"Benignant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... disturbing element, had struck them and driven them forth. Then after patterning everywhere the violet velvet of the evening air, abruptly soothed, they would return and be absorbed in the tower, deadly no longer but benignant, some perching here and there (not seeming to move, but snapping, perhaps, and swallowing some passing insect) on the points of turrets, as a seagull perches, with an angler's immobility, on the crest ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... however, when the professor knocked the ashes out of his second pipe, and laid his hand upon the latch of Bressant's door, the expression upon his strongly-cut features was neither gloomy nor severe. There was a look in his eyes of benignant sweetness, all the more impressive because it made one wonder how it could find a place beneath such stern eyebrows and so deeply lined a forehead. But, cutting off an offending right hand, although a bitter piece of work enough for the time being, may, in its after-effect, work as gracious ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... dawned with an extraordinary grandeur, so that Sunday in mid-October came up from behind Paradise Ridge with unusual beauty, only with the difference of calmness instead of splendor and peace instead of tumult. The sun was warm and benignant, with not a cloud in the deep blue sky to obscure its blessing. A gentle breeze blew in from the fields and meadows laden with rich harvest odors and every shrub and flower and vine which had been hiding back ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... denied, that in this instance, Calvin acted contrary to the benignant spirit of the gospel. It is better to drop a tear over the inconsistency of human nature, and to bewail those infirmities which cannot be justified. He declares he acted conscientiously, and publicly ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... the face from the sun. But while, for example, the projection of one peak shades the nose, the ears and cheeks are left to fish for themselves; or else, if the hat wheels round again to the front, the ears come under its benignant shade, but the tip of the proboscis suffers awfully. The cocked hat has always been a two-horned dilemna ever since the third peak moved up in the world from its original position of horizontal equality, and aspired to be a near neighbour ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... humbug, Mr. Stacy, but a question of benignant morality, which it is every woman's duty to take up and hurl back, till she totters on the brink, martyr-like, between heaven and earth! Don't you ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens
... 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
... disciplin'd, when Sorrow lours, Not sullenly excludes 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 ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... unfriendly English observer called him. His complexion was that of a man constantly exposed to the sun—sandy or freckled, contemporaries called it—but his features were clean-cut and strong and his expression was always kindly and benignant. ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... skin, over which he now and then swept a fine white silk handkerchief. He danced devotedly every minute during which he was not engaged in making others dance. Mrs. Hawthorne, gazing after him with a benignant smile, was truly grateful to him for putting into her party so much "go." It was his atmosphere rather than his words—though he did drop words, but not many or really in bad taste—that made him appear the one indispensable person ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... we human creatures heed the warnings of our good genius. I have no doubt that some benignant Power had precipitated Randal Leslie into the ditch, as a significant hint of the fate of all who choose what is, nowadays, by no means an uncommon step in the march of intellect—viz., the walking backward, in order to gratify a vindictive view of one's neighbor's ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... the proof of the contrary?—at least, if the position had been worded thus: The moral and spiritual obligation of keeping the Lord's Day is grounded on its manifest necessity, and the evidence of its benignant effects in connection with those conditions of the world of which even in Christianized countries there is no reason to expect a change, and is therefore commanded by implication in the New Testament, so clearly and by so immediate a consequence, as to be no less binding on the conscience ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... its throne. Her last hope gone, Torn by a torrent from her death-like grasp, Having no anchor on the eternal Rock, She plunged beside it, into gulphs profound. —She slept not, ate not, heeded no kind word, Caress of fondness, or benignant prayer: She only shriek'd, "My boy! my beautiful! They bind his hands!" And then with frantic cries She struggled 'gainst imaginary foes, Till strength was gone. Through the long syncope Her never-resting lips essay'd to form The gasping sounds, "My ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney
... 648; render a service, be of use; aid &c. 707. Adj. benevolent; kind, kindly; well-meaning; amiable; obliging, accommodating, indulgent, gracious, complacent, good-humored. warm-hearted, kind-hearted, tender-hearted, large-hearted, broad- hearted; merciful &c. 914; charitable, beneficent, humane, benignant; bounteous, bountiful. good-natured, well-natured; spleenless[obs3]; sympathizing, sympathetic; complaisant &c. (courteous) 894; well-meant, well-intentioned. fatherly, motherly, brotherly, sisterly; paternal, maternal, fraternal; sororal[obs3]; friendly &c. 888. Adv. with a good intention, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... 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 victor ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... such a reception might be, he was simply conscious of an act of public good-will, and prepared to respond in a fitting manner. He was standing on the prow at the time, and drawing his tall form to its full height, he regarded the crowd for a moment with a benignant smile; after which he removed his hat and ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... here a goodly land. A land full of promise, where your children have room enough to increase and to multiply, and to become, with God's blessing, greater and more prosperous than yourselves. But I am confident that no spell less potent than the gentle and benignant control of those liberal institutions which it is Britain's pride and privilege to bestow on her children, will insure the peaceful development of its unrivalled resources, or knit together into one happy and united family the various races ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... 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
... Corporation of the Trinity House to say that all was ready. A short delay was made to allow of the lighting-up being advertised, and finally, on the 16th of October 1759, the new Eddystone lighthouse cast its first benignant ...
— The Story of the Rock • R.M. Ballantyne
... they and their kind pay homage to a divine day on a fire-blue lake, amid the hush of the eternal hills. Lesser souls may find themselves speaking in few and low-pitched words, under the holy spell of such surroundings. But to loftier types of holiday-seekers, the benignant silences of the wilderness are put there by an all-wise Providence for the purpose of being fractured by any racket denoting care-free merriment;—the louder the merrier. There is nothing so racket-breeding as a perfect day amid ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... manifestations to which woman was periodically subject, the ancient peoples endowed her with spiritualistic forces which were sometimes held to be beneficent and at other times malefic in character. Whatever the attitude at any time whether her mana were regarded as evil or benignant, the savage and primitive felt that it was well to be on his guard in the presence of power; so that the taboos previously outlined would hold through the swing of man's mind from ...
— Taboo and Genetics • Melvin Moses Knight, Iva Lowther Peters, and Phyllis Mary Blanchard
... Bryant, the masterly law arguments of Lysander Spooner, the miscellanies of Margaret Fuller, the histories of Hildreth, Bancroft and Motley, Ticknor's History of Spanish Literature, Judd's Margaret, the political treatises of Calhoun, the rich, benignant poems of Longfellow, the ballads of Whittier, the delicate songs of Philip Pendleton Cooke, the weird poetry of Edgar Poe, the wizard tales of Hawthorne, Irving's Knickerbocker, Delia Bacon's splendid sibyllic book on Shakespeare, ...
— Walt Whitman Yesterday and Today • Henry Eduard Legler
... yet spoken to her, or stood face to face with her, and her first thought, as her eyes met his, 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 ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... became evident that the conservative sentiment of the Republicans and the country was with Mr. Lincoln, and that the confidence of the people in his patriotism and integrity was such as could not be shaken. Nevertheless, a small band of the radicals held out and would not assent to his benignant policy. These malcontents undertook to create a distinct political organization which, if possessed of power, would make a more fierce and unrelenting war on the rebels, break down their local institutions, overturn ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... defiantly thrown back head bent meekly down; a look of devout inspiration was visible on the thin lips and in the veiled eyes; the whole figure of the man seemed to have grown smaller, the shoulders contracted, the breast receded; he had now the air of a gracious and benignant missionary. ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... against them, took up arms in the cause of justice. The Madonna di Custonaci, however, intervened and saved her chosen people. It began with the Wrath of God, personified by a warrior armed with thunderbolts and lightning and setting forth to destroy the mountain. Then came the Angry Heavens, the Benignant Moon, Mars and Mercury ready to avenge the outrages done to God; Jove grasping a thunderbolt and about to hurl it against the comune, Venus anxious to overthrow the city, and Saturn whetting his golden scythe. ...
— Diversions in Sicily • H. Festing Jones
... logical basis of all optimism—the doctrine of original sin. The boy at this stage being an ignorant and inhuman idealist, regards all his faults as frightful secret malformations, and it is only later that he becomes conscious of that large and beautiful and benignant explanation that the heart of man is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. That Browning, whose judgment on his own work was one of the best in the world, took this view of Pauline in after years is quite obvious. He displayed a very manly ...
— Robert Browning • G. K. Chesterton
... remorselessly," he said with a benignant smile. "You thought to escape my munificence, but it is in ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... his little crew ate breakfast with great good cheer, then secured axes from the steamer's tool-house and began to chop watercourses in the ice. A benignant sun in a cloudless sky had enlisted himself as a member of the wrecking crew on Razee Reef. That weather would soon clear the Conomo of ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... Behold this poor old man, Last of a line of princes, stricken in years, As thy dead father would have been to-day. Was that white beard a rag for obscene hands To tear? a weed for lumpish clowns to pluck? Was that benignant, venerable face Fit target for their foul throats' voided rheum? That wrinkled flesh made to be pulled and pricked, Wounded by flinty pebbles and keen steel? Behold the prostrate, patriarchal form, Bruised, silent, chained. Duke, such is Israel!" "Unbind these men!" commanded Vladislaw. "Go ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus
... dost wear The Godhead's most benignant grace; Nor know we anything so fair As is the smile upon thy face: Flowers laugh before thee on their beds And fragrance in thy footing treads; Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong; And the most ancient heavens, through Thee, are ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... which flies to their head and makes them capable of ferocious actions, done, apparently, in cold blood. Being the result of an inward intoxication, this sort of dumb violence seems to be irreconcilable with their quasi-lymphatic outward man, and the tranquillity of their benignant glance. ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... the courtyard of the castle. Maddalo and his brothers, after this, attacked Tasso on the piazza, but ran away before they reached him with their swords. They were outlawed for the outrage, and the duke of Ferrara, still benignant to his poet, sent him a kind message by one of his servants. This incident weighed on Tasso's memory. The terror of the Inquisition blended now with two new terrors. He conceived that his exiled foes were plotting to ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... its benignant patronage over all the people of such town; or, if a stray Episcopalian or Seven-Day Baptist were here and there living under the wing of the parish, they were regarded with a serene and stately gravity, as necessary exceptions to the law of Divine Providence,—like scattered instances ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... imperial supremacy, shall speedily be confirmed. "Let the heavens rejoice and let the earth be glad" [Psalm 96:11], and let the whole people of the republic, hitherto afflicted exceedingly, grow cheerful for your benignant deeds. Let the proud minds of enemies be subdued to the yoke of your domination. Let the sad and depressed spirit of subjects be relieved by your mercy. Let the power of heavenly grace make you terrible ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... right sexual state. Only few experiences can attest how many and great, from infancy to death, and throughout eternity itself. All God could do He has done to render each sex superlatively happy in the other. Of all his beautiful and perfect work, this is the most beautiful and perfect. Of all his benignant devices, this is his most benign. All the divine attributes, all human happiness, converge in male and female ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... quiet, his smile was pleasant, but he did not like explosive laughter any better than Hawthorne did. None who met him can fail to recall that serene and kindly presence, in which there was mingled a certain spiritual remoteness with the most benignant human welcome to all who were ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... upon {these} sudden wings; and he gave him a curved beak, and crooked claws on his talons, his former courage, and strength greater {in proportion} than his body; and, now {become} a hawk, sufficiently benignant to none, he rages {equally} against all birds; and grieving {himself}, becomes the cause of grief ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... winds, and waters, Till he relent, and can no more endure 25 To be a jarring and a dissonant thing, Amid this general dance and minstrelsy; But, bursting into tears, wins back his way, His angry spirit heal'd and harmoniz'd By the benignant touch of Love and ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... sure that, whatever is meant by the "made Himself void," heauton ekenosen, which describes His Incarnation here, one thing it could never possibly mean—-a "Kenosis" which could hurt or distort His absolute fitness to guide and bless us whom He came to save. That awful and benignant "Exinanition" placed Him indeed on the creaturely level in regard of the reality of human experience of growth, and human capacity for suffering. But never for one moment did it, could it, make Him other than the absolute and infallible ...
— Philippian Studies - Lessons in Faith and Love from St. Paul's Epistle to the Philippians • Handley C. G. Moule
... who ordainest for mankind Benignant toils and tender cares! We thank Thee for the ties that bind The mother to ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... and a half which have elapsed since then have indeed seen extraordinary changes.*[2] The energy which the old borderers threw into their feuds has not become extinct, but survives under more benignant aspects, exhibiting itself in efforts to enlighten, fertilize, and enrich the country which their wasteful ardour before did so much to disturb and impoverish. The heads of the Buccleugh and Elliot ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles
... causes it arose that Marcus, Pertinax, and Alexander, being all men of modest life, lovers of justice, enemies to cruelty, humane, and benignant, came to a sad end except Marcus; he alone lived and died honoured, because he had succeeded to the throne by hereditary title, and owed nothing either to the soldiers or the people; and afterwards, being possessed of many virtues which made him respected, he always kept both orders in their ...
— The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... opportunities for display before the House of Lords. But it was his personal character, during a period of vacillating principles, and almost of disturbed national reason, which obtained that singular and benignant influence over his fellow-countrymen for which the life of Duncan Forbes is far more remarkable, far more admirable, than for the exercise of his brilliant and varied talents. He had "raised himself," observes the same discriminating commentator on his life and correspondence, "to ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson
... minds of another mould—minds which our modern life, with its hard positive forms, tends to produce. And as in certain climates plants and herbs, peculiarly adapted as antidotes to those diseases most prevalent in the atmosphere, are profusely sown, as it were, by the benignant providence of nature—so it may be that the softer and more romantic species of poetry, which comes forth in harsh, money-making, unromantic times, is intended as curatives and counter-poisons. The world is ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... 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 ...
— ANTHOLOGY OF MASSACHUSETTS POETS • WILLIAM STANLEY BRAITHWAITE
... Olympus slew his slain. He has the greatest of allies! Doubters are dastards in his eyes, And grumblers at their deified Young Emperor in his proper pride. Should shake from their false shoes Germania's dust. The Muse Must sing Jove-WILHELM great and good, By a benignant fate Lifted, gifted, gifted, lifted, Lifted to a god's ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, March 5, 1892 • Various
... waters, and balmy woods—inviting homes for millions and millions of human beings, or rather let him say for flourishing nations. (Applause.) The present marked a great era in the history of this hemisphere. A benignant Providence had lifted the cloud of their ignorance, and they heard a kindly voice calling upon them to arise, to go forth, to possess, to subdue, to people this goodly land. (Hear, hear.) The friends whose success they ...
— Journal of Landsborough's Expedition from Carpentaria - In search of Burke and Wills • William Landsborough
... harness and chattering voices and ringing hoofs. From a south porch on the one hand, and a swinging gate on the other, friends called a cheery greeting; elderly people jogging past in slow buggies, met the pleasure-seekers with a benignant smile; foot-passengers turned and waved their wide sombreros, and over yonder the Peak beamed upon them, with never a hint of warning; for the gray vapor hovering there was far too slight a film to cast a shadow upon that broad and ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... doing injustice to her character and leaving one of her noblest deeds unrecorded, to close without mentioning the influence for good which she exerted over Mr. Adams, and her part in the work of making him what he was. That he was sensible of the benignant influence of wives, may be gathered from the following letter, which was addressed to Mrs. Adams from Philadelphia, on the 11th ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... Pantheistic mythology. The faith of further India takes form and colour from the idiosyncracy of Java, and the goddess Parvati, or Kali, worshipped under these different names according to her attributes of glory or terror, becomes Lora Jonggran, the benignant goddess of Java, popularly known as "the maiden of the beauteous form." Four lofty stairways ascend to the hoary chapels within each sculptured pyramid, every dusky vault containing the broken image of the ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... badinage—I hope far distant is the day When from these scenes terrestrial our friend shall pass away! We like to hear his cheery voice uplifted in the land, To see his calm, benignant face, to grasp his honest hand; We like him for his learning, his sincerity, his truth, His gallantry to woman and his kindliness to youth, For the lenience of his nature, for the vigor of his mind, For the fulness of that charity he bears to all mankind— That's why we folks who know him best ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field
... an eminent example of this peculiar merit. A calm benignant beauty shines over all this picture, and goes directly to the heart. It seems almost to call you by name. The sweet and sublime face of Jesus is beyond praise, yet how it disappoints all florid expectations! This familiar, simple, home-speaking countenance is as if one should meet a friend. ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... followers 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 ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... Copping sat on her other side, and she had tried to exchange a word or two now and then with him, but she failed in drawing out any ready response, and so she devoted all her energies to Professor Flick. She asked him all the questions she could think of concerning folk-lore. The Professor was benignant in his explanations. He was, she assumed, quite compassionate over her ignorance on the subject. She was greatly interested in his American accent. How strong it was, and yet what curiously soft and Southern tones one ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... not, make it cheap! For holy uses will we keep. A thing so pure, a thing so great As Heaven's benignant gift of hate. ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... constant all the seasons through, Sinister, watchful, and a thick cloud drew Over the mind when its simplicity Challenged what seemed with thought of what must be.... She wondered, seeing how a child could play Lightly in a shady field all day: For in that golden, brief, benignant weather When spring and summer calling run together And the sun's fresh and hot, she saw deep guile In the sweetness of that unconditioned smile. Sweetness not sweetness was but indifference Or wantonness disguised, to her grave sense; And if she ...
— Poems New and Old • John Freeman
... her with a sharp clang, and, left to himself, Mr. Dyceworthy again smiled—such a benignant, fatherly smile! He then walked to the window and looked out. It was past seven o'clock, an hour that elsewhere would have been considered evening, but in Bosekop at that season ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... morning I was quite a different being. I no longer felt fearful of stealing a glance at Julia; on the contrary, I contemplated her steadily, with the benignant eye of a benefactor. Shortly after breakfast I found myself alone with her, as I had on the preceding morning; but I felt nothing of the awkwardness of our previous tete-a-tete. I was elevated by the consciousness of my intellectual superiority and should almost have felt ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... perspective. He called to mind the sensuous melancholy of the birches, the foxgloves, the hedgerows smothered in dog-roses; he remembered the nights, full of fairy-like suggestion and odours of earth and budding leaves—those wonderful nights with their silvery radiance, calm and benignant, streaming upwards ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... of the bull's-eye put a stop to further remark, and a few seconds later our hero went over the side, while Ram-stam, smiling benignant indifference as to the event which had so recently ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... twenty thousand saints, who wish to witness his triumph. On seeing him approach, the good angels exult, while the wicked are seized with terror, although they disdain to flee. Bidding the angelic host watch him triumph single-handed over the foe, the Son of God changes his benignant expression into one of wrath, and hurls his thunder-bolts to such purpose that the rebels long for the mountains to cover them as on the previous day. With these divine weapons Christ ruthlessly drives Satan and his hosts out of ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... to receive us. We were welcomed by a lady with a most sweet, benignant countenance, and by her companion, some years younger. The first was Mrs. Morrison—the other, Miss Elizabeth Dodge, daughter of ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... wholly wrapped in the truths he was contemplating, and heeded not our presence. We stood still for a moment, unwilling to break a repose so peaceful and profound. At length, raising his eyes from the page, they caught the form and face of the princess, who stood nearest to him. A quick and benignant smile lighted up his features; and rising slowly to his full height, he bade her welcome, with sweet and tremulous tones, ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... plague combined. They not only undermine prosperity, but they also cause its springs to dry up. As a result the government must buy its grain in Odessa, while endless stretches of fertile land, under a most benignant sky and at only an hour's distance from a city of eight hundred thousand people, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... 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
... of Battle Abbey is to vulgarise it. One comes away with confused memories of grey walls embraced by white clematis and red rose; gloomy underground caverns with double rows of arches, where the Brothers might not speak; benignant cedars blessing the turf with extended hands; fragrant limes waving their delicate leaves; an old rose garden with fantastic beds; a long yew walk where the Brothers might meditatively pace—turning, perhaps, an epigram, regretting, perhaps, the world. Nothing now remains ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... of 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
... and benignant, had been looking at him thoughtfully; when he broke the short silence it was to remark that concessions flew about thick in the air of Costaguana. Any simple soul that just yearned to be taken in could bring down a ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... 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? ...
— The Song Of Hiawatha • Henry W. Longfellow
... decision and energy when occasion demanded,—it was our uniform custom to call upon this gentleman, Herr Lippe, and inform him that we had visited such or such a tavern, and the occasion of our doing so. A benignant smile, and his usual "It is very well, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... eye brightened, and under the benignant influence of the cocktails his courage began ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... but observe that the Doctor accompanied these words with a benignant and protecting glance at their subject, in which there was much of the expression with which an attached father might have looked at a heavily afflicted son. Yet, that they were not father and son must have been plain to most eyes. The Assistant, on the other hand, turning ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens
... chapter.] the ocean and snowy Alps were beyond the range of his affections. His love of nature was heartfelt, but his nature was not ours; it was nature as we see it in those Roman landscapes at Pompeii; nature ancillary to human needs, in her benignant and comfortable moods. Virgil's lachrymae rerum hints at mystic and extra-human yearnings; to the troubadours nature was conventionally stereotyped—a scenic decoration to set off sentiments more or less sincere; the roman-ticists ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... 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 on the Academy ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... my own act, and fled Below, and dost thou hate me even here? Balder upbraids me not, nor hates at all, Though he has cause, have any cause; but he, When that with downcast looks I hither came, Stretch'd forth his hand, and with benignant voice, Welcome, he said, if there be welcome here, Brother and fellow-sport of Lok with me! And not to offend thee, Hermod, nor to force My hated converse on thee, came I up From the deep gloom, where I will now return; But earnestly I long'd to hover ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... revelling in the abundant fruits of thriving industry, and jealous of the maintenance of laws which had proved their benefactors. In the happy leisure of affluence they forsake the narrow circle of immediate wants and learn to thirst after higher and nobler gratifications. The new views of truth, whose benignant dawn now broke over Europe, cast a fertilizing beam on this favored clime, and the free burgher admitted with joy the light which oppressed and miserable slaves shut out. A spirit of independence, which is the ordinary companion of prosperity and freedom, ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... humor, the undaunted infant looked down as innocent as a chubby, cheery face painted on some household clock. The innocent expression of the child touched the mathematician's heart. He filled a glass with good Madeira wine, and drank the devourer's health in these benignant words: ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... in a whisper when none heareth, when the sun is low: "What doeth MANA-YOOD-SUSHAI?" Roon is no god that thou mayest worship by thy hearth, nor will he be benignant to thy home. ...
— The Gods of Pegana • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... firelight dancing on tinted walls, and an angel of deliverance sitting by her bedside—a dear familiar woman angel, whose fair crowned head rose from a cloud of white, and whose sweet downward gaze held all of benignant motherhood that God could put into ...
— Marm Lisa • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... about him a sound and healthy morality, that was as natural to him as its delicate odor is to the rose. Modest and gentle as a woman; sympathetic as a child; guileless as the day; a logical, well-trained, accurate mind; a horror of injustice; absolutely devoid of resentment; a benignant countenance, and a splendid physique, made him indeed a ...
— Memorial Addresses on the Life and Character of William H. F. Lee (A Representative from Virginia) • Various
... superior court judge. Martin had met him a number of times and had failed to like him. He and Ruth's father were discussing labor union politics, the local situation, and socialism, and Mr. Morse was endeavoring to twit Martin on the latter topic. At last Judge Blount looked across the table with benignant and fatherly pity. Martin smiled ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... 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, envy and ambition, ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... 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
... move in the historic controversy that has 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 ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... folded over the small packet, wondering what it contained, regretting that the conditions of the gift prohibited her opening it for so many long years, and striving to divest herself of a haunting foreboding that she had looked for the last time on the bright benignant countenance of the donor, who was indissolubly linked with the happiest memories of her ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... foremost in the charge, but suddenly an impulse seized him to stop his warriors, lest one in the heat of excitement should do a mischief to the stranger. The canoe with its occupant was now very near, and it could be seen that the expression of his face was very gentle and even benignant. None could doubt his utter harmlessness; and the chief's son afterward declared that at this moment he felt a premonition of some event, but whether good or evil he could ...
— Old Indian Days • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... Fortunees, where the bland naivete of the pedantry would almost disarm the present members of that Critical Regiment, of which the Abbe, in his turn, was not so much a chaplain as a most combatant officer. The very title goes on to neutralise its attractiveness by explaining—with that benignant condescension which is natural to at least some of its author's class—that it "contains the Moral Philosophy of the Stoics under the veil of several agreeable adventures in the form of a Romance"; and that ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... was also present, whose Constitutional History, you will remember, gave rise to one of Macaulay's finest reviews; a quiet, retiring man, with a benignant, somewhat sad, expression of countenance. The loss of an only son has cast a shadow over his life. It was on this son that Tennyson ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... I did!" laughed Dinah; and then seeing that his expression was so benignant she slipped an ingratiating hand through his arm. "Colonel, ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... of considerable talent, which required only a fair field for its development. But he was the child of misfortune, and his morning of life was overcast by clouds and tempests. If his character, naturally benignant, sometimes showed the fiery sparkles of the vindictive Indian temper, some apology may be found, not merely in his blood, but in the circumstances of his situation. He was more sinned against than sinning; and, if conspiracy could ever ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... be a leper again, a plague-stricken wretch, only to drink a cup of water from that dear hand—only to feel the touch of those light fingers on my forehead! There was a magic in that touch that surpassed the healing powers of kings. There was a light as of heaven in those benignant eyes. But, oh, she is changed since then. She is plague-stricken with the contagion of a profligate age. Her wings are scorched by the fire of this modish Tophet She has been taught to dress and look like the women around her—a little more modest—but after the same fashion. The nun I worshipped ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... by a very strict and punctilious observance of festivals, which are regulated by the motions of the sun, at whose rising and setting they have their appropriate ceremonies. Those which are kept at sunrise, are gay and cheerful, like the hopes which the approach of that benignant luminary inspires. The others are of a grave and sober character, as if to prepare the mind for serious contemplation in their long-enduring night. When the earth is at the full, which is their midnight, it is also a season of ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... position. France seemed on the verge of another convulsion. A certain distinguished politician recommended the Count de Chambord to hold himself ready to enter at once as a candidate for the throne. And the Count, with a benignant smile on his handsome face, answered, 'All wrecks come to the shore: the shore does not ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... It was lighted by candles only. We were seven in all, and I sate by Father Payne. Dinner was very plain. There was soup, a joint with vegetables, and a great apple-tart. The things were mostly passed about from hand to hand, but the old butler kept a benignant eye upon the proceedings, and saw that I was well supplied. There was a good and simple claret in large flat-bottomed decanters, which most of the men drank. There was a good deal of talk of a lively kind. Father Payne was rather silent, though he struck in now and then, but his silence ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... was abundantly satisfied with himself. "Am I doing it well?" he quietly asked of Constance, somewhere about ten o'clock, and on receiving the reply, "Very well," he gave his friend a more benignant smile than he had bestowed upon her since the old days of semi-sentimental intimacy. He would much have liked to talk over the evening with her before he went to bed; as that was impossible, he pressed her hand very warmly at leave-taking, ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... returned, bland and benignant as before; but I thought she had forgotten to give the "poor ittie doggie" anything to eat, judging by the avidity with which he swallowed down chance pieces of cake. The tea-tray was abundantly loaded—I was pleased to see it, I was so hungry; but I was afraid the ladies present ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... unless for misuser, or some legal ground of forfeiture. So shall a true reconcilement avert impending calamities, and this most solemn national accord between Great Britain and her colonies stand an everlasting monument clemency and magnanimity in the benignant father of his people; of wisdom and moderation in this great nation, famed for humanity as for valour; and of fidelity and grateful affection from brave and loyal colonies to their parent kingdom, which will ever protect and ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... walking gentleman, A leading juvenile, First lady in book-muslin dressed, With a galvanic smile; Thereto a singing chambermaid, Benignant heavy pa, And oh, heavier still was the heavy vill- Ain, ...
— Humour of the North • Lawrence J. Burpee
... the vast realm where tender memories brood O'er sacred haunts of time, That woo his spirit to a nobler mood And more benignant clime,— ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... golden throne, was borne forward to the stone breastwork, on which two crowns had been placed by their bearers. The pontiff rose from his seat and the sun shone full upon his venerable form. He wore a white robe embroidered with gold, and his appearance was radiant with light. The benignant smile that illumined his countenance outshone all the ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai
... mother, who, in speechless grief, Mourn'd o'er her infant's unprotected state, Benignant charity affords relief, And bids her bosom ...
— Poetic Sketches • Thomas Gent
... sallies with good-humored contempt. To-day, he is in other mood. He smiles—always a bad sign with him, as the natural expression of his truly benignant mood is a fierce ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... strange to see, amidst the peaceful, benignant faces, this woe-begone old man, with his thick white hair and his deeply furrowed placid cheeks, looking wistfully from one to the other, and listening anxiously, hoping some day to hear the words which should bring peace to ...
— Skipper Worse • Alexander Lange Kielland
... 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 just ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... of Saxe-Royale," she said to him, with a benignant smile; "and you have got through that ...
— Bimbi • Louise de la Ramee
... elms, with her straight white folds and uncovered hair, for her sun-bonnet lay on the turf beside her, her wistful eyes looking far away seaward, one could have compared her to a Norman or a Druidical priestess under the shadow of the sacred oak; there is at once something so benignant and strong, so full of pathos, in her ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... bare, grey, craggy verse, always a landscape of Yorkshire moors, with its touches of stern and tender memory, 'The mute bird sitting on the stone,' 'A little and a lone green lane,' has a quality more thrilling than that of Wordsworth. There is none of his observation, and none of his sense of a benignant 'presence far more deeply interfused'; but there is the voice of the heart's roots, crying out to its home in ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... further talk from him. He did not want the two men, sorry they had drawn up their chairs. His heart was very tender to them—Fallows and Abel, and the woman who had changed him. They were before him now as messengers from the benignant empire of the future—strange strong souls gathered together now in waiting at the end of a road.... He told them of the bomb-proof pit, the naked animalism of Kohlvihr, the infantry advances and of Samarc. ...
— Red Fleece • Will Levington Comfort
... grand thing, too, to have a beautiful daughter to go about with ... and I would be old and silver-haired and benignant-looking ... and people would say, as they saw the two ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... pile on this bright winter's morning looked almost hypocritically serene and benignant. The sunlight bathed the stern cliff which yesterday had buffeted back the wind with a roar as fierce as itself; and in the quiet spring-like air the peaceful bleating of sheep was the only sound to be heard on ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... homeless ward upon his arm, the benignant old lawyer underwent a series of scathing rebuffs from the various high-strung descendants of better days at whose once luxurious but now darkened homes he applied for the desired board. Time after time was ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2, No. 29, October 15, 1870 • Various
... a very turbulent and intractable race of men, were overawed by the power of Catharine, and the masses of the Polish people were doubtless benefited by their transference to new masters. Russia was far more benignant in its treatment of the conquered provinces, than were her ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... seemed to blink owlishly through the facets of its decanter, like some hoary captive dragged forth into light after years of subterraneous darkness—something querulous in the sudden liberation of it. Or say that it gleamed benignant from its tray, steady-borne by the hands of reverence, as one has seen Infallibility pass with uplifting of jewelled fingers through genuflexions to the Balcony. Port has this in it: that it compels obeisance, master of us; as opposed to brother and sister wines wooing us with a coy flush ...
— A Christmas Garland • Max Beerbohm
... we were in Philadelphia, the Captain at the house of the friends so often referred to, and I the guest of Charley, my kind companion. The Quaker element gives an irresistible attraction to these benignant Philadelphia households. Many things reminded me that I was no longer in the land of the Pilgrims. On the table were Kool Slaa and Schmeer Kase, but the good grandmother who dispensed with such quiet, simple grace these and more familiar delicacies was literally ignorant of Baked ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... mystery to him. That there should come new days—that the deeds of yesterday should be forgot in the shadows of yesterday—that as the dawn new hope should come unfailing, clean, benignant. ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... half past ten, I think, and the morning was warm and pleasant, when there gently sailed into the secretary's room, through the open window, a wasp. I saw him come in, and I do not think I ever beheld a more agreeable or benignant insect. His large eyes were filled with the light of a fatherly graciousness. His semi-detached body seemed to quiver with a helpful impulse, and his long hind legs hung down beneath him as though they were outstretched to assist, befriend, or succor. ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton
... and strong men clung in agony to the pillars of the church. Obviously, we do not believe in that kind of God any more, and as always in reaction we swing to the opposite extreme, so in the theology of these recent years we have taught a very mild, benignant sort of deity. One of our popular drinking songs sums up this aspect ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick
... before attempting mutual extermination, they will be sure to find a meaning in beliefs which are different from their own. The old Calvinistic spirit was almost savagely exclusive. While the author of the "Ten Great Religions" was growing up in Boston under the benignant, large-minded teachings of the Rev. James Freeman, the famous Dr. John M. Mason, at New York, was fiercely attacking the noble humanity of "The Universal Prayer." "In preaching," says his biographer, "he once quoted Pope's lines as to God's being adored ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... iodine, and, for a moment, she held his hand, examining critically an old ragged white scar on the index-finger of his right hand. And quite suddenly, to his profound amazement, she bent her head and swiftly implanted upon that old scar a kiss so light, so humble, so benignant, so pregnant of adoration and gratitude that he stood before her confused ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... eighty-third birthday of this aged saint. Had they known it was to be the last, they could have wished nothing changed. It was a perfect winter's day, and the scene in the old parsonage was perfect too. There, surrounded by children and children's children, sat the venerable grandmother with a benignant smile upon her face and the peace of God in her heart. As she received in birthday gifts and kisses and congratulations their loving homage, the measure of her joy was full, and she seemed ready to say her Nunc dimittis. She belonged to the number of those holy women of the old time ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... And understand—I don't blame nobuddy. Folks are different. I always loved pretty dishes, but I never got to use 'em. First on account of you being little"—she eyed Nellie and Marvin with benignant allowance—"and after that, because of Nell always bein' agen' using things common. She's like her father. He was thataway. He was a good man, but he 'lowed good things shouldn't be used common. And then when Myry come with her purty weddin' dishes and all, I'd ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... the visitors began to arrive, although the train from Dublin which was to bring the very elect was not due for another half-hour. Lady Geoghegan, grown pleasantly stout and cheerfully benignant, came by a local train, and rejoiced the eyes of beholders with a dress made of one of the convent tweeds. Sir Gerald followed her, awkward and unwilling. He had been dragged with difficulty from his books and the society of his children, and ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... assurance that the Fair and Good Woman, who is your Wife, is out of peril from lawless men. By the same Packet-ship that brought the Letters from Monsieur Foscue came a Sum sufficient Doubly to Ransom the Young Woman. The benignant protection of his Eminence has been extended to her, and she will in a few days return to France, and to ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... of this country are as healthy as any people under Heaven. A benignant Providence has adapted the climate, soil, and productions, of every part of the globe to the constitutions of those races of mankind which it has placed there. Nor is Africa an exception. In spite of her desolating wars, and the immense drain of her ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... abbess smiling and benignant, denotes you will be surrounded by true friends and ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... womanly. I could not help fancying that this great prelate's success in his Archbishopric was largely due to the disinterested advice of this noble woman. It is clearly to be seen that the Countess was the benignant power behind the throne, and she watched his continued advancement with a love resembling that lavished on a favorite son. Her writings now and then betray an affection of a quality so motherly that I came to believe she was much older than the great Churchman, but then there is the fact that she ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... the entrance hall on this chill November night, greeted him as a benignant welcome. He bummed a tune cheerfully as he climbed the stairs, and was smiling genially when he entered ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners
... a young man of unexceptionable character, and of a disposition mild, serious and benignant: his principles and blameless conduct obtained the universal esteem of the world, but his manners, which were rather too precise, joined to an uncommon gravity of countenance and demeanour, made his society rather permitted as a duty, than ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... certain garden in Frankfort within which many marvellous things happened; a true romance of incident and adventure which became as real to the romancer as to his eager and credulous listeners. De Quincey created an imaginary kingdom, peopled with imaginary beings whom he ruled with benignant wisdom, amid universal prosperity and peace, until, in an unlucky hour, he admitted his brother into a partnership of authority; and that brother, unable to withstand the temptation of absolute power, became a remorseless tyrant. And De Quincey ...
— Essays On Work And Culture • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... further, and visions of a premature initiation flitted uneasily through her nimble mind. Miss Green, however, said nothing further, taking up her tools and going on with her work with a complacent and benignant smile in ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... sometimes called in those days, was at home and tripped into the room with the elastic step of a girl, although she was considerably over three score years and ten. She was very petite and fair, with a sweet benignant countenance that inspired at once admiration and affection. Almost her first words to me were: "What a pity you did not come ten minutes sooner; for if you had you would have seen Mr. Thomas Campbell, who has just gone ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... was a density to the darkness that almost excluded the penetration of thought. The mind could pass no farther than the immediate vicinity. Since the sun had set a thick layer of clouds had lined the canopy of heaven, veiling the winks of the brightest stars and the benignant light of the moon. ...
— Bamboo Tales • Ira L. Reeves
... name of Columba, and is considered of superior efficacy in 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 ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... sisters," she said, with a complacent look of benignant condescension, "I hope soon to know how you approve of our dinner. It is my constant study to make you happy, and my efforts are unceasing to afford you every gratification in ...
— Folk-lore and Legends: German • Anonymous
... Cotton's translation—it is my fancy to prefer this one to the more famous Florio's—there seems to me to arise from these rambling discourses, a singularly wholesome savour. I seem to see Montaigne's massive and benignant countenance as he jogs home, wrapped against the wind in the cloak that was once his father's, along the muddy autumn lanes, upon his strong but not over-impetuous nag. Surely I have seen that particular cast of features in the weather-beaten face of many a farm ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... spirit; ardent, open, affable; with a high and swelling forehead; a deep, warm, lustrous eye that darted forth the living fire of intelligence and love; a long thin nose, winding in a slight and not ungraceful curve toward the right shoulder; an eloquent gesture, a clarion voice, and a face benignant and bland as the ...
— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee
... 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
... 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 and brighten country and hearth, Sire and citizen, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, Jan. 2, 1892 • Various
... my pardner's happiness and almost reasen. I looked in and I see plain that his agitation was nothin' to be wondered at. It did truly seem to be the hombliest, frightfulest lookin' little thing that wuz ever made by a benignant Providence or a taxy-dermis. I couldn't tell which made it. I see it all, but I see also, so firm, sot is my reasun onto its high throne on my heart, I see that to preserve my pardner's sanity, I must control my reasun at the sight ...
— Samantha at Saratoga • Marietta Holley
... were fastened on the crowd now issuing from the cottage door; the coffin, carried by men, came first, the people pressing hurriedly after—among them one whom I instinctively felt to be the clergyman—a thick-set man with hair turning white, and a most noble, benignant face. As the procession formed he took his place at the head; Daniel and his mother climbing into a wagon directly behind the hearse; the former looked utterly broken down, as if the light of his eyes had ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter |
