"Serenity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Barbara, where she found seclusion until her convent was built, and after her immolation in Monterey, she turned so cold an ear to all men's ardours that she soon came to be regarded as a part of four gray walls. How long it took her to find actual serenity none but herself and the dead priests know, but the old women who are dying off to-day remember her as consistently placid as she was firm. She was deeply troubled by the escapade of the little wretches on the wall, although she had dealt with it summarily and feared ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... the air; he did not know in the morning what he would eat at midday. It was not that he was lacking in will, or energy, or feeling for his mother; it was simply that he felt no inclination for work and did not recognize the advantage of it. His whole figure suggested unruffled serenity, an innate, almost artistic passion for living carelessly, never with his sleeves tucked up. When Savka's young, healthy body had a physical craving for muscular work, the young man abandoned himself completely for a brief interval to some free but nonsensical pursuit, such as sharpening ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... generations to come, and for this he can never be forgiven. How vain and impotent is party rage, directed against such a man. He is not more elevated by his lofty residence, upon the summit of his own favorite mountain, than he is lifted, by the serenity of his mind, and the consciousness of a well-spent life, above the malignant passions and bitter feelings of the day. No! his own beloved Monticello is not less moved by the storms that beat against its sides than is this illustrious man ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... very sitting-room or on the threshold of that very cottage. She was wearing the same dress; her hair was done in the same way; she had on the same bangles and necklaces as in The Happy Princess; and her lovely face, with its rosy cheeks and laughing eyes, bore the same look of joy and serenity. ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... she replied; "since I have awoke from my long dream, all has gone well with me. I now neither wish for death nor fear it, and think on the future and on the past with equal serenity. Do you not also feel an inward satisfaction in thus paying a pious tribute of gratitude and love to your old ...
— Peter Schlemihl etc. • Chamisso et. al.
... of his berth. In the first glow of this new understanding his nerves had steadied to a serenity that was akin to awe. Yet he knew he had made no great discovery. The thing he saw had been there all ...
— John Wesley, Jr. - The Story of an Experiment • Dan B. Brummitt
... there a Man, an Honour to the Age, Unsully'd by the keenest Party-rage; By Vice untainted; who, from early Youth, Firmly adher'd to Honour, Justice, Truth; Whom no unruly Passions e're cou'd blind, Nor ruffle his Serenity of Mind; His Country's Good, the Patriot's noblest View, Unbrib'd, unaw'd, does stedfastly pursue; Polite in Manners, and rever'd his Sense, And long in Senates fam'd for Eloquence; But if to these Endowments of the Mind, A graceful Figure happily is join'd, Then ...
— Two Poems Against Pope - One Epistle to Mr. A. Pope and the Blatant Beast • Leonard Welsted
... was her love, so tender and indulgent. Age is necessary to the family completeness. We do not even in our humbler condition, always realize, this—do not see how the quiet waning life in the old arm-chair gives dignity and serenity to the home, till the end comes—till the silver-haired ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... mountains climb in rocky slopes to solitudes of stone and sunlight that curve round and join that wall of cliffs in one common skyline. This desolate and austere background contrasts very vividly with the glowing serenity of the great lake below, with the spacious view of fertile hills and roads and villages and islands to south and east, and with the hotly golden rice flats of the Val Maggia to the north. And because it was a remote and insignificant place, far ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... said, with a serenity in her rich voice and manner, "I will have to tell you as Mr. Vandeford's partner in 'The Purple Slipper' that I am entirely dissatisfied with the way the play proves up at dress rehearsal and refuse to open in it. As I am under no contract to him since Saturday night, ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess
... anxiety never marred the haughty serenity of her face. She soon won a place as one of the queens of Parisian society; and plunged into dissipation with a sort of frenzy. Was she endeavoring to divert her mind? Did she hope to ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... of his father and all these stepmothers. He had ten half-brothers, who alternately boasted of his kinship and flouted him. Yet nothing could seriously disturb the serenity of his mind. When his father died, without a will, the brothers sought to dispossess Leonardo of his rights, and we hear of a lawsuit, which was finally compromised. Yet note the magnanimity of Leonardo—in his will ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... gods, dear Marcus and Lucilia, came down to dwell upon earth, they could not but choose Palmyra for their seat, both on account of the general beauty of the city and its surrounding plains, and the exceeding sweetness and serenity of its climate. It is a joy here only to sit still and live. The air, always loaded with perfume, seems to convey essential nutriment to those who breathe it; and its hue, especially when a morning or evening sun shines through it, is of that golden ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... singular want of accuracy characterises all the records, but it is safe to say that her children were some eighteen or nineteen in number. Death came often during those years of persecution. John Wesley speaks of the serenity with which his mother "worked among her thirteen children;" but ten was the number of those who were spared to enjoy the blessing of that enlightened, affectionate, and admirable training on her part, which has been so fully recorded, and of which ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... was like a possession of his friend. It was horrible, as if a devil chose for a moment to lurk and to do evil in the sanctuary of a church, to blaspheme at the very altar. Valentine did not speak. He was looking down on the dead serenity of Marr, vindictively. A busy intellect flashed in his clear blue eyes, meditating vigorously upon the dead man's escape from bondage, following him craftily to the very door of his freedom, to seize him surely, if it ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... sound of trumpets, cymbals, and flutes, and the continual firing of cannon. On the day following there was a solemn thanksgiving, at which all the people assisted. When I again waited on the king, he desired me to apprize your serenity of his good fortune, saying that you may send your ships hither in safety to purchase his spices; adding, that he should take such measures as to prevent the prefect of Syria, that is the sultan[7]; from procuring spices in India. He founds ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... an impotent gesture, becoming audible with an inarticulate cry, with two little shadows mocking my dismay, and about this figure you must conceive a great wide space of moonlit grass, rimmed by the looming suggestion of distant trees—trees very low and faint and dim, and over it all the domed serenity of that wonderful ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... begged Robert not to come home with her; she would get into the carriage alone; she preferred that. This was imperious, and she thought he looked disappointed. While she stood before the door with him—the carriage was turning in the gravel-walk—this thought restored her serenity. ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... transport, no fiery trials. Her infirmities accumulate, but still she rejoices in sacred, hallowed peace. She becomes a cripple, almost confined to her bed, and continues so for years; but her mind retains its strength and serenity, and her whole heart rejoices in ...
