and the pole—that unseen, immaterial spirit, which walks with us through the most entangled forests, over the most interminable wilderness, and across every region of the pathless deep, by day, by night, in the calm serene of a cloudless sky, and in the howling of the hurricane or the typhoon? Who can witness the movements of that tremulous needle, poised upon its centre, still tending to the polar star, but obedient to his distant hand, armed ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... Truth! in devious paths My wayward feet have trod, I have not kept the day serene I gave ...
— Hymns of the Greek Church - Translated with Introduction and Notes • John Brownlie
... passing gleam. If too, at times, a thought of the knight Paris and Helen would inflame his heart with bolder and wilder wishes, it needed but one look at his scarf and sword, and the stream of his inner life glided again clear as a mirror, and serene within. "What can any man wish for more than has been already bestowed on me?" would he say to himself at such times in still delight. And thus it went on ...
— Sintram and His Companions • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... soft earth and he writhed at his helplessness. What he had done was irremediable. It was a sudden thunderbolt that had flashed across his clear sky. This morning the sun had shone as usual and everything had seemed serene to him whose life had always been easy—tonight he was wrestling in a hell of his own making. Why had it come to him? He knew that his life had been comparatively blameless. Why should this one sin, so common throughout the world, recoil on him so terribly? Why should he, among all the thousands ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... vision men see by night, Mitred, with eyes of serene command, Saint Patrick moved onward in ghostly white: The Staff of Jesus was in his hand; Twelve priests paced after him unafraid, And the boy, Benignus, more like a maid; Like a maid just wedded he walked and smiled, To Christ new plighted, ...
— The Legends of Saint Patrick • Aubrey de Vere
... the girl spoke to him for the first time. He recognized in her voice the same serene tone he had noted in his talk with ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... the rooms; but Rose was nothing to the illuminated eyes of Mrs. Follingsbee compared with the portly form of Mrs. Van Astrachan entering beside her, and spreading over her the wings of motherly protection. That much-desired matron, serene in her point lace and diamonds, beamed around her with an innocent kindliness, shedding respectability wherever she moved, as a certain Russian prince was said to ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... bless you, Blackwood; I shall never see you more." He had a presentiment that, while he was certain of victory, it would, nevertheless, be gained at the price of his own life. Yet, with this prospect before him, appalling as it must have been to his mind, he was calm and serene. His whole attention was fixed on Villeneuve, who was wearing to form the line in close order upon the larboard tack, thereby to bring Cadiz under his lee, and to facilitate, if necessary, his escape into that port. This induced Nelson to steer somewhat more to the north, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... stock and of a distinctly English type—medium height, a stout figure, and a ruddy face. No one questioned his honesty, his straightforwardness, or his lack of tact. Being a man of strong mind, of wide reading and even great learning, and having serene confidence in the purity of his motives as well as in the soundness of his judgment, Adams was little inclined to surrender his own views, and was ready to carry out his ideas against every obstacle. By nature ...
— The Fathers of the Constitution - Volume 13 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Max Farrand
... hoary apple tree. She had a volume of Robert Bridges's poems in her hand and a thirst was on her to be at the edge of a cliff and look over into blue space below. The secluded orchard with its early crown of pink blushes, the serene shut-in valley screened from cold winds and cradled between the chalky highlands, weighed on her. She looked upwards through the dainty tracery of soft green and pink to the sky above, delicately ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... into prison as ye have heard tell, and Nicolette, of her part, was in the chamber. Now it was summer-time, the month of May, when days are warm, and long, and clear, and the nights still and serene. Nicolette lay one night on her bed, and saw the moon shine clear through a window, and heard the nightingale sing in the garden, and she minded her of Aucassin her friend, whom she loved so well. Then fell she to thoughts ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... fond of representing him as entering by a door in the background, while the serene Virgin, seated in front, seems aware of ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson
... the serene beauty of the Moslem temple, where, between labyrinths of glimmering pillars like young ash trees in moonlight, across vistas of rainbow-coloured rugs like flower-beds, the worshippers looked out at God's ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... hereditary or divine right, they were installed therein by election. At Venice, a conclave, consisting of forty electors, appointed by a much more numerous body of men of high position, elected the Doge, or president of the most serene Republic. ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... began wandering through the house restlessly. Occasionally he grinned, and said "Thunder!" quietly to himself. In the night watches he had pondered the advisability of warning Lois's sisters of her return; but he saw nothing to be gained by this. Something of Lois's serene indifference had communicated itself to him; and as an attentive student of the continuing human comedy he speculated cheerfully as to the length and violence of the impending storm. Kirkwood had never participated in ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... rolled by. Brooking no eye to witness their foul shame, 280 Which human hearts must feel, while human tongues Tremble to speak, they did rage horribly, Breathing in self-contempt fierce blasphemies Against the Daemon of the World, and high Hurling their armed hands where the pure Spirit, 285 Serene and inaccessibly secure, Stood on an isolated pinnacle. The flood of ages combating below, The depth of the unbounded universe Above, and all ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... has to become a Newton before he feels, with that sage, like a child, playing on the sands, with the great, unexplored ocean of knowledge stretching out before him. Most students are rather like ducks in a barn-yard puddle, quite sure that they are familiar with the whole world and serene ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick
... himself of the police. He would shut that door and——and then she would come forth and tell him, tell him everything, and, withholding naught that damned her in her own esteem, throw herself upon his mercy, bruised with penitence but serene in the assurance that he ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... of the dance now. But she thought of rest; of rest in the warm safety of her own home. She thought of the sunny dooryard, the delicious security of the big kitchen; of her mother, so placid and so infinitely dear, on her couch; of the serene comings and goings of neighbors and friends. How wonderful it all seemed! Lights, laughter, peace,—just to be back among them ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris
... it was too late, he had thought to ask Jud about that point. It might be of some benefit to them to know whether the men were aware of their presence; or rested serene in the belief that they were the only occupants of the island, besides ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... us away from good. A friend of ours, some years since, was making a trip up the Lakes, late in the season. As they entered Lake Huron from the River St. Clair in the noble steamer, the skies were serene, and she ploughed her way on towards the north, so that by night the land had sunk almost out of sight. But then the wind began to freshen, the sea rose, and as the night advanced, and the wind blew harder ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... this beautiful simplicity, in this serene avoidance of the least attempt to 'improve' an occasion which might be supposed to have sunk of its own weight into my heart, I seemed to have happily come, in a few steps, from the churchyard with its open grave, which was the type of Death, to the Christian dwelling side by ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... still it was the last evening of Lali's stay in town, and they did not care to take any risk. Strange to say, they had come to take pride in their son's wife; for even General and Mrs. Armour, high-minded and of serene social status as they were, seemed not quite insensible to the pleasure of being an axle on which a system of ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... nation's financiers; for it was as if one of the ancient patriarchs had stepped down from the days of early Israel to discuss the financial problems of his people with a modern "captain of industry." He described a condition of society that was, to Wall Street, archaic. He spoke with a serene assurance that the order of affairs in Utah was constituted in the wisdom of the word of God. He was listened to, with the interest of curiosity, as the chief living exponent of the Mormon movement, its processes and its aims; and I was impressed by the fact that ...
— Under the Prophet in Utah - The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft • Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins
... the inflamed, convulsive working of the brain last night. The work was set afloat in Paris—I should soon find readers on the asphalt—that quarter of my sky was clear. As for the sudden darkening squall that had sprung up in the other quarter, formerly so serene, the quarter over which reigned Lucia's star—it was only a squall, it would pass. She must be capable of being roused again to those feelings she had once known. And if I had nothing else, I had, at least, in my favour the sheer ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... heard, let him listen to the finale of "Success," or of "Spiritual Laws," or to some of the poems, "Brahma" or "Sursum Corda," for example. Of a truth his Codas often seem to crystallize in a dramatic, though serene and sustained way, the truths of his subject—they become more active and intense, but ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... a weird spectacle,—that frail, fading oval, gliding against the sky, floating in the serene azure, the little vessel swinging silently beneath, and a hundred thousand martial men watching the loss of their brother in arms, but powerless to relieve or recover him. Had Fitz John Porter been drifting down the rapids of Niagara, he could not have been so far ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... Graustark a solid, prosperous, God-fearing little country, whose people are wise and happy and loyal. You have learned, by this time, that we have no princesses for you to protect. It isn't as it was when Mr. Lorry came and found Her Serene Highness in mediaeval difficulties. There is a prince on the ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... words, let the serene, happy, luxurious life in the princely house be recalled and contrasted with this existence in the lower dungeon of the Tower of Antonia; then if the reader, in his effort to realize the misery of the woman, persists in mere reference to conditions physical, he cannot go amiss; as he is a lover ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... heard soft footsteps and the rustle of festal garments on the stairs, and had a fierce complacency in being able to clearly apprehend that it was his wife and daughter going out to the party. In a moment, he heard the controlled and even voice of Mrs. Renton—a serene and polished lady with whom he had lived for years in cold and civil alienation, both seeing as little of each other as possible. With a scowl of will upon his brow, he received her image distinctly into his mind, even ...
— The Ghost • William. D. O'Connor
... gardostaranto. Sentry gardostaranto. Sentry-box budeto. Separate apartigi, disigi. Separate aparta. Separate malkunigi, disigi. Separately malkune. Separation disigo. September Septembro. Sepulchre tombego. Sequel sekvo, sekveco. Seraph serafo. Sere velkinta. Serenade serenado. Serene trankvila. Serenity trankvileco. Serf servutulo. Sergeant sergxento. Series serio. Serious serioza. Seriousness seriozeco. Sermon prediko. Serpent serpento. Serum serumo. Servant servisto—ino. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... passed. A delicate girl mounted upon a little mule and a sturdy youth walking in the dust, his hand upon the beast's shoulder. With their serene and joy-illumined faces they somehow suggested the holy family, symbolical of all that was divine in a ...
— Down the Mother Lode • Vivia Hemphill
... window glowed with serene blue glory. It seemed a foolish thing to weep by that beautiful glass. Morano tried to comfort him. That calm, deep blue, he felt, and those little lights, surely, ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany
... roots crosswise grown Compose the network of his throne; The wide lake, edged with sand and grass, Was burnished to a floor of glass, Painted with green and proud Of the tree and of the cloud. He was the heart of all the scene; On him the sun looked more serene; To hill and cloud his face was known,— It seemed the likeness of their own; They knew by secret sympathy The public child of earth and sky. "You ask," he said, "what guide Me through trackless thickets led, Through thick-stemmed woodlands rough and wide. I found the water's bed. The watercourses ...
— Graded Poetry: Seventh Year • Various
... loves This seat serene, and Virtue's self approves:— Here come the griev'd, a change of thought to find; The curious here, to feed a craving mind: Here the devout, their peaceful temple chuse; And here, the poet meets ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... point in her meditations Jeanette re-entered the room, smiling and serene. Lucile decided she was ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... a sense of impending marvel of the rending of walls before the imaginable. Almost, when he knew the blow had started and just ere the edge of steel bit the flesh and nerves it seemed that he gazed upon the serene face of the Medusa, Truth—And, simultaneous with the bite of the steel on the onrush of the dark, in a flashing instant of fancy, he saw the vision of his head turning slowly, always turning, in the devil-devil ...
— The Red One • Jack London
... grass and ferns, and two babbling streams of water, our old camp ground had not changed. I sat down with mingled emotions. How familiarly beautiful and lonely this canyon glade! The great pines and spruces looked down upon me with a benediction. How serene, passionless, strong they seemed! It was only men who changed in brief time. The long year of worry and dread and toil and pain had passed. It was nothing. On the soft, fragrant, pine-scented breeze came a whispering ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... for it, for it was impossible for her to entertain the idea of riding twenty miles over an unknown trail, through the rain and darkness. Moreover, she was not afraid of the stranger now, for in spite of his easy, serene movements, his quiet composure, his suppressed amusement, Sheila detected a note in his voice which told her that he was deeply concerned over her welfare—even though he seemed to be enjoying her. In any event she could not go forward, for the unknown terrified ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer
... serene prince, from what we have seen of him, and in conformity, moreover, with the report made to us by others, this most serene king is not only very expert in arms and of great valour and most excellent in his personal ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... beams, And blaze the stars, that vision vainly scans In distant regions of the universe! Tell me, Air-wanderer! in what burning zone Thou wilt appear, when from the azure vault Of our high heaven thy majesty shall fade; Tell me, winged Vapor! where hath been thy home Through the unchangeable serene of noon? Whate'er thy garniture, where'er thy course, Would I could follow thee in thy far flight, When the south wind of eve is low and soft, And my thought rises to the mighty source Of all sublimity! O fleeting cloud, Would I were with thee ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... father's spirit, AEneas offered rich sacrifices—ewes, sows, and bullocks—and his companions followed his example. The eight days of feasting passed pleasantly enough, and the morning appointed for the funeral games dawned bright and serene. A joyous crowd assembled on the shore, some to take part in the contests, and others to watch them. The first of the games was a race between galleys, and four ships had been entered to take part in it. The first ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... and found it charming to gratify them in security of conscience. My yet inexperienced heart gave in to all with the calm happiness of a child, or rather (if I dare use the expression) with the raptures of an angel; for in reality these pure delights are as serene as those of paradise. Dinners on the grass at Montagnole, suppers in our arbor, gathering in the fruits, the vintage, a social meeting with our neighbors; all these were so many holidays, in which Madam de Warrens took as much pleasure as myself. Solitary walks afforded yet purer pleasure, ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... hubbub soon after announced something new, and presently a whisper was buzzed around the room of the "Prince de Cond." His serene highness looked very much pleased—as no wonder—at the arrival of such a day; but he was so surrounded by all his countrymen who were of rank to claim his attention, that I could merely see that he was little ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... pleasant month: the air is serene and pure. The rivers and streams are usually lower this month than at any other period during the year, and the dry weather frequently continues till late in October. Snow falls sometimes early ...
— First History of New Brunswick • Peter Fisher
... movement added, just enough so as we can run and drag your loads around for you. Wisht you could 'a' heard me and old Tom last night, after you'd all turned in, talkin' on the subject o' keepin' well and strong and serene o' mind. Sign language? Some. But what of it, old whiskers? Don't every deef-and-dumb party get along with few sounds and plenty of signs? You humans give ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton
... Binzuru. Long ago, when history was new and the gods were young, Binzuru, one of the sixteen great disciples, broke his vow of chastity by remarking on the beauty of a woman. So he was put outside the temples. His image no longer rests upon the altars, with those of the calm, serene ones. He's disgraced, expelled, no longer fit to sit upon the altars, with the cold, serene ones, in their colossal calm. He's so human now, outside the temples. Sitting on a chair for human beings to touch him, now he's off the altar, he's in contact with humanity. The devout ones rub his wooden ...
— Civilization - Tales of the Orient • Ellen Newbold La Motte
... with the world and with time. After weeks you ceased to be discriminative about the exterior. The cathedral was simply the cathedral. Returning from the field, I knew where on every road I should have the first glimpse of its serene, assertive mass above the sea of roofs—always there, always the same, immortal; while the Ridge rocked with the Allied gun-blasts that formed the police line of ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... towards the cloud of dust, and with his going pandemonium broke loose. Mechanically the beer went down our throats, while in all directions carts bumped and jolted, wheels got locked, barrows overturned. Still the same blue sky; still the same serene sun; but in the place of a quiet grey house—wreckage, dust, death. And around us the first ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... expressions of anxiety when, by chance, he forgot that assumption of joy. Diard feared his wife as a criminal fears the executioner. In him, Juana saw her children's shame; and in her Diard dreaded a calm vengeance, the judgment of that serene brow, an ...
— Juana • Honore de Balzac
... his pistol to shoot himself with! He remembered how Talbot had stood with Marley at this very tunnel's mouth and showed him how to snuff a candle at thirty yards! And Denbigh stared and glowed with admiration. Marley drew nearer down the path, his heavy crunching steps echoing through the serene and frosty air. A few minutes more and he was close upon the eager, expectant, silent circle; the men watched him with their breath suspended. On he came, sullenly, filled with a sort of dogged, brutal animosity against ...
— A Girl of the Klondike • Victoria Cross
... up to this point, but he now obliterated himself, and the leadership devolved upon two others —Parker, small, smiling, gentle-mannered; Mellen, tall, angular, saturnine. Upon them, engineer and bridge-builder, O'Neil rested his confidence, serene in the knowledge that of all men they were the ablest in their lines. As for himself, he had all he could do to bring materials to them and to keep the long supply-trail open. Long it was, indeed; for the shortest haul was from Seattle, twelve hundred miles ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... bad German, and strewed wild flowers over his door-step in the darkness. This sounds very sentimental and silly, but Louisa was never that. She had a deep, intense nature, which as yet had found no outlet or expression, and she could have had no safer hero to worship than this gentle, serene, wise man whose friendship for her family was so practical in its expression. Also at that period, which Louisa herself in her diary calls the "sentimental period," she was strongly influenced by the poet and naturalist, Thoreau. ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... When heaven is all serene and fair, Full many a brighter gem we meet; 'Tis when the tempest hovers there, Thy beam is most ...
— The Culprit Fay - and Other Poems • Joseph Rodman Drake
... Serene, sedate Flaxman, who adored the antique, who held that sculpture should be nothing if not calm and classical, was little likely to sympathize with Roubiliac, or to comprehend his close following of Bernini, or indeed to care at all for his productions. 'His thoughts ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... into contact with people who might prove tedious. He therefore changed the conversation and asked whether he could have strawberry jam to his breakfast. The manager's face instantly changed, hardening to severity. Was Mr. Prohack eccentric? Did he desire to disturb the serene habits of the hotel? The manager promised to see. He did see, and announced that he was 'afraid' that Mr. Prohack could not have strawberry jam to his breakfast. And Mr. Prohack said to himself: "What would my son Charles have done?" During a solitary breakfast (with blackberry ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... imperial Neptune heard the sound Of raging billows breaking on the ground. Displeas'd, and fearing for his wat'ry reign, He rear'd his awful head above the main, Serene in majesty; then roll'd his eyes Around the space of earth, and seas, and skies. He saw the Trojan fleet dispers'd, distress'd, By stormy winds and wintry heav'n oppress'd. Full well the god his sister's envy ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... the queen, But loosely in the wind, Unbraided wave the ringlets of thy hair, That late with studious care, I saw with pearls and flowery garlands twined: On thy wan lip, no cheerful smile appears; Thy beauteous face a tender sadness wears; Placid in pain thou seem'st, serene in grief, As conscious of thy fate, and hopeless of relief! Cease, cease, presaging heart! O angels, deign To hear my fervent prayer, that all ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... meeting wherever women were congregated, we might have been happy in the fair land of rose blossoms and magnolias where we now sojourned. The air was soft and balmy, and the atmosphere filled us with a serene, restful languor quite new to those who had been accustomed to the brisker habits of a colder clime. Besides the birds there were many human visitors from the North spending the winter months here. Some sought this warmer climate for their health, others for pleasure, ...
— Dickey Downy - The Autobiography of a Bird • Virginia Sharpe Patterson
... thirty-eight years, were again exposed by the circumstance of placing his body once and forever within the marble sarcophagus made by Mr. Struthers, of Philadelphia. The body, as Mr. Struthers related, was still in a wonderful state of preservation, the high pale brow wore a calm and serene expression, and the lips, pressed together, had a grave ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... he clothed to himself the desolation of his spirit; the lines down his face deepening, his eyes day by day looking forth with the melancholy which sat so strangely on a face wont to be strong and serene. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... in a most gracious mood, and leaned against the wall, an amused smile on her strong serene face. Her husband stood by her, and she indicated Elena by ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... extend in an unbroken series through all medieval Jewish literature. But if the Jewish wife was held in honor by the Jewish husband, it was because of the very practical virtues of the Jewish way of living. The home life was everywhere serene and lovely, and if the Jew retained any virtue at all, he displayed it in the home. The father was the religious teacher of his family, and this duty necessarily increased his domesticity. He took greater interest ...
— Women's Wild Oats - Essays on the Re-fixing of Moral Standards • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... strange in his uniform, even after the custom of several years— emerges from those passages; or, more rarely, a black gentleman, stricken in years, and cased in shining broadcloth, walks solidly down the brick sidewalk, cane in hand,—a vision of serene self-complacency, and so plainly the expression of virtuous public sentiment that the great colored louts, innocent enough till then in their idleness, are taken with a sudden sense of depravity, and loaf guiltily up against the house-walls. At the same moment, ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... mirror of the soul," she said once, "and yours, like that of a contented little child, should always be calm and serene. Even when alone, be cheerful, remembering always that you are in the sight ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... forty-seven feet high, and are hewn each from a single block of granite. The appearance of these time-worn, gigantic figures, upon the solitary plain, is singularly impressive. "There they sit together, yet apart, in the midst of the plain, serene and vigilant, still keeping their untired watch over the lapse of ages and the ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... the Court Circular of 11 Oct. tells us, that "The Hereditary Prince (Ernest) and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, landed at the Tower, at 4 o'clock yesterday afternoon, from the Continent. Their Serene Highnesses were conveyed in two of the Royal landaus to the Royal Mews at Pimlico, and, shortly afterwards, left town with their suite in two carriages and four, for Windsor Castle, on a visit ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... the shed where Bacon was at work, as serene as if he had not a fearful task on hand. He was apprehensive that the father might "gig back" unless rightly approached, and so ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... architects of the temples gave, in their pure and harmonious forms, the conception of religious beauty and majesty. Standing in some open elevated position, their snowy surface bathed in sunshine, they stood in serene strength, the types of a bright and joyful religion. A superstitious worship seeks caves and darkness; the noble majesty of the Greek temples said plainly that they belonged to a religion of ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... la Dama Errante is not of the sort that lives very long; it is not a painting with aspirations towards the museum but an impressionist canvas; perhaps as a work it has too much asperity, is too hard, not serene enough. ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos
... and a day, beautiful, serene, and sunny, welcomed us into Assistance Harbour, which we found had just cleared out of ice; and the "Lady Franklin," "Sophia," and "Felix," with anchors down, rode all ready for sea. As we towed ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn
... Spica, brilliant crown of Virgo, pulsed whitely, while the glittering sisterhood of Aquila and Lyra, Corona and Libra swept towards the east, ushering up the sky the slim young moon, as bright as they but more serene, like a young mother amidst a flock of heedless girls. How often had Ishmael counted these same clear callous eyes from sleeping St. Renny, but never with the answering gleam in his breast that he felt now he saw ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... his pent abode; The heart conceals the anguished groan, With all the poignant griefs that goad The brain to madness; Within the hushed volcano's breast, The molten fires of ruin lie;— Thus human passions seem at rest, And on the brow serene and high, Appears no sadness. But still the fires are raging there, Of vengeance, hatred, and despair; And when they burst, they wildly pour Their lava flood of woe and fear, And in one short—one little hour, Avenge the ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various
... in mute amazement. Only half an hour before he had been fastening up her plaits for her, and talking the "little language" of affection, which Rosamond, though not returning it, accepted as if she had been a serene and lovely image, now and then miraculously dimpling towards her votary. With such fibres still astir in him, the shock he received could not at once be distinctly anger; it was confused pain. He laid down the knife and fork with which he was carving, and throwing ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... this lake, just where Hahola was buried, there is no bottom to be found. Then the warriors looked up on the high hill, and again they knew what Aseelkwa had meant. For, from the topmost point of the high rock, Aseelkwa's face, carved in stone, looked down over the lake and valley. There, calm and serene and peaceful, it still watches over the hills that have been made fruitful, over the tribe that is always at peace, and over the lake whose deep, blue waters are always ready to frown on the ...
— Thirty Indian Legends • Margaret Bemister
... silent hills; passing from one side of the river to the other when the horses have to swim the current to find a good foothold on the bank. You are on the water, but not at its mercy, for your craft is not disturbed by the heaving of rude waves, and the serene inhabitants do not say "I am sick." There is room enough to move about without falling overboard. You may sleep, or read, or write in your cabin, or sit upon the floating piazza in an arm-chair and smoke the pipe of peace, while the cool breeze blows in your face and the musical ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... nothing of it all, had lost her frank manner with him, which she still possessed the day before. She grew red at his look and drew the hand which she gave him "quickly back again in confused fear," without consciously knowing why. "The flower of womanhood which had slumbered in her too serene, too cold image, appeared in this one night to have come with magic swiftness to bud and immediately to have unfolded in all its fragrance." Maria herself pictures her condition: "That morning ...
— Sleep Walking and Moon Walking - A Medico-Literary Study • Isidor Isaak Sadger
... in one day he had reached the summit of adventurous glory. He had come out victor in a record race, had gained the graces of a new love, magnificent and serene as a Venetian Dogaressa, had provoked a man to mortal combat and now was passing calm and courteous—but neither more so nor less than usual—amid the openly adoring smiles ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... such things were said, but he pursued his daily' labours in and out of the hovels with serene unconcern. ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... Most serene prince, &c. Believing that your highness has been already informed by the most excellent legate, of all the memorable things which have occurred in this place, and particularly respecting the fleet so lately dispatched for India by the king of Portugal, which, by the blessing of God, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... raced beneath their horses' hoofs. The serene strip of sky raced above their heads. The imprisoning walls fell apart before their eyes, seeming to divide like a cleft stick as they drew near, and reeling away on either hand as they passed on. All things in ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... Italy, and Russia newly born, Have waited for thee in the night. Oh, come as comes the morn! Serene and strong and full of faith, America, arise, With steady hope and mighty help to join thy ...
— The Red Flower - Poems Written in War Time • Henry Van Dyke
... distracted English society, accompanied the royal procession from St. James's Palace to Westminster Hall. He well knew how bitterly William had been mortified, and was astonished to see him present himself to the public gaze with a serene and ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... and water which pierces the secret valleys of the mountains, worked its spell upon our travellers, and freed them from themselves for a while. For awhile they were as singleminded as the boys, content to live and breathe that wine-tinctured air, and watch out those flawless days and serene grey nights. London had sophisticated some of them almost beyond redemption: Francis Lingen was less man than sensitive gelatine; James was the offspring of a tradition and a looking-glass. But the zest and high spirits of Urquhart were catching, and after a week Francis Lingen ceased ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... Epicurean wisdom; for my part, I think the use of knowledge is to make us happier. I would compare the mind to the beautiful statue of Love by Praxiteles. When its eyes were bandaged the countenance seemed grave and sad, but the moment you removed the bandage the most serene and enchanting smile diffused itself over the ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... a sky such as Dore loved—a great heavy mass of rain-clouds heaped one on top of the other, as the rocks the Titans piled to reach Olympus. Then a break in the woof, and a bit of dark blue sky could be seen glittering with stars, in the midst of which sailed the serene moon, shedding down her light on the cloudland beneath, giving to ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... increasingly evident. He had been the kind of lad who finds in the West a fine field for daredevil adventure. And yet there were unstirred deeps in the man. He was curious about a small book which Alice kept upon her bed, and which she read from time to time with serene meditation on her face. ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... more and more impressed with the necessity of inspiration in life if we are to be strong and serene, and so finally escape the pitfalls of worry and conscience. By inspirations I do not mean belief in any system or creed. It is not a stated belief that we need to begin with; that may come in time. We need first to find in life, ...
— The Untroubled Mind • Herbert J. Hall
... and her mind did not naturally revel in spiritual aspirations. Almost her only social fault was that she was sometimes a little fretful; this was the way in which her bruised individuality asserted itself. But she was affectionate, serene, and above all refined. Her refinement was extraordinarily pleasant to my nerves, on which much else ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... won in those few moments of silence: the strain of the man's attitude relaxed, the set lines on his face vanished, leaving it serene and quietly humorous, calm and self-deprecatory. Only his voice was not quite so steady as usual, ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... serene!" he growled, in response to his mother's caresses and Walker's effusive shaking of the hand. "I'm all right, mother; I want to ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... the Countess sent for Beatrice and Doucebelle to her own bower. They found her seated by the window, with unusually idle hands, and an expression of sore disturbance on her fair, serene face. ...
— Earl Hubert's Daughter - The Polishing of the Pearl - A Tale of the 13th Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... natural to me that I never dreamed it contained a trap. I was caught, and I promised to do what she wished, but only for a fortnight. She confirmed her promise, and her countenance became once more serene and calm. The ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... doors; the cars shook and swayed and lumbered around curves and down and up gorges; there were about her rough men, crying children, slatternly women, tobacco juice, peanuts, popcorn and apple cores, but dainty, serene and as merry as ever, she sat through that ride with a radiant smile, her keen black eyes noting everything unlovely within and the glory of hill, tree and chasm without. Next morning at home, where we rise early, no one was allowed to waken her and she had breakfast in bed—for the ...
— A Knight of the Cumberland • John Fox Jr.
... apart, as a tiger rends the antelope, to torture, to outrage, to wreak their vengeance on her. Their chief, only, motioned their violence back from her, and bade them leave her untouched. At him she looked still with the same fixed, serene, scornful resolve; she had encountered these men so often in battle, she knew so well how rich a prize she was to him. But she had one thought alone with her; and for it she subdued contempt, and hate, and pride, and every passion ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... could not hide it. The gentle, simple, shrinking girl had changed into a self-reliant, keen-sighted woman, and from the serene height of her gracious womanhood calmly convicted him of his folly and his besetting weakness, and, manlike, his first impulse, thus convicted, was ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... sere, scarfed with golden rod, the brook valley below Green Gables overflowed with asters of ethereal purple, and the Lake of Shining Waters was blue—blue—blue; not the changeful blue of spring, nor the pale azure of summer, but a clear, steadfast, serene blue, as if the water were past all moods and tenses of emotion and had settled down to a tranquility unbroken ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... something of this mood in her manner, but was instantly softened and won by her visitor, who did not in the least resemble Miss Franklin in appearance, though her voice was wonderfully the same. Her eyes were wide, her brow serene, ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... story of her ring, How, when the court went back to Aix, Fastrada died; and how the king Sat watching by her night and day, Till into one of the blue lakes, That water that delicious land, They cast the ring, drawn from her hand; And the great monarch sat serene And sad beside the fated shore, Nor left the land ...
— The Golden Legend • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... thought I heard a cry back there," said the tall young lady peering suspiciously into the group; but all seemed serene in the ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... and ineffectual fear of death, but the instant, dwelling terror of the responsibilities and revenges of life. Their speech, indeed, is timid; they report lions in the path; they counsel a meticulous[31] footing; but their serene, marred faces are more eloquent and tell another story. Where they have gone, we will go also, not very greatly fearing; what they have endured unbroken, we also, God helping us, will make a shift ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... her education had made of her—the look of serene distinction, the repose of her thin-featured, colourless face, refined beyond the point of prettiness—these things her training had given her, and these were the things which Carraway, with his old-fashioned loyalty ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... woman returned, in a tone of serene satisfaction. "Only give me my price, and I am ready to make anybody believe that black is white, every time; and now I'll take that five hundred, if you please," she concluded, as she extended her fat hand for the ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... the rapidly darkening twilight was cloven with red gleams, that made him almost fancy for a moment that some fantastic criminal had set fire to the tiny forest as he fled. A second glance showed him nothing but one of those red sunsets in which such serene ...
— The Trees of Pride • G.K. Chesterton
... have beheld ere now, when dawn would pale, The eastern hemisphere's tint of roseate sheen, And all the opposite heaven one gem serene, And the uprising sun, beneath such powers Of vapory influence tempered, that the eye For a long space its ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... clambered from tree to tree, the grapes hung in rich clusters about the peasant's cottage, and the groves were rejoiced by the perpetual song of the nightingale. In a word, so beautiful was the earth, so pure the air, and so serene the sky of this delicious region that the Moors imagined the paradise of their Prophet to be situated in that part of the heaven which overhung ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... Unquestioningly, like a little child, she resigned herself into his hands. A power greater than hers was ordering her way; Felipe was its instrument. No other voice spoke to guide her. The same old simplicity of acceptance which had characterized her daily life in her girlhood, and kept her serene and sunny then,—serene under trials, sunny in her routine of little duties,—had kept her serene through all the afflictions, and calm, if not sunny, under all the burdens of her later life; and it did ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... great clattering feet—two toes turned forward, and two back—twisting head and beak right and left (for he cannot see well straight before him) to see whence the bananas are coming; or when again, after gorging a couple, he sits gulping and winking, digesting them in serene satisfaction, he is as good a specimen as can be seen of the ludicrous—dare I say the ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... space was mute. The moon, its duress passed, stood high, serene, alone. The doctor breathed, "She's passing." That child raised her lids and her eyes ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... that nothing could withstand it comes swirling down the valley. Before its rushing impetuosity everything would be swept away. For it is no little tossing torrent: it possesses depth and weight and volume, and sweeps majestically along in great waves and cataracts. In comparison with the serene composure of the lofty summits here is life and force and activity to the full—and destructive activity at that, to all appearance. Yet as, from the safety of a bridge by which the genius of man has spanned ...
— The Heart of Nature - or, The Quest for Natural Beauty • Francis Younghusband
... I fain would sing, And likewise his fair queen; But that the knave, A haughty slave, Must needs step in between: "Good diamond king, With hempen string This haughty knave destroy; Then may your queen, With mind serene, Your royal love enjoy." ...
— Aunt Kitty's Stories • Various
... Harte referred to San Francisco as "serene, indifferent of Fate," he was thinking ...
— Fascinating San Francisco • Fred Brandt and Andrew Y. Wood
... the vision meeting them there. The stilts they sparkled and flashed and shone Like the tremulous lights of the frigid zone, Crimson and yellow and sapphire and green, Bright as the rainbows in summer seen; While the lady she strode along between With a majesty too supremely serene For anything but an American queen. A lady with jewels superb as those, And wearing such very expensive clothes, Might certainly do whatever she chose! And thus, in despite of the jeering noise, And the frantic delight of the little boys, The ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... nights grew vocal with the invisible chorus of insect life; there was a mellow splendour in the moonlight, which touched the distant hills and wide-spreading waters with a pathetic prophecy of change. And now, ripe, serene, and rich with the accumulated beauty of the summer, the autumn flowers appeared. Their movement was like the stately dances of olden times; youth and its overflow were gone forever; but in the hour of maturity there remained a noble beauty, which touched all imaginations ...
— Under the Trees and Elsewhere • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... spontaneously the day before. The great spirit does not want martyrs. Joy in beauty and goodness comes of a pure and tranquil mind, not of a tortured body. The faces of the holy ones are calm and their souls serene. ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand |
