"Benignant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in every way, and of bold, far-reaching schemes, and is very sure to fare better at the hands of large men than of small. The first and last impression which his personal presence always made upon one was of a nature wonderfully gentle, tender, and benignant. His culture, his intellect, was completely suffused and dominated by his humanity, so that the impression you got from him was not that of a learned or a literary person, but of fresh, strong, sympathetic human nature,—such an impression, I fancy, only fuller, as one might have got ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... with most benignant aspect upon this plain. They seem quite proud of it, and nurse it with the care and tenderness of a parent. Noble rivers not a few—the Ticino, the Adige, and streams and torrents without number—do ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... benignant smile on Reginald's features was changed to a look of savage fierceness. He no longer resembled the man of culture, but a disappointed, snarling beast of prey. He took his hand from Ernest's forehead and retired cautiously through ...
— The House of the Vampire • George Sylvester Viereck
... obedience to his careful monitor, bowed lowly before the dignified presence; and, hardly raising his eyes, he stands abashed at his awful situation, waiting the supreme pleasure of the supposed officer. A benignant smile lights up the tutor's grave countenance; he enters strangely enough into familiar talk with the recently admitted collegiate; in pathetic terms he describes the temptations of this great city, the thousand dangers to which he will be exposed, the vortex ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... the stars were paling, And the dawn whitened, and the east was clear, Strange peace and rest fell on me from the presence Of a benignant spirit ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... profession; but later on he took a view of it which seemed non-progressive, and his success as a writer no doubt interfered with his practice. His friend Professor Masson draws a pleasant picture of him when he first settled in practice, as a dark-haired man with soft, fine eyes and a benignant manner, the husband of a singularly beautiful woman, and much liked and sought after in the social circles of Edinburgh. This was partly owing to the charm of his conversation, and partly to the literary reputation he had achieved through some articles ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... MacIan too much of a Northerner to know, slipped by among the tangle or ran pattering up the tree-trunks. Both the men, according to their several creeds, felt the full thunder of the psalm of life as they had never heard it before; MacIan felt God the Father, benignant in all His energies, and Turnbull that ultimate anonymous energy, that Natura Naturans, which is the whole theme of Lucretius. It was down this clamorous ladder of life that ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... Hope's smiling rays; Nor, when soft Pleasure boasts of lasting powers, With boundless trust the Promiser surveys. It is the same dread Jove, who thro' the sky Hurls the loud storms, that darken as they fly; And whose benignant hand withdraws the gloom, And spreads rekindling light, in all its ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... felt as if it would burst, for at this moment a horrible idea crossed his mind. He believed that what he saw was Rosarita's spirit, and he would rather a thousand times have known her living, though pitiless and disdainful, than behold her dead, though she appeared in the form of a gentle and benignant apparition. ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... the soul which turns to God as flowers to the sun. Too much idle strife about names and creeds; too little knowledge of the natural religion which has no name but godliness, whose creed is boundless and benignant as the sunshine, whose faith is as the tender trust of little children ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... imperative necessity. They combined infinite capacity with human and finite caprice. The attention they received from humans was distinctly utilitarian in character. These forces of wind and sun and rain might be brutal or benignant. Primitive man established, therefore, a system of magic, sacrifice, and prayer, whereby he might minimize the precariousness of existence, and keep ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... triumph, the whole world the scene of his glory, he, a certain ruin to pirates, the successful protector of commerce; useful through his familiarity, not low; after having ruled the sailors and the soldiers, a rough sort of people, in a fatherly and efficaciously benignant manner; after fifty battles in which he was commander or in which he played a great part; after incredible victories, after the highest honours though below his merits, he at last in the war against the English, nearly ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... caresses which are the bent of every sweet woman, who has begun by showering kisses on the hard pate of her bald doll, creating a happy soul within that woodenness from the wealth of her own love. That was Dorothea's bent. With all her yearning to know what was afar from her and to be widely benignant, she had ardor enough for what was near, to have kissed Mr. Casaubon's coat-sleeve, or to have caressed his shoe-latchet, if he would have made any other sign of acceptance than pronouncing her, with his unfailing propriety, to be of ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... haggard restless look had long been gone, repose had taken away the lean sharpness of countenance, the really pretty features had fair play, and she was astonishingly like her niece Lucy, and did not look much older. Her bridegroom was so beaming and benignant, that it might fairly be hoped that even if force of habit should bring back fretfulness, he had a stock of happiness sufficient for both. The chairs were jammed so tight round the table, that it was by a ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... strolling between Elder Wardle and Bishop Wright, bland, affable, and benignant. On the platform about him sat his Counsellors, the more distinguished of his suite, and the ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... looked at Hiawatha With a wise look and benignant, With a countenance paternal, Looked with pride upon the beauty Of his tall and graceful figure, Saying, "O my Hiawatha! Is there anything can harm you? Anything you ...
— The Song Of Hiawatha • Henry W. Longfellow
... "for the first time in her life beheld real inspiration,—for the first time heard the true tones of the piano." Rauch, the great sculptor, called upon them, and "won our hearts by his beautiful person and the benignant and intelligent charm ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton
... His Majesty, in a benignant manner, 'as known to myself, air as following. When my father was Engineer, Beadle, and Bill-Sticker to the parish of St. Andrew's, Holborn, he employed women to post bills for him. He employed women to post bills at the time of the riots of London. He died at the age of seventy-five ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... these words very quietly, his countenance gradually relaxing and smoothing into an amiable expression of forbearance. He looked up now at Aubrey with a smile that was almost benignant. ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... Curzon's, Crewe's, the Archbishop's (who delivered in the course of his remarks a benediction on me) and Bryce's (almost the best of all). It wasn't "oratory," but it was well said and well meant. They know how badly they need help and they do mean to be as good to us as their benignant insularity will permit. They are changing. I can't describe the great difference that the war has made in them. They'll almost become docile ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... benignant kindling in his eyes, O happy realm! the glad Columbus cries, Far in the midland, safe from every foe, Thy arts shall flourish as thy virtues grow, To endless years thy rising fame extend, And sires of nations from thy sons descend. May no gold-thirsty race thy temples tread, Insult thy rites, ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... The idea met with a general, if rather languid, approval. There was not even a flavour of partisanship about the proceedings, and the delegates were impartially selected from both sides. The great Howe regarded the project with a benignant eye. At this time he was the Imperial fishery commissioner, and it was his duty to inspect the deep-sea fishing grounds each summer in a vessel of the Imperial Navy. He was invited to go to Charlottetown as a delegate, and ...
— The Fathers of Confederation - A Chronicle of the Birth of the Dominion • A. H. U. Colquhoun
... that she never had seen a person at Mrs. Kitson's advanced stage of life with such a healthy, rosy visage. But every one has some pet weakness. Mrs. Kitson's was always fancying herself ill and nervous. Now, Flora had no very benignant feelings towards the old lady's long catalogue of imaginary ailments; so she changed the dreaded subject, by inquiring after the health of the old Captain, ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... there was silence, while I sat immovable revolving the situation, and the Zulus regarded me with a benignant interest. Goza took his snuff-box from his ear, shook out some into the palm of his hand and, after offering it to me in ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard
... first time two days ago,' replied Mr Cupples, who, seated on a sofa, was peering about the room with a benignant face. 'We ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... was, "What a well-favoured countenance! Oh that the good seed might fall on that soil, for it would surely flourish." The agreeable impression must have been mutual, for Mr. Irwine bowed to her with a benignant deference, which would have been equally in place if she had been the most dignified lady ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... tillers appealed to him; [Footnote: See next chapter.] the ocean and snowy Alps were beyond the range of his affections. His love of nature was heartfelt, but his nature was not ours; it was nature as we see it in those Roman landscapes at Pompeii; nature ancillary to human needs, in her benignant and comfortable moods. Virgil's lachrymae rerum hints at mystic and extra-human yearnings; to the troubadours nature was conventionally stereotyped—a scenic decoration to set off sentiments more or ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... resulted in the extraordinary exposures that are being made as this book goes to press. When that first pebble was thrown, the surface of the insurance pond was as placid as a mountain lake, unruffled by a ripple, and in it were reflected the benignant faces of the noble philanthropists who consented to spend their days conserving the interests of the widows and the orphans of America. The people had grown so accustomed to regarding the McCalls, the Perkinses, the Hydes, the McCurdys, and the Alexanders, whose eminent physiognomies looked out ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... a glance that the next workman is Adam's brother. He is nearly as tall; he has the same type of features. But Seth's broad shoulders have a slight stoop, and his glance, instead of being keen, is confiding and benignant. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... silence of foregone dissent!" To Concord came many kindred spirits, drawn by Emerson's magnetic attraction. Thither came, from Connecticut, Amos Bronson Alcott, born a few years before Emerson, whom he outlived; a quaint and benignant figure, a visionary and a mystic even among the transcendentalists themselves, and one who lived in unworldly simplicity the life of the soul. Alcott had taught school at Cheshire, Conn., and afterward at Boston on an original plan—compelling his scholars, for example, to flog him, when they ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... that his blood will keep the true rhythm, that his nerves will play as Nature bade them, that his sinews will bide the strain of exceptional task? Such a man may gaze with envy at those who "sweat in the eye of Phoebus," but he knows that no choice was offered him. And if life has so far been benignant as to grant him frequent tranquillity of studious hours, let him look from the reapers to the golden harvest, and fare ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... the softness of my tread upon the mossy ground and among the brown leaves enhanced the Christmas sacredness by which I felt surrounded. As the whitened stems environed me, I thought how the Founder of the time had never raised his benignant hand, save to bless and heal, except in the case of one unconscious tree. By Cobham Hall, I came to the village, and the churchyard where the dead had been quietly buried, "in the sure and certain ...
— The Seven Poor Travellers • Charles Dickens
... was hard on dark When evening trembled round thy glowworm lamp That shone across her shades and dewy damp A small clear beacon whose benignant spark Was gracious yet for loiterers' eyes to mark, Though changed the watchword of our English camp Since the outposts rang round Marlowe's lion ramp, When thy steed's pace went ...
— Sonnets, and Sonnets on English Dramatic Poets (1590-1650) • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... with a benignant smile. Charles saw that Ruth was leaning heavily against the low stone-wall. Before he had time to turn back, Mr. Alwynn had seen him, and had gone forward a step to meet him, holding out a welcoming hand. Charles was obliged to stop a moment while his hand ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... To use endeavours that a system which tends but to good be developed to the utmost, is not to manifest ambition, but to display the working of true benevolence. To seek the increase of the Church's power—essentially benignant in the world—is to aspire at what has been reserved for her, and to aim at what each of her members is under obligation to favour. Her enemies alone tend to hinder her advancement. The providence of God is directed to her welfare. The designs of satan are overruled ...
— The Ordinance of Covenanting • John Cunningham
... expires. Yet may you deign accept this humble song, Tho' wrapt in gloom, and from a faltering tongue; Tho' dark the stream on which the tribute flows, Not from the skin, but from the heart it rose. To all of human kind, benignant heaven (Since nought forbids) one common soul has given. This rule was 'stablish'd by th' Eternal Mind; Nor virtue's self, nor prudence are confin'd To colour; none imbues the honest heart; To science none belongs, ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... benignant, benign, clement, benevolent, charitable, gracious, humane, sympathetic.> (With this group compare the Cruel ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... characteristics and having peculiar fitness for the signally providential parts assigned them in this great work, which ought to fire the heart of every Christian in the land. One we have, thank God, still among us, equally loved and revered, who has long stood at the front in this mighty and benignant enterprise—may the day be slow in coming when his great heart shall be missed from these yearly councils! And still we may be sure that the resources neither of our humanity nor of the grace of God are in ...
— The American Missionary, Volume 42, No. 12, December, 1888 • Various
... Carmyle was annoyed. The word is weak. The interruption coming at such a moment jarred every ganglion in his body. The clicking noise of the drumsticks maddened him. And the gleaming whiteness of Mr. Williams' friendly and benignant smile was the last straw. His dignity writhed beneath this abominable infliction. People at other tables were laughing. At him. A loathing for the Flower Garden flowed over Bruce Carmyle, and with it a feeling of suspicion ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... and will redound to the future glory and distinction of your noble family. It is, in a word, the intention of the Holy Father to confer on your lordship the Grand Cross of the Most Noble Order of the Santo Spirito. And it is further the benignant purpose and wish of his Holiness to present you with this most honourable mark of his approbation with ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... House of Commons was Sir Fraunceys Scrope. He was the father of the House, though it was difficult to believe that from his appearance. He was tall, and had kept his distinguished figure; a handsome man, with a musical voice, and a countenance now benignant, though very bright, and once haughty. He still retained the same fashion of costume in which he had ridden up to Westminster more than half a century ago, from his seat in Derbyshire, to support his dear friend ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... whole history of Christianity proves that she has little indeed to fear from persecution as a foe, but much to fear from persecution as an ally. May she long continue to bless our country with her benignant influence, strong in her sublime philosophy, strong in her spotless morality, strong in those internal and external evidences to which the most powerful and comprehensive of human intellects have yielded assent, ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... more prone to these superstitions, because it was a favourite fancy of theirs that, in many instances, the change from life to death altered the temper of the human spirit from benignant to malevolent; or perhaps, that when the soul left the body, its departure was occasionally supplied by a wicked demon, who took the opportunity to enter ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... her off anywhere, if she won't go," said Mr. Hannay in a thick but penetrating whisper. He collapsed into a chair in front of Anne, where he seemed to spread himself, sheltering her with his supine, benignant gaze. ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... Under the benignant providence of Almighty God the representatives of the States and of the people are again brought together to deliberate for the public good. The gratitude of the nation to the Sovereign Arbiter of All Human Events should ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... rose considerably in the estimation of her companions, who had not shown themselves of such valiant mettle, and listening to her tale, Cornudet smiled the benignant and approving smile of an apostle—as a priest might on hearing a devout person praise the Almighty; democrats with long beards having the monopoly of patriotism as the men of the cassock possess that of religion. He then took up the parable in a didactic ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... anyone, still seemed to gaze at him, and not at his companion. He had much to think of, in association with a print that hung up in another place, where, in the centre of a wondering group, one figure that he knew, a figure with a light about its head—benignant, mild, and ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... to the town, one had but to look at it to be sure it had undergone no recent change—that in the day of Constantine Dragases it was the same summer resort it had been in the day of Medea the sorceress—the same it yet is under sway of the benignant Abdul-Hamid. ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... circles, namely, the horizon, the zodiac, theequator, and the equinoctial colure, meet, and, cutting each other, form three crosses. The sun is in the sign of Aries, "a better star," because the influence of this constellation was supposed to be benignant, and under it the earth reclothes itself. It was the season assigned to the Creation, ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 3, Paradise [Paradiso] • Dante Alighieri
... a generous and vivid faith in humanity, and he showed the natural effect of abandoning belief in another life by his energetic interest in arrangements for improving the lot of man in this life. But it would be far better to share the superstitious opinions of a virtuous and benignant priest like the Bishop in Victor Hugo's Miserables, than to hold those good opinions of Chaumette as he held them, with a rancorous intolerance, a reckless disregard of the rights and feelings of others, and a shallow forgetfulness ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley
... and Jane Linwood, at this time were not robed in any other than their ordinary attire; perhaps that was one reason why their maintenance of their characters was not quite so perfect as that of the principal two. Hamilton stretched forward his wooden sceptre to the queen with benignant haste and dignity. Daisy, only too glad to shrink away, closed her eyes and lay back in the arms of her attendants in a manner that was really very satisfactory. But the attendants themselves were ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 2 • Susan Warner
... rose before him in a solitary part of the city, and arrested his progress. The apparition was of preternatural size, and it stood before him in so ethereal and shadow-like a form, and the features beamed upon him with so calm and placid and benignant an expression, as convinced him that the vision was not of this world. AEneas saw at a glance that Creusa's earthly sorrows ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... providence and a free polity? Whatever the vigor and vitality of the stock from which he sprang, its mere vigor and soundness do not explain where this man got his great heart that seemed to comprehend all mankind in its catholic and benignant sympathy, the mind that sat enthroned behind those brooding, melancholy eyes, whose vision swept many an horizon which those about him dreamed not of,—that mind that comprehended what it had never seen, ...
— President Wilson's Addresses • Woodrow Wilson
... set down and let alone, she continued to storm and scold at the shepherd, crying she was a princess, and would like to know what right he had to touch her! But he only looked down upon her from the height of his tall person with a benignant smile, regarding her as a spoiled little ape whose mother had flattered her by calling her ...
— A Double Story • George MacDonald
... should tread. Through some sweet magic common in the skies The rosy banners are with saffron tinct: The saffron grows to gold, the gold is fire, And led by silence more majestical Than clash of conquering arms, He comes! He comes! He holds his spear benignant, sceptrewise, And strikes out flame ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... the women on the other. From this beginning, whether they meet or no, the company has existed continuously from this time and has recently been remodelled, as is related in the new articles of the company approved by the Most Illustrious Lord, Duke Cosimo, the very benignant protector of these ...
— The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors & Architects, Volume 1 (of 8) • Giorgio Vasari
... generous and healthful life; Miss Susan B. Anthony, looking all she is, a keen, energetic, uncompromising, unconquerable, passionately earnest woman; Clara Barton, whose name is dear to soldiers and blessed in thousands of homes to which the soldiers shall return no more—a brave, benignant-looking woman.... ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... his mummy-cloths, wearing the feathered crown, and holding in his hands, which projected from an opening in the wrappings, the crook and the scourge of power. Was he alive, or was he dead? Smith could not tell, since he never moved, only stood there, splendid and fearful, his calm, benignant face staring into nothingness. ...
— Smith and the Pharaohs, and Other Tales • Henry Rider Haggard
... are incomprehensibly great; but are they therefore untrue? Does not your heart of hearts tell you they are true? Does not that Revelation of Christ steal into your soul and feed it, satisfy it, as nothing else can, with a warm, benignant power, that ...
— The Crown of Thorns - A Token for the Sorrowing • E. H. Chapin
... though stranger guardian friends of Pleasure: I know that poor men lose, and rich men gain, Though oft th' unseen adjusts the seeming measure; I know that Guile may teach, while Truth must bow, Or bear contempt and shame on his benignant brow. ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... shunned like a pestilent tetter, nor shall any plague be fouler than thou. Such chastisement doth the power of heaven mete out to thee, for truly thy sacrilegious hands have slain one of the dweller's above, disguised in a shape that was not his: thus here art thou, the slayer of a benignant god! But when the sea receives thee, the wrath of the prison of Eolus shall be loosed upon thy head. The West and the furious North, the South wind shall beat thee down, shall league and send forth their blasts in rivalry; until with better prayers thou hast melted ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... truth her beneficent renovation and her chief blessing. So shall North and South, at length comprehending and appreciating each other, walk hand in hand along their common pathway to an exalted and benignant destiny, admonished to mutual forbearance and deference by mournful yet proud recollections of their great struggle, and realizing in their newly established and truly fraternal concord the opening of a long, bright vista of reciprocal ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... narrow house may be our home, Whose only mark is one grey stone. But Christ by entering in the tomb, Has dissipated all its gloom, And shed a bright, benignant ray, That opens on eternal day; And those that sleep in His embrace, Among the ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... the world right together and their thoughts drifted into a region of benignant aspirations. Then came Jenny and presently the detective followed her into a garden of flowers ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... Mercy,"—the captain evidently disliked his mission,—"I am sent from the van. We came to a place where the mountains thrust down upon the sea and leave but a narrow road by the ocean. Your slaves found certain Hellenes, rebels against your benignant government, holding a wall and barring ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... the wonderful felicities of girlhood, had Leonora been more peacefully content than during those moments of calm succeeding stress, as she met Arthur's eyes in the intimacy of a fraternal confidence. The large room was so tranquil, the curtains so white, and the sunlight so benignant in the caress of its amber horizontal rays. Rose lay asleep upstairs, Ethel and Millicent were at Oldcastle, John would not return for two hours; and she and Arthur were alone together in the middle of the long quiet chamber, talking quietly. She was ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... no others care For our great Fathers' fame, oh, care thou still, Thou, to whom Fate hath so benignant been, That those old days appear again, When, roused from dire oblivion's tomb, Came forth, with all the treasures of their lore, Those ancient bards, divine, with whom Great Nature spake, but still behind her veil, And with her ...
— The Poems of Giacomo Leopardi • Giacomo Leopardi
... the zodiac signs are pictured, Are the study of my life, Are the books where heaven has written Upon diamond-dotted paper, Upon leaves by sapphires tinted, With light luminous lines of gold, In clear characters distinctly All the events of human life, Whether adverse or benignant. These so rapidly I read That I follow with the quickness Of my thoughts the swiftest movements Of their orbits and their circles. Would to heaven, that ere my mind To those mystic books addicted Was the comment of their margins And of ...
— Life Is A Dream • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... benedictions, and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all—she is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will recommend the general cause, by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example:—she well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... The tone was benignant. Edwin had not been ordered abruptly off to bed, with a reprimand for late hours and silly proceedings generally. He sought the reason in vain. One reason was that Darius Clayhanger had made a grand bargain at Manchester ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... During the just, benignant sway of the "good Duke James," perhaps Fleurs was the happiest place of all Scotland to live in;—not a happier could be in the wide world. To have been born and brought up there, and in one's childhood to have had such a taste of the "golden age," I have always esteemed ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... motion, by a cord Tied to her arm, and picking thus from the lane Its sustenance, while the girl with pallid hands Was busy knitting in a heartless mood 515 Of solitude, and at the sight my friend In agitation said, "'Tis against 'that' That we are fighting," I with him believed That a benignant spirit was abroad Which might not be withstood, that poverty 520 Abject as this would in a little time Be found no more, that we should see the earth Unthwarted in her wish to recompense The meek, the lowly, patient child of toil, All institutes for ever blotted out ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... the poor, encouraging the faint-hearted, visiting the sick; in relieving distress, whenever and wherever he found it. His heart, his hand, and his purse were always open. With his story in one's mind he can almost see his benignant countenance moving calmly among the haggard faces of Milan in the days when the plague swept the city, brave where all others were cowards, full of compassion where pity had been crushed out of all other breasts by the instinct of self-preservation gone mad ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... nonsensical Latin, when his limited powers of Latin writing were brought to a full stop by the untranslateable word "Bosh". As he could make nothing of this, he wiped the perspiration from his forehead, and gazed appealingly at the benignant features of Mr. Verdant Green. The appealing gaze was answered by our hero ordering Mr. Pucker to hand in his paper for examination, and to endeavour to answer the questions which he and his brother examiner had been ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... the professor knocked the ashes out of his second pipe, and laid his hand upon the latch of Bressant's door, the expression upon his strongly-cut features was neither gloomy nor severe. There was a look in his eyes of benignant sweetness, all the more impressive because it made one wonder how it could find a place beneath such stern eyebrows and so deeply lined a forehead. But, cutting off an offending right hand, although ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... thee!" once again he cried, Then cleared his throat and looked indignant And marched away with wrinkled brow To stop the struggling tear benignant. ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... fate of their neighbors, that old house of theirs was changed into a TEMPLE. Columns took the place of the corner-posts, the thatch grew yellow and appeared a gilded roof, the floors became marble, the doors were enriched with carving and ornaments of gold. Then spoke Jupiter in benignant accents: "Excellent old man, and woman worthy of such a husband, speak, tell us your wishes; what favor have you to ask of us?" Philemon took counsel with Baucis a few moments; then declared to the gods their united wish. "We ask to be priests and guardians of this your temple; and since ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... pursuing you remorselessly," he said with a benignant smile. "You thought to escape my munificence, but it is in vain. Listen ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... unseen love Circle humanity, and like the lark Hid in the glory of the noonday sun, Pour o'er the world heaven's constant tenderness. Some in the soft-hued glimmering of dreams, Through the unfolded lattices of sleep, Steal to the soul in visions of delight, Pure and benignant as the evening dew That cools the bosom of the blushing rose. Some all unseen, save in the blessed care, That like a lover's arm, from life's rough way Presses the serried thorns that choke it up; But all as ...
— Eidolon - The Course of a Soul and Other Poems • Walter R. Cassels
... will always be found in habit, which, according as the will is directed rightly or wrongly, as the case may be, will prove either a benignant ruler or a cruel despot. We may be its willing subject on the one hand, or its servile slave on the other. It may help us on the road to good, or it may hurry us on the ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... following account: "In figure, John Adams was not tall, scarcely exceeding middle height, but of a stout, well-knit frame, denoting vigor and long life, yet as he grew old inclining more and more to corpulence. His head was large and round, with a wide forehead and expanded brows. His eye was mild and benignant, perhaps even humorous when he was free from emotion, but when excited it fully expressed the vehemence of the spirit ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... Lawgiver! Thou yet dost wear The Godhead's most benignant grace Nor know we anything so fair As is the smile upon thy face. Flowers laugh before thee on their beds, And fragrance in thy footing treads; Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong, And the most ancient heavens, through ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley
... Bells, Punch beheld brighter things. That pleasant pair, hand in hand, princely-looking both, and loving withal, bring a music as of marriage-bells "all in the wild March morning." And those other goodly and gracious presences, hint they not of Health and Home Happiness, and Benignant Art, and Humanity-serving Science, of Electric Sympathy, and Ready Rescue, of Mammon-thwarting Reform, and Misery-staying Benevolence; of all the spiritual charities and fairy graces that can bless ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, Jan. 2, 1892 • Various
... and ambitious a prince as the good Philip boded evil to the cause of freedom in the Netherlands. The spirit of liberty seemed to have been typified in the fair form of the benignant and unhappy Jacqueline, and to be buried in her grave. The usurper, who had crushed her out of existence, now strode forward to trample upon all the laws and privileges of the provinces which ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... notwithstanding that, as a strict Methodist, he scarcely seemed a very fit person to pronounce judgment upon stage plays, had exercised the powers entrusted to him with moderation. It was generally agreed that he was a considerate and benignant ruler, and that his career as Examiner offered few occasions for remark, although upon its close some surprise was excited at the exposure for sale by public auction of the many manuscripts of plays, &c., which ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... some handling on my part, was invited to fill the void which his removal had left among us, the wind again began to fisle, and the signs of a tempest were seen in the changes of the royal Councils. The gracious-hearted statesmen before spoken of were removed from their benignant spheres like falling stars from the firmament, and the Duke of Lauderdale was endowed with the ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... in the sand only a. short distance from Cheops. Imagine, if you can, with what feelings one gazes upon it. It is as old as the Pyramids, perhaps older, and there it still looks out upon the green and fertile banks of the Nile with the Libyan Desert behind. Its countenance has the same benignant cast, but it tells neither of sorrow nor of anger, neither of triumph nor of defeat. It tells you of no human passion, and yet seems to tell you of all—the end of all—and yet it is not a sad face. It is every thing and yet nothing. ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... the promotion of peace on this continent and throughout the world, and I trust that the time is nigh when, with the universal assent of civilized peoples, all international differences shall be determined without resort to arms by the benignant processes of arbitration. ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 8: Chester A. Arthur • James D. Richardson
... But when the service was done, and the benediction had fallen Forth from the hands of the priest, like seed from the hands of the sower, Slowly the reverend man advanced to the strangers, and bade them Welcome; and when they replied, he smiled with benignant expression, Hearing the homelike sounds of his mother-tongue in the forest, And, with words of kindness, conducted them into his wigwam. There upon mats and skins they reposed, and on cakes of the maize-ear Feasted, and slaked their thirst from the water-gourd of the teacher. Soon was their story ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... pastor, who a little before had seemed a prototype of John, the stern reformer from the wilderness, came out smiling and benignant, greeting his flock as a father might his children. The very hand that had been raised in denunciation, and in threatening a doom that would appall the heart of courage itself, was given to Gregory in a warm and cordial grasp. ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... spiritual inner eye, whose philosophy was hated and feared because of its subtle denial of the God in high heaven, to Baruch Mendoza the universe had seemed empty with an emptiness from which glared no divine Judge—his own people's Jahveh—no benignant sufferer appeared on the cross. He saw no future life except in the commingling of his substance with the elements; and for this contumacious belief, and his timidly bold expression of it, he had been waylaid and apprehended in the ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... her his arm and conducted her to the grotto. Sophia Dorothea felt disarmed by her son's resolute bearing, and she was almost convinced that she had done him injustice, and that no one was concealed in the grotto. With a benignant smile she had turned to her son, to say a few soothing words, when she heard a low rustle among the shrubbery, and saw something white flitting ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... not the place to speculate on the good or evil which resulted from this change in the Roman government. Most historians and philosophers agree that the change was inevitable, and proved, on the whole, benignant. It was simply the question whether the Romans should have civil wars and anarchies and factions, which decimated the people, and kept society in a state of fear and insecurity, and prevented the triumph of law, or whether they should submit to an absolute ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... unabated interest. He had run away for a change from the desert-like interior of his vast island, where he treated the ills of a large territory of sheep-herders, and to be on this mountain under such a benignant canopy, and to hear the folk-lore of the most fascinating race on earth, was to him worth ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... as of deep fatigue. It was the season after the harvest, and the great earth, the mother, after its period of reproduction, its pains of labour, delivered of the fruit of its loins, slept the sleep of exhaustion, the infinite repose of the colossus, benignant, eternal, strong, the nourisher of nations, the feeder of an entire world. Ha! there it was, his epic, his inspiration, his West, his thundering progression of hexameters. A sudden uplift, a sense of exhilaration, of ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... life a tempter prowls malignant, The cruel Nidhug from the world below. He hates that asa-light whose rays benignant On th' hero's brow and glitt'ring ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... breathing sweets, Her melodies of woods, and winds, and waters, Till he relent, and can no more endure To be a jarring and a dissonant thing Amid the general dance and harmony; But, bursting into tears, wins back his way, His angry spirit healed and harmonised By the benignant touch of ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 442 - Volume 17, New Series, June 19, 1852 • Various
... a sweet and winning face, as beautiful a face as I have ever known. Reposeful, gentle, benignant; the face of a saint at peace with all the world and placidly beaming upon it the sunshine of ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... head with a wise and now quite benignant smile. "How very delicious! After she has done that two or three times she'll get used to it." Then after a silence, "What does your son think of ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... women; and how far they also are called to a true queenly power,—not in their households merely, but over all within their sphere. And in what sense, if they rightly understood and exercised this royal or gracious influence, the order and beauty induced by such benignant power would justify us in speaking of the territories over which each of them reigned, ...
— Sesame and Lilies • John Ruskin
... more. She is said to have possessed a vigorous mind, to have been well educated and a fine conversationalist, with a commanding figure, benignant countenance, and dignified demeanor, so that one said of her, "She seems to have been born for an empress." Like her husband she was an Episcopalian though, according to the Memoirs, less strenuously Episcopalian than ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach
... with nosegays in their bosoms, and chanted their three songs apiece at the old shepherd's festival; and one could not help picturing to oneself what havoc among good people's purses, and tribulation for benignant constable, might be worked here by the arrival, over stile and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... didst answer, coming to this country. A few days agone I myself did repeat to you the message of the Bell; thou didst swear thou wouldst not answer, yet art thou here in Kuttarpur. Am I to be blamed for taking this for a sign of thy repentance?... Hazoor, the Body is patient, the Will benignant and long-suffering. Still is ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... fierce and malignant passions were at work in his bosom; such as a merciful and a benignant deity never wishes to see in the breast of man, whether civilized or savage. The self-command of the Tribeless, however, was great, and he so far succeeded in suppressing the volcano that was raging within, as to ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... Golden, Whiteface, Bennet's Pond, the plains of North Elba, the Skylight, with its singular rock whence is derived its name, and an infinity of peaks of every possible form, all gathered about us as doing homage to the stately monarch, the comely and benignant ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... vain did he protest that he had learnt by sad experience and was a changed man. They interpreted his pacific speeches by their experience of his actions; and thus his overweening conduct in the past blotted out all hope of his crowning a romantic career by a peaceful and benignant close. The declaration of outlawry was followed, on March 25th, by the conclusion of treaties between the Powers, which virtually renewed those framed at Chaumont. In quick succession the smaller States gave in their adhesion; ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... escape from peril. Gratitude was not a prominent characteristic of the Roman, but I have already remarked on the presence of it in the practice of the votum, and there is at least some evidence that it was recognised as due to benignant deities ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... in another day or so, and I may be able to do something for you." He moved with a certain conspirator-like caution to a corner of the room, and, lifting to one side a pile of canvases, revealed a stout barrel, which, he regarded with a fatherly and benignant eye. "I don't mind telling you that, in the fullness of time, I believe this is going to spread a good ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... the cure of diseases. When the Catholic form of worship prevailed in that country it was greatly resorted to, and old persons yet remember to have seen offerings left at the fountain in gratitude for benefits received from the benignant influence of the Saint's blessing on the water. At length it is said that a daughter of Donald, the son of Connal, expressed a wish to be baptized, and the father restrained her by violence. He also, with the aid of the Druids, forced Columba to take ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... irreproachable character but strong social tastes, which, while consistent with his own statement of what the world thought of him, did not serve to re-assure Mr. Chelm as to the success of my experiment. So it was consoling to me to see his expression continue benignant as he listened to ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... folds and uncovered hair, for her sun-bonnet lay on the turf beside her, her wistful eyes looking far away seaward, one could have compared her to a Norman or a Druidical priestess under the shadow of the sacred oak; there is at once something so benignant and strong, so full of pathos, in her ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... benignant expression of his face, the tearful look of his eye, and the quiver in his voice when he deprecated a resort to retaliatory measures. 'Once begun,' said he, 'I do not know where such a measure would stop.' He said he ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... opposing forces, will alter the character. I have observed a woman, for example, essentially the same at twenty and thirty—who is there who is not always essentially the same?—and yet, what was a defect at twenty, has become transformed and transfigured into a benignant virtue at thirty; translating the whole nature from the human to the divine. Some slight depression has been wrought here, and some slight lift has been given there, and beauty and order have miraculously emerged from what was chaotic. The same ...
— Mark Rutherford's Deliverance • Mark Rutherford
... the emblems of victory, and invests them with the insignia of their royal state. The glittering ranks are drawn up, in the form of a hollow square, about their King, whose form rises in majesty high above saint and angel, whose countenance beams upon them full of benignant love. Throughout the unnumbered host of the redeemed, every glance is fixed upon Him, every eye beholds His glory whose "visage was so marred more than any man, and His form more than the sons of men." Upon the heads of the overcomers, Jesus with His own right hand places the crown of glory. For ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White |