— Elizabeth: The Disinherited Daugheter • E. Ben Ez-er
... the upturned face of the dead woman with startled incredulity. Between thirty and thirty-four years old! That tiny, lovely—But she was not quite so lovely in death, in spite of the serenity it had brought to those once-vivacious features. Peering more closely, he could see—without those luminous, wide eyes to center his attention—numerous fine lines on the waxen face, the slackness of a little pouch of soft flesh beneath her round ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... university kept a good deal together: they used a variety of means natural to the young in order to impress upon the less fortunate a proper sense of their inferiority; the rest of the students found their Olympian serenity rather hard to bear. Griffiths was a tall fellow, with a quantity of curly red hair and blue eyes, a white skin and a very red mouth; he was one of those fortunate people whom everybody liked, for he had high spirits and a constant gaiety. He strummed a little ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... neighbours, on the contrary, exhibited no serenity whatever, and I found Canning and Palmerston shivering with apprehension in their frockcoats. The worst of it was that I could ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 18th, 1920 • Various
... jars and bottles, and so contrive as to throw the onus of suspicion on the cook and the kitchen-maid. All this when Madame saw, and of which when she received report, her sole observation, uttered with matchless serenity, was: ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... attention, the wild incoherent mountain masses thrown together apparently without order or system, buttressed peaks, mighty flanks riven to the core by deep valleys, radiating spurs, re-entrant gorges, the limit of vision filled by crenellated ranges in all the serenity of their distant majesty. And then, as our trail wound in and out, different aspects of the same elements would present themselves, until really the faculty of admiration became exhausted. And so on down we went, to be ...
— The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon From Ifugao to Kalinga • Cornelis De Witt Willcox
... an unaccustomed desire to be at Myrtle Forge; usually it was the contrary case, and he was escaping from the complicated civilisation of his home; but now the well-ordered house, the serenity of his room, appeared astonishingly inviting. Howat progressed rapidly past the smithy, and turned to the right, about the Furnace dam, a placid and irregular reach of water holding the reflection of the trees on a mirror still ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... of aspiration, by light of a certain philosophy arrived at in my own way, through my own experiences. Philosophy is not the right word, either; the feeling I have is mainly esthetic. In order not to be too unhappy in this world, in order to have a little serenity, we must forgive everything, Aurora; that is what I have clearly seen. It's the only way. We must forgive events just as we forgive persons. And we must love life. I who so much of the time hate life, yet know better. We must love it as we must love our ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... compliment in which she had no share. Yet, even at this moment, which, as she conceived, was a moment of triumph, while she was encircled by adorers, while the voice of praise yet vibrated in her ears, she felt anguish at perceiving the serenity of her rival's countenance; and, however strange it may appear, actually envied ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... himself up in his cloak, and shuddered, while Sally reverently drew down the sheet, and showed the beautiful, calm, still face, on which the last rapturous smile still lingered, giving an ineffable look of bright serenity. Her arms were crossed over her breast; the wimple-like cap marked the perfect oval of her face, while two braids of the waving auburn hair peeped out of the narrow border, and ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... persons when he got on this theme; this was his dream, this was the proletariat expropriating the expropriators, and he told about it with shining eyes. In time past the young lord of Leesville would have answered him with insolent serenity, perhaps with a threat of machine-guns; but now he said hesitatingly that it was a large programme, and he feared it couldn't be ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... beyond the highlands and a cool, soft breeze swept up through the valley. I leaned back in a comfortable chair that Britton had selected for me, and puffed at my pipe, not quite sure that my serenity was real or assumed. This was all costing me a pretty penny. Was I, after all, parting with my money in the way prescribed for fools? Was all this ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... him as a soul under a cloud. He gives one no feeling of radiance, no sense of a living serenity. What serenity he possesses at the centre of his being does not shine in his face nor sound in his voice. He has the look of one whose head has long been thrust out of a window gloomily expecting an accident to happen at the street corner. FitzGerald ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... Mr. Slowcoach the formidable man, that Mr. Verdant Green had anticipated; and by the time that he had turned a piece of Spectator into Latin, our hero had somewhat recovered his usual equanimity of mind and serenity of expression: and the construing of half a dozen lines of Livy and Homer, and the answering of a few questions, was a mere form; for Mr. Slowcoach's long practice enabled him to see in a very few minutes if the freshman ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... principally in the cheerfulness, which is the fundamental element of Servian poetry,—a serenity clear and transparent like the bright blue of a southern sky. The allusions to the misfortunes of married life alone, gather sometimes in heavy clouds on this beautiful sky. The fear of being chained to an old ...
— Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations • Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson
... instead of joyous and exhilarated, for the rest of the year during which she will be bound to her "wearisome silk-winding, coil on coil." Such a possibility, thinks Pippa's trustful heart, must surely be enough to cajole the weather into beauty and serenity. ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... knew that she must act as she was acting—that the moment had not come when she would escape from herself. They walked by the water's edge, their souls still like the water, and like it, full of calm reflections. They were aware of the evening's sad serenity, and the little struggling passions of their lives. Very often Nature seemed on the very point of whispering her secret, but it escaped her ears like an echo in the far distance, like a phantom ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... Government succeeded to power in the first week of December. Now much of the criticism that I have seen on the attitude of His Majesty's Government and the Viceroy, leaves out of account the fact that we did not come quite into a haven of serenity and peace. Very fierce monsoons had broken out on the Olympian heights at Simla, in the camps, and in the Councils at Downing Street. This was the inheritance into which we came—rather a formidable inheritance for which I do not, this afternoon, ...
— Indian speeches (1907-1909) • John Morley (AKA Viscount Morley)
... would be rather difficult to carry it out. In a short time the bateau arrived at the outlet of the lake, and on the bank of the river the exiles discovered their Indian escort, which had been waiting since the middle of the forenoon for them. At this point the serenity of the voyage was interrupted, for the river was crooked, and the navigation often very difficult. The boat did not draw more than a foot of water, but in some places it was not easy to find ...
— Hope and Have - or, Fanny Grant Among the Indians, A Story for Young People • Oliver Optic
... is serenity attributed amongst the titles of Princes, and the beams of the sun to irradiate their Crowns; That the Scepter bears a Flower; since as that glorious planet produces, so does it also wither them; and there is nothing lasting, save ...
— An Apologie for the Royal Party (1659); and A Panegyric to Charles the Second (1661) • John Evelyn
... the organist of the neighboring church, had taught her to read her prayer book, and her education was perfected by her communing with nature. The bees taught her to work, the doves taught her purity, the happy sparrows to speak joyfully to her father, the quiet water taught her peace, the serenity of the sky taught her contemplation, the matin-bell of the distant church called her to devotion, and the universal good in all nature, which reflected the love of God, ...
— Sielanka: An Idyll • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... Such is the self-complacency of the old Tory hag, that in her wildest moments would bite excessively,—if she only had teeth. She has, however, in the very simplicity of her smirking, let out the whole secret—has, in the sweet serenity of her satisfaction, revealed the selfishness, the wickedness of her creed. Toryism believes only in the well-dressed and the well-to-do. Purple and fine linen are the instrumental parts of her religion. She subscribes, in fact, to forty-three points; four meals ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 2, 1841 • Various
... immediate response. He was standing at a window, looking out at the serenity of sea and sky. His forehead was drawn in thought. He knew that Von Ritz was right. Had Cara hated him, instead of merely finding herself unable to love him, he knew that the first threat of danger would arouse the ally in her, and that the suggestion of flight would throw her ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... and history. These were Sir Thomas More, Thomas Cranmer, and Thomas Cromwell. More was the most accomplished, most learned, and most enlightened of the three. He was a Catholic, but very exemplary in his life, and charitable in his views. In moral elevation of character, and beautiful serenity of soul, the annals of the great men of his country furnish no superior. His extensive erudition and moral integrity alone secured him the official station which Wolsey held as lord chancellor. He was always the ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... appearances we put on were always enough to maintain our credit in the eyes of the whole world. Three days before she died, we were both present at a grand sabbath of witches in a valley of the Pyrenees; and yet when she died it was with such calmness and serenity, that were it not for some grimaces she made a quarter of an hour before she gave up the ghost, you would have thought she lay upon a bed of flowers. But her two children lay heavy at her heart, and even to her last gasp she never would forgive Camacha, such a resolute spirit she had. I closed ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... at him. All attention was centred upon West, who met it with a calm serenity suggestive of contempt. He showed himself in no hurry to respond to Rudd's indictment, and when he did it was not exclusively to Rudd that ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... repose of the Alhambra? I had intended, however, to quit this place before long, and, indeed, was almost reproaching myself for protracting my sojourn, having little better than sheer self-indulgence to plead for it; for the effect of the climate, the air, the serenity and sweetness of the place, is almost as seductive as that of the Castle of Indolence, and I feel at times an impossibility of working, or of doing anything but yielding to a ...
— Washington Irving • Henry W. Boynton
... direction of sympathizing friends who understand and appreciate the crisis through which she is passing. Custom, however, dictates that she shall be hurried from place to place at a time when the bodily quiet and the mental calmness and serenity so desirable to her should be the ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol. 3 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... willed, who rules above the gods, He saw, within the glass, behind him glide The form of Venus. Certain of her power, She had laid by, in fond security, The enchanted cestus, and Sir Tannhauser, With surfeited regard, beheld her now, No fairer than the women of the earth, Whom with serenity and health he left, Duped by a lovely witch. Before he moved, She knew her destiny; and when he turned, He seemed to drop a mask, disclosing thus An alien face, and eyes with vision true, That for long time with glamour had been blind. Hiding the ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... look like enemies of God? As he entered their homes to drag them forth to prison, he got glimpses of their social life. Could such spectacles of purity and love be products of the powers of darkness? Did not the serenity with which his victims went to meet their fate look like the very peace which he had long been ...
— The Life of St. Paul • James Stalker
... the Spanish lovers of Horace, was an example of the poet translating the poet where both were great men. He not only brought back to life once more "that marvelous sobriety, that rapidity of idea and conciseness of phrase, that terseness and brilliance, that sovereign calm and serenity in the spirit of the artist," which characterized the ancient poet, but added to the Horatian lyre the new string of Christian mysticism, and thus wedded the ancient and the modern. "Luis de Leon is our great Horatian poet," says Menendez y Pelayo. Lope de Vega wrote an Ode to Liberty, and was ...
— Horace and His Influence • Grant Showerman
... awkwardness in men that women like; there is a gaucherie that women detest. She gazed silently at this man, considering him with a serenity that stunned ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... gently and with a softened sorrow, I know that that not unhappy state of mind must soon arise. The death of infants is a release from so much chance and change—from so many casualties and distresses—and is a thing so beautiful in its serenity and peace—that it should not be a bitterness, even in a mother's heart. The simplest and most affecting passage in all the noble history of our Great Master, is His consideration for little children, and in reference to yours, as many millions of bereaved mothers poor and rich will ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 3 (of 3), 1836-1870 • Charles Dickens
... a secret to keep, and knows it, and is careful not to betray himself until he can do so with the most telling effect. I have known him to preserve his serenity even when caught in a steel trap, and look the very picture of injured innocence, manoeuvring carefully and deliberately to extricate his foot from the grasp of the naughty jaws. Do not by any means take pity on him, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... The moon had by this time risen, and was shedding her soft light on the peaceful landscape without. The beauty of the scene soothed her excited feelings; and as she read, her mind resumed its accustomed serenity. Closing her book, she prepared to retire to rest, first examining the doors, of which there were two: the one by which she had entered, opening into the front hall, she found to be without a lock, or indeed any fastening ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various
... for him; there was not the slightest chance of it. And, supposing even that he could? And here came in the delicacy and scruple of the man who had been married himself. He thought he wouldn't even wish to spoil, by the vulgarity of compromising, or by the shadow of a secret, the serenity of her face, the gay prettiness of that life. No, he wouldn't if he could. And yet how exciting it would be to rouse her from that cool composure. She was rather enigmatic. But he thought she could be roused. ...
— Tenterhooks • Ada Leverson
... to look upon Wasson as a visionary and unpractical person. To those who acted only from motives of self-interest he was a perpetual puzzle. Neither was he ignorant of this unfavorable opinion, for he could see through people almost as if they were glass, and he endured it with true Emersonian serenity. If they had known what he thought of them they would not have felt so very comfortable. He was sufficiently practical for the profession to which he belonged, though not so diplomatic as some of them are. He could be diplomatic enough on occasion, and knew how to preserve an impenetrable ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns
... the personal relation with him. Just as they want to own his books, instead of merely taking them from the public libraries, so they want to meet the man, take him by the hand, look into his eyes, hear his voice, and learn, if possible, what it is that has given him his unfailing joy in life, his serenity, his comprehensive and loving insight into the life of the universe. They feel, too, a sense of deep gratitude to one who has shown them how divine is the soil under foot—veritable star-dust from the gardens of the Eternal. ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... follower of the law, even if he can recite only a small portion (of the law), but, having forsaken passion and hatred and foolishness, possesses true knowledge and serenity of mind, he, caring for nothing in this world or that to come, has indeed a share ...
— The Dhammapada • Unknown
... Perfect serenity was there! The afternoon light lay golden on the moss above the fallen trees. No hidden scurrying in the underbrush told of wild, wood things hastening to safety from some half-sensed danger. No broken branches or trampled earth told of any past ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... practices of a Brahmacharin, and abstention from injury, are said to constitute the penance of the body. The speech which causeth no agitation, which is true, which is agreeable and beneficial, and the diligent study of the Vedas, are said to be the penance of speech. Serenity of the mind, gentleness, taciturnity, self-restraint, and purity of the disposition,—these are said to be the penance of the mind. This three-fold penance performed with perfect faith, by men without ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... heathendom grows less proud, draws nearer and nearer to a Christianity which it ignored or which it despised, and is ready to fling itself into the arms of the 'Unknown God.' In the sad Meditations of Aurelius we find a pure serenity, sweetness, and docility to the commands of God, which before him were unknown, and which Christian grace has alone surpassed. If he has not yet attained to charity in all that fulness of meaning ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... tread its paths; and when I meet her next, it must be in some world where there is triumph without armies, and where innocence is trained in scenes of peace. I know, however, that her little life, short as it seemed, was a blessing to us all, giving a perpetual image of serenity and sweetness, recalling the lovely atmosphere of far-off homes, and holding us by unsuspected ties to whatsoever ...
— Our Young Folks—Vol. I, No. II, February 1865 - An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... pertaining to her toilet. He seemed utterly unconscious of his anomalous condition, and as his business associates are gentlemen, and his intimate friends are ladies, he may drift through life without a single jar to mar the serenity ...
— Religion and Lust - or, The Psychical Correlation of Religious Emotion and Sexual Desire • James Weir
... vast dream remains to be seen. But one thing is certain: No man can watch France in the supreme Test of War without catching the thrill of her heroic endeavour, or feeling the influence of that immense and unconquerable serenity with which she has faced Triumph and Disaster. They proclaim the deathlessness of her democracy, the hope of a new world leadership in ...
— The War After the War • Isaac Frederick Marcosson
... sure of that," I replied. "In a life of continuous joy, I can imagine even pain coming as a welcome variation. I wonder sometimes whether the saints in heaven do not occasionally feel the continual serenity a burden. To myself a life of endless bliss, uninterrupted by a single contrasting note, would, I feel, grow maddening. I suppose," I continued, "I am a strange sort of man; I can hardly understand myself at times. There are moments," I ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome
... is hardly possible to conceive a more intelligent, venerable looking head, than poor Herbert Stockhore presents; a fine capacious forehead, rising like a promontory of knowledge, from a bold outline of countenance, every feature decisive, breathing serenity and thoughtfulness, with here and there a few straggling locks of silvery gray, which, like the time-discoloured moss upon some ancient battlements, are the true emblems of antiquity: the eye alone is generally dull and sunken in the visage, but during his temporary gleams of sanity, or fancied ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... comrades could prevent him, he bent down to the hardened furrows of the earth and picked up two stones and flung them at him. These missiles, thrown by a forceless arm, did not make half their intended journey. Then, exasperated by the contemptuous serenity of Febrer, who continued on his way, the boy broke into threats. He would kill the Majorcan; he declared it at the top of his voice! Let them all hear that he had sworn to destroy ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... and the Saturday movement of people in the straggling street, and chose to walk alone by the water until her tears should be dry, and she could so compose herself as to escape remark upon her looking ill or unhappy on going home. The peaceful serenity of the hour and place, having no reproaches or evil intentions within her breast to contend against, sank healingly into its depths. She had meditated and taken comfort. She, too, was turning homeward, when ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... the Josephine, the squadron got under way, homeward bound. The usual routine on board was restored, and the studies of the school-room were mingled with the duties of the ship. Only one gale disturbed the serenity of the passage, and both vessels came to anchor in Brockway harbor, after a voyage of thirty days. The runaways had behaved tolerably well during the trip, for they had learned that there was no safety or satisfaction in rebellion and disobedience. They were not reformed, and perhaps ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic
... knew, my friend," said Monmouth, "with what admirable serenity of soul, with what gentle gayety Angela endured his rough life—she, accustomed to a life of luxury!—if you knew how she always knew how to be gracious, elegant, and charming, all the while superintending the affairs of the household with admirable activity!—if you knew in ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... St. Martha's was a ruin; as unhappy a little building as St. Catherine's on the hill beyond the Wey. It was restored in 1848, and has taken out of the past a quiet and serenity that set it in the old years, in tranquil sunshine, in the peace of English Sundays. All the winds blow about it; it is alone in its acre of smooth down grass; within its churchyard wall are the graves of country ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... in on my friend, Sherlaw Kombs, to hear what he had to say about the Pegram mystery, as it had come to be called in the newspapers. I found him playing the violin with a look of sweet peace and serenity on his face, which I never noticed on the countenances of those within hearing distance. I knew this expression of seraphic calm indicated that Kombs had been deeply annoyed about something. Such, indeed, proved ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... would not have materially disturbed the serenity of his mind had he had only himself and his wife to care for; but there was his daughter gradually growing to maturity; and all the world knows when daughters begin to ripen no fruit or flower requires so much looking after. I have no talent at describing female charms, else ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... things as the "crippled colored uncle,"; partly for the very joy of the performance, but partly, too, to disturb her serenity, to incur her reproof, to shiver her a little—"shock" would be too strong a word. And he liked to fancy her in a spirit and attitude of belligerence, to present that fancy to those who knew the measure of her gentle nature. Writing to Mrs. Howells of a picture ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... be owing to the pleasing serenity that reigned in my own mind, that I fancied I saw cheerfulness in every countenance throughout the journey. A stage coach, however, carries animation always with it, and puts the world in motion as it whirls along. The horn sounded at the entrance ...
— Old Christmas From the Sketch Book of Washington Irving • Washington Irving
... scarce any Poet of Eminence, who has not left some Testimony of his Fondness for the Flowers, the Zephyrs, and the Warblers of the Spring. Nor has the most luxuriant Imagination been able to describe the Serenity and Happiness of the golden Age otherwise than by giving a perpetual Spring, as the ...
— The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749) and Two Rambler papers (1750) • Samuel Johnson
... away the Cholera.—Fear has proved at all times, but more particularly during the prevalence of cholera, a fruitful predisposing cause of disease; be firm, therefore, and confident. Cheerfulness of disposition, equanimity and serenity of mind, are essential means of preservation from epidemic disorders, cholera especially. You have now the consoling assurance of the New Board of Health, in confirmation of what we, the anti-contagionists, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 532. Saturday, February 4, 1832 • Various
... his desk writing. After a time he laid down his pen, and taking up a portrait of hic dead wife which stood just in front of him, he stared at it long and earnestly As he did so, his mind went back to the time when he had first met and loved her. Even as Faust had entered into the purity and serenity of Gretchen's chamber, out of the coarseness and profligacy of Auerbach's cellar, so he, leaving behind him the wild life of his youth, had entered into the peace and quiet of a domestic home. The old feverish life with Rosanna Moore, seemed to be as unsubstantial ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... blue-gray eyes, wide open, fixed on the chaos ahead, were shining with excitement. Now and then a long curling wisp of her hair would get in her eyes and savagely she would blow it back. And her lank quiet father puffed his cigar, with his gray eyes restfully on her. "The serenity of ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... took a step forward. Her brain became confused and disturbed. She had looked out on Eden, and it had been ravaged before her eyes. She had been thinking of to-morrow, and this vast prospect of beauty and serenity had been part of the pageant in which it moved. Not the valley alone had been marauded, but that "To- morrow," and all it ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... had made the earth and he was always digging down the hills and filling up the hollows." Prattville was a small manufacturing town, and Lanier was about as appropriately placed there as Arion would have been in a tin-shop, but he kept his humorous outlook on life, departing from his serenity so far as to make his only attempts at expressing in verse his political indignation, the results of which he did not regard as poetry, and they do not appear in the collection of his poems. His muse was better adapted to the harmonies than to the discords of life. Some lines written then furnish ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... her dear Maurice; but she puts them to the Prefect of Police, and ferrets out the marriage through legal documents, while yet no trace of this knowledge dims the affectionateness of her letters, or the serenity of her reception of her son when he comes to bestow on her the time which he can spare from his family cares. In an English or American family there would have been a battle royal, an open rupture; whereas this courteous ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... Burns was splendid. He rose after the critics had expended their force, or if the storm grew too violent, intervened at its height, and with facts and figures and sound argument always succeeded in restoring order and serenity. An excellent story of him appeared about this time in Good Words. He, Anthony Trollope and Norman Macleod were once at a little inn in the Highlands. After supper, stories were told and the laughter, ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... had never seen roses until she came to Santa Barbara. To a wounded, sensitive spirit there is even a healing influence in the brightness and perfume of flowers. They smiled so sweetly at her that she could not help smiling back. The sunny days passed, one so like another that they begot serenity. The even climate, with its sunny skies, tended to inspirit as well as to invigorate. Almost every day she spent hours in driving and sailing, and as the season advanced she began to take ocean baths, which on that genial coast are suitable almost all the year round. Going ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... where joy went laughing late: The sicklied face of heaven hangs like hate Above the woodland and the meadowland; And Spring hath taken fire in her hand Of frost and made a dead bloom of her face, Which was a flower of marvel once and grace, And sweet serenity and stainless glow. Delay not. ...
— Poems • Madison Cawein
... The serenity and beauty of the night, the brilliancy of the stars which studded the deep purple vault above me, and the gentle murmur of the wind through the cutter's rigging, combined to produce a sensation of solemnity almost amounting to melancholy within me, and my thoughts flew back ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... lady has a secret grief, certain," said Grace. "There was real sorrow in her tones, and there is a sorrow in her face, despite its superb serenity." ...
— The Wedge of Gold • C. C. Goodwin
... any comparison between them. Essie has none of the ponderous Highness in her-only the Serenity." ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... excentric a variation, from the natural-history point of view, as is the passion for music or for the higher philosophical consistencies which consumes the soul of others. The feeling of the inward dignity of certain spiritual attitudes, as peace, serenity, simplicity, veracity; and of the essential vulgarity of others, as querulousness, anxiety, egoistic fussiness, etc.,—are quite inexplicable except by an innate preference of the more ideal attitude ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... snuggest of all quarters, the little triangle made by a mother's arm, settled himself for his daily nap, while the two women watched him with the eyes of affection. Never again do we so nearly attain perfect peace in this turbulent life as during those first few weeks when the untroubled serenity of human existence is infringed upon by nothing but a desire for nourishment, which is conveniently present, to be had at the first asking, and which there is such a heaven of delight in obtaining. We are told that ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... heard of their adventures at the bears' den he became serious at once. But it was not the strange noise they heard that disturbed his serenity. It was regarding the unknown ...
— Nan Sherwood at Rose Ranch • Annie Roe Carr
... destruction. Dismissing the reluctant Matilda to her rest, who in vain sued for leave to accompany her mother, and attended only by her chaplain, Hippolita had visited the gallery and great chamber; and now with more serenity of soul than she had felt for many hours, she met her Lord, and assured him that the vision of the gigantic leg and foot was all a fable; and no doubt an impression made by fear, and the dark and dismal hour of ...
— The Castle of Otranto • Horace Walpole
... before that we should be within range of the enemy's guns. It was a time of great trial to all of us, to the unhappy refugees especially; yet we could do nothing but hope. Captain Radford not only maintained his own serenity, but did his best to keep up the ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston
... These tortures he endured with fortitude and perseverance; when he was ordered to be fastened to a large gridiron, with a slow fire under it, that his death might be the more lingering. His astonishing constancy during these trials, and serenity of countenance while under such excruciating torments, gave the spectators so exalted an idea of the dignity and truth of the christian religion, that many became converts upon the occasion, of ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... last point in one of his earlier ambrotypes, if I remember rightly); there are tournures nothing can humanize, and movements nothing can subdue to the gracious suavity or elegant languor or stately serenity which belong to different styles ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... and satisfy our caprices, our follies, in the midst of excitement and strong emotions, living in a continual fever of suspicion, jealousy and envy, accumulating perhaps riches but withering up the soul which cannot enjoy even for a day the supreme blessing of serenity? ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... reflected in them. The satiety of enjoyment, of will satisfied the moment it was expressed, the isolation of a demigod who has no fellow among mortals, the disgust of worship, and the weariness of triumph had forever marked that face, implacably sweet and of granite-like serenity. Not even Osiris judging the souls of the dead could look more majestic and more calm. A great tame lion, lying by his side upon the litter, stretched out its enormous paws like a sphinx upon a pedestal, and winked its yellow ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... dreams, I lay on the night in question tranquilly sleeping, but gradually roused to a perception that discordant sounds disturbed the serenity of my slumber. Loth to stir, I still dozed on, the sounds, however, becoming, as it seemed, more determined to make themselves heard; and I awoke to the consciousness that they proceeded from a belt of adjacent jungle, and resembled the ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang
... inexhaustible urns—the one filled with good fortune and happiness, the other with misfortune and misery. Out of these is mixed a dose of life to every mortal man; and as the draught is, so are one's days embittered with disasters, or made pleasant with serenity, ease, and prosperity. To every star is allotted a mind, and all things have their fixed irrevocable laws. The human nature is twofold; and man, who lives well on earth, returns after death to the habitations of his congenial ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... sex Is a love that has brought me but sorrow. Why vex My poor soul with the same thing again? If you love With a higher emotion, you know how to prove And sustain the assertion by conduct. Maurice, Love must rise above passion, to infinite peace And serenity, ere it is love, to my mind. For the women of earth, in the ranks of mankind There are too many lovers and not enough friends. 'Tis the friend who protects, 'tis the lover who rends. He who can be a ...
— Three Women • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... expected at Folking, till each letter was regarded as the rising of a new sun. There is a style of letter-writing which seems to indicate strength of purpose and a general healthy condition on the part of the writer. In all his letters, the son spoke of himself and his doings with confidence and serenity, somewhat surprising his father after a while by always desiring to be remembered to Mr., Mrs., and Miss Bolton. This went on not only from month to month, but from year to year, till at the end of three years from the date at which the son had left Folking, there had come to be a ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... announced the real or pretended rejoicing of the inhabitants. The city gates received the living torrent, which rolled towards them; the clouds of smoke and dust were soon dispersed, and the horizon was restored to serenity and silence. ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott
... a moment broke the serenity of Christ's life on earth. Misfortune could not reach Him; He had no fortune. Food, raiment, money—fountain-heads of half the world's weariness—He simply did not care for; they played no part in His life; He "took no thought" for them. ...
— Beautiful Thoughts • Henry Drummond
... shaking his head, "no shadow! that's odd—the gentleman must have had a sad illness!" But he did not go on with his story, and at the next cross path he glided away from, me without saying a word. Bitter tears trembled again on my cheeks—all my serenity ...
— Peter Schlemihl • Adelbert von Chamisso
... had felt it would be all but impossible for me to attend Mrs. Porter's dinner, my talk with Blakely had so raised my spirits that now I was able to face the ordeal with something very like serenity. What did it matter? What did anything matter, so long as Blakely loved me? Then, too, I knew I was looking my very best; my white lace gown was a dream; Valentine had never ...
— Cupid's Understudy • Edward Salisbury Field
... knew of Colonel Ross, that he would use no harsh measures to compel his daughter to act contrary to her own inclinations. Still, he could not feel otherwise than pained and anxious. By the time, however, that he reached his friend's quarters, he had somewhat recovered his serenity of mind. He kept his own counsel, simply observing that Colonel Ross, on whom he had called, was not at home; and Captain Burnett ...
— The Young Rajah • W.H.G. Kingston
... Elizabeth herself started bolt upright and turned pale under her rouge as she clutched the arms of her chair. Before she could express her feelings the cornet solo began, and the entire audience gradually resumed its wonted serenity before the close ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... they burn the body, and set up a pillar where the pile was made, with an inscription to the honour of the deceased. When they come from the funeral, they discourse of his good life and worthy actions, but speak of nothing oftener and with more pleasure than of his serenity at the hour of death. They think such respect paid to the memory of good men is both the greatest incitement to engage others to follow their example, and the most acceptable worship that can be offered them; for they believe that though by the imperfection of human sight ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... face, of a bluish hue still, but already looking calm and peaceful, framed by the flowing white hair and beard, seemed asleep. He had been dead scarcely an hour and a half, yet already infinite serenity, eternal silence, eternal repose, ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... at this juncture that Sara rose from her chair and faced them, as calmly, as complacently as if she were about to ask them to proceed to the dining-room instead of to throw a bomb into their midst that would shatter their smug serenity for all time to come. With a glance at Mr. Carroll she began, clearly, firmly and without a prefatory apology for ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... floated silently. I heard a rustle as an old fig tree hard by dropped its latest leaves. On the sea-bank of yellow crumbling earth lizards flashed about me in the sunshine. After a dull morning, the day had passed into golden serenity; a stillness as of eternal ...
— By the Ionian Sea - Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy • George Gissing
... countenance. When she prayed, every morning and night, her countenance beamed with faith and charity; when she returned from the church, where she had received, with a calmness, a sweetness and a patience, which had in them something of the serenity of heaven, she seemed an angel. When she dressed my wounds I found her like a ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886 • Various
... a low couch near at hand, and there laid him gently down. This done, he stood looking at him with an expression of the deepest anxiety, but made no attempt to rouse him from his death-like swoon. His own habitual serenity was completely broken through,—he had all the appearance of having received some unexpected and overwhelming shock,—his very lips were blanched and ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... acquiescence in the Father's will, when, with such a loss apparently before him, his confidence was undisturbed that all things would work together for good. He could not but contrast with this experience of serenity, that broken peace and complaining spirit with which he had met a like trial in August, 1831, twenty-one years before. How, like a magnet among steel filings, the thankful heart finds the mercies and picks them out of the black dust of sorrow ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... temper, I say, that the metaphysician drew up his chair to its customary station by the hearth. Many circumstances of a perplexing nature had occurred during the day, to disturb the serenity of his meditations. In attempting des oeufs a la Princesse, he had unfortunately perpetrated an omelette a la Reine; the discovery of a principle in ethics had been frustrated by the overturning of a stew; ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... latter, by the lightest and least of animal food, and naturally fermented liquors. Both lived to a great age. But, what is chiefly to be regarded in their conduct and example, both preserved their senses, cheerfulness, and serenity to the last; and, which is still more to be regarded, both, at least the last, dissolved without pain or struggle; the first having lost his life in a tumult, as it is said by some, after a great ...
— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott
... quarter a movement took the party, and it pushed away its cheese plates and rose sighing and stretching from the remains of the repast, little streaks and bands of dyspeptic irritation and melancholy were darkening the serenity of ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... clearly the path to her great object. She turned now, therefore, the conversation to Evelina's own history and development. It was well known that her path through life had been an unusual one, and one of independence, and Elise wished now to know how she had attained to that serenity and refreshing quiet which characterised her whole being. Evelina blushed, and wished to turn the conversation from herself—a subject which she least of all would speak about, and that probably because she was in harmony with herself—but ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... hosts. Mrs. Cartwright was large, rather fat, and placid, but he felt the house and all it stood for were hers by rightful inheritance. Her son and daughter were not like that. Lister thought they had cultivated their well-bred serenity and by doing so had cultivated out some virile qualities of human nature. Grace Hyslop had beauty, but not much charm; Lister thought her cold, and imagined her prejudices were strong and conventional. Mortimer's talk and manners were colorlessly correct. Lister did not know yet if Hyslop ...
— Lister's Great Adventure • Harold Bindloss
... the then Ellen Green had been staying for a fortnight with her elderly mistress, there had occurred one of those sudden, pitiful tragedies which occasionally destroy the serenity, the apparent decorum, of a large, ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... the afternoon of a beautiful day towards the close of autumn, that charming but brief season which, in consequence of its unbroken serenity, has been styled the Indian summer. The men had all been dispatched into the mountains in various directions, some to fish, others to shoot; and none were left at the fort except its commandant with his wife and child, and Oolibuck the Esquimau. Stanley was seated on a ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... the first greenish glow was quickening the east, he tiptoed and stood gazing down at Storch. He had never seen a face more placid and untroubled. He felt that any man must have an extraordinary sense of self-righteousness to yield so completely to serenity in the face of deliberate crime. But Storch was of the stuff of which all fanatics were made. Ends to him always justified means. Of such were the Inquisitors of Spain, the Puritans of the Reformation, the radicals of to-day. They had neither doubts nor fears nor pity, and the helmets ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... advanced through the inlet, the fresh beauty of the country appealed to the English captain: "To describe the beauties of this region will be a very grateful task to the pen of a skilful panegyrist—the serenity of the climate, the pleasing landscapes, and the abundant fertility that unassisted nature puts forth, require only to be enriched by the industry of man with villages, mansions, and cottages to render it the most lovely ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... them to her breast again. The loveliness of her, the mindless, heartless, soulless loveliness, as of a maniac tamed, mocked at their agonies, mocked with her gentle indifference, mocked with her self-satisfied placidity, mocked with her serenity and her peace. For them she was dead—dead like those ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... canto of Kumara-Sambhava, Madana, the God Eros, enters the forest sanctuary to set free a sudden flood of desire amid the serenity of the ascetics' meditation. But the boisterous outbreak of passion so caused was shown against a background of universal life. The divine love-thrills of Sati and Shiva found their response in the world-wide immensity of youth, in which animals and ...
— Creative Unity • Rabindranath Tagore
... perhaps more than anything else to England was the smiling serenity with which he met criticism and loss. There may have been times when the English resented his desire for monopoly, but they forgot it in tremendous admiration for his courage and his resource. He revolutionized the economics of the British stage; he invested it with ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... play the opening piece of the second part, so I dare not stay longer. You are going?"—to Errington, who bowed assent. "Then I can give you a seat in my brougham," she continued, with calm, assured serenity. ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... the thrills of the glorified senses. The contemplation of heavenly beauty and of heavenly truth must indeed be beyond all our earthly standards of comparison. The clearness and instantaneousness of all the mental processes, the complete exclusion of error, the unbroken serenity of the vision, the facility of embracing whole worlds and systems in one calm, searching, exhausting glance, the Divine character and utter holiness of all the truths presented to the view—these are broken words which ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart
... description would refer to something which an ordinary observer would not see, or at least could not describe. It might be a sudden sense of anarchy in the brain of the assaulter, or a stupefaction and stunned serenity in that of the object of the assault. He might write, "Wainwood's 'Men vary in veracity,' brought the baronet's arm up. He felt the doors of his brain burst, and Wainwood a swift rushing of himself through air accompanied ...
— Robert Browning • G. K. Chesterton
... calm stock of us, and seeing that we were a pleasant-faced and by no means an antagonistic assembly—even Doria's curiosity lent her a semblance of a sense of humour—she relaxed her Olympian serenity and laughed a little, shewing teeth young and strong ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... deepest violet. There was never a definite sound, only the sibilance of a stillness made of many interwoven sounds, soft lisp of wavelets on the sands a hundred feet below, hum of nocturnal insect life in thickets and plantations, sobbing of a tiny, vagrant breeze lost and homeless in that vast serenity, wailing of a far violin, rumour of distant motor-cars. A night of potent witchery, a woman willingly bewitched. . ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... the delight we take in them. The song of the bobolink to me expresses hilarity; the song sparrow's, faith; the bluebird's, love; the catbird's, pride; the white-eyed flycatcher's, self-consciousness; that of the hermit thrush spiritual serenity: while there is something military in the call ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs |
