"Consolatory" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... through his mind was passing and repassing the same question that occupied the thoughts of his mother and sisters. What could be the explanation of the whistle heard by Molly? The want of this alone sufficed to overthrow the most ingenious of consolatory explanations. All four looked at it from different points of view, and to each the signal-whistle calling Christian into the garden was an insurmountable barrier ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... as cheerfully as before. George and myself were weighed down by restraint, and Altascar was gravely quiet. To break the silence, and by way of a consolatory essay, I hinted to him that there might be further intervention or appeal, but the proffered oil and wine were returned with a careless shrug of the shoulders and a sententious "QUE ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... day by the experiment in Pall Mall. Star-rise by electricity, the most romantic flight of civilisation; the compensatory benefit for an innumerable array of factories and bankers' clerks. To the artistic spirit exercised about Thirlmere, here is a crumb of consolation; consolatory, at least, to such of them as look out upon the world through seeing eyes, and contentedly accept beauty where ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... make out that I preferred cutting a bad figure, and that I liked to be despised, because in this way I was getting more virtuous than my successful rivals; and I have long looked with suspicion on all views which are recommended as peculiarly consolatory to wounded vanity or other personal disappointment. The consolations of egoism are simply a change of attitude or a resort to a new kind of diet which soothes and fattens it. Fed in this way it is apt to become a monstrous spiritual ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... insinuated in certain publications), I should think their captivity just. If this be true, much more ought to have been done; but done, in my opinion, in another manner. The punishment of real tyrants is a noble and awful act of justice; and it has with truth been said to be consolatory to the human mind. But if I were to punish a wicked king, I should regard the dignity in avenging the crime. Justice is grave and decorous, and in its punishments rather seems to submit to a necessity ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... and perplexing question of Evil, Mr Helps has said many acute and consolatory things, from among which we have culled the following sentences:—'The man who is satisfied with any given state of things that we are likely to see on earth, must have a creeping imagination: on the other ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various
... business to save them from remorse. He had at his command an immense dispensary of anodynes for wounded consciences. In the books of casuistry which had been written by his brethren, and printed with the approbation of his superiors, were to be found doctrines consolatory to transgressors of every class. There the bankrupt was taught how he might, without sin, secrete his goods from his creditors. The servant was taught how he might, without sin, run off with his master's plate. ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... only the vegetation down below is more luxuriant, and all plants grow faster. Their fear of death and their helpless wailing over the dead indicate that the misty kingdom of the shades offers but little that is consolatory to the Papuan at his departure from ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... And I asked myself if, on the whole, poor Ecky had succeeded in life; if the last state of that man were not on the whole worse than the first; and the house in Randolph Crescent a less admirable dwelling than the hamlet where he saw the day and grew to manhood. Here was a consolatory thought for one who was ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... length, having settled the succession to her mind, she published the emperor's death; and at the same time, the adoption of Tibe'rius to the empire. 17. The emperor's funeral was performed with great magnificence. The senators being in their places, Tibe'rius, on whom that care devolved, pronounced a consolatory oration. After this his will was read, wherein he made Tibe'rius and Liv'ia his heirs. 18. He was studious of serving his country to the very last, and the sorrow of the people seemed equal to his assiduity. It was decreed, that all the women should mourn for him ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... percentage, they tell us, must every year go... that way... to the devil, I suppose, so that the rest may remain chaste, and not be interfered with. A percentage! What splendid words they have; they are so scientific, so consolatory.... Once you've said 'percentage' there's nothing more to worry about. If we had any other word... maybe we might feel more uneasy.... But what if Dounia were one of the percentage! Of another one if not ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... engine, the grunting of the steam, the raging of the wind, the pelting of the rain, and the roaring of the thunder, made it almost impossible to hear anything besides; but I managed to shout in my wife's ear the natural, though not very consolatory question, "Were we ever in so fearful a position before?" "Never!" (and we had had some experience of storms by both land and ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies
... never erred,' said Lady Emilia, 'see my offence in so fair a light? What may I not then hope from infinite mercy? I do hope; it would be criminal to doubt, when such consolatory promises appear in almost every page of holy writ. With pleasure I go where I am called, for I leave my child safe in the Divine Protection, and her own virtue; I leave her, I hope, to a happy life, and a far more happy ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott
... first he endeavored to encourage and embolden some of the better sort beforehand, and then ventured to make a speech to the multitude, which he had before avoided to do, lest he should find them uneasy thereat, because of the misfortunes which had happened; so he made a consolatory speech to the multitude, in the ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... and the sight of the wretch sitting stiffened in quiet agony, (for it was no better,) affected me with a faint sickness. I felt that an effort was necessary, and, with some difficulty, addressed a few cheering and consolatory phrases to the miserable creature I had undertaken to support. My words might not—but I fear my tone was too much in unison with his feelings, such as they were. His answer was a few inarticulate ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 374 • Various
... indulge in the mournful pleasure of conversing of Hippolitus, and when thus engaged, the hours crept unheeded by. A thousand questions she repeated concerning him, but to those most interesting to her, she received no consolatory answer. Cornelia, who had heard of the fatal transaction at the castle of Mazzini, deplored with ...
— A Sicilian Romance • Ann Radcliffe
... man hath her: and so everee man must be ridd of his wiefe that wolde be ridd of a shrewe." It is wonderful this good bishop did not use another argument as cogent, and which would in those times be allowed as something; the name of his lordship, Shrewsbury, would have afforded a consolatory pun! ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... the genitals are often not syphilitic, and the use of mercury is contraindicated from a predisposition to scrofula or phthisis existing in the individual, it is consolatory to learn from the results of experience, that this medicine is not always necessary, and that a radical cure, by more simple and innocent means, can sometimes be effected. Where, however, the physician is anxious to avoid the possible evils which mercury is capable of producing, and also to prevent ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various
... and I think that it was Ellen who had next to take a dose from the Bottle. It was then remarked that she neither shed tears nor made the usual wry faces. Nor yet did she appear in haste to seize and swallow the draught of consolatory coffee from the Old Squire's sympathetic hand. "Why, Nellie girl, you are getting to be quite brave," was his approving comment; and Ellen, with a puzzled glance around the table, laughed, looked earnestly at Gram, but said nothing; ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... the interesting information thus frankly given; and Murray, remarking it, continued, in a consolatory tone: "Never mind, my good fellow; keep up your spirits. I thought it best to tell you the worst at once, and let you know what you have to expect. You will have to go through a regular seasoning; and if you can stand that on the Pearl estate, you may ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... about the unsteady disposition of his children and their future prospects, that the pain which he feels on these accounts may overbalance the pleasure, which he acknowledges in the constant prudence, goodness, solicitude, and affection, of his wife. This may be so much the case, that all her consolatory offices may not be able to get the better of his grief. A man, therefore, in such circumstances, may truly repent of his marriage, or that he was ever the father of such children, though he can never complain as the husband ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume II (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... prediction, which was uttered immediately after the fall of Adam, is also the most indefinite. Opposed to the awful threatening there stands the consolatory promise, that the dominion of sin, and of the evil arising from sin, shall not last for ever, but that the seed of the woman shall, at some future time, overthrow their dreaded conqueror. With the exception of the victory itself, everything is here left undetermined. ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... great refinement of many poetical gentlemen has rendered them practically unfit for the jostling and ugliness of life, and they record their unfitness at considerable length. The bold and awful poetry of Job's complaint produces too many flimsy imitators; for there is always something consolatory in grandeur, but the symphony transposed for the piano becomes hysterically sad. This literature of woe, as Whitman calls it, this MALADIE DE RENE, as we like to call it in Europe, is in many ways a most ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... she suffers with Dignity. She scorns to own herself the Slave of the haughtiest nation on earth; and rather than submit to the humiliating Terms of an Edict, barbarous beyond Precedent under the most absolute monarchy, I trust she will put the Malice of Tyranny to the severest Tryal. It is a consolatory thought, that an Empire is rising in America, and will not THIS first of June be rememberd at a time, how soon God knows! when it will be in the power of this Country amply to revenge its Wrongs. If Britain by her multiplied oppressions is now accelerating that Independency ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, vol. III. • Samuel Adams
... remarkable and most consolatory circumstance, that these just and enlightened views on the subject of religion, and its beneficial influence on society, are now entertained by all the deepest thinkers and most brilliant writers in France. There is not an intellect ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... building, with its shrunken lights, this surviving withered remnant of medieval Judaism, was of a piece with my vision. Those darkened dusty Christian saints, with their loftier arches and their larger candles, needed the consolatory scorn with which they might point to a more shrivelled death-in-life than ...
— The Lifted Veil • George Eliot
... essential distinction," he remarks, "between prophecy and apocalyptic lies in this: the prophets teach that the present is to be interpreted by the past and future, while the apocalyptic writers derive the future from the past and present, and make it an object of consolatory hope. With the prophets the future is the servant and even the continuation of the present; with the apocalyptic writers the future is the brilliant counterpart of the sorrowful present, over which it ...
— Introduction to the Old Testament • John Edgar McFadyen
... don't mind!" "Perhaps they won't give a dowry," he thought with a consolatory sense of ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various
... chalice, hanaper, beaker, or any word that might have appealed to me at the moment as least contaminate with mean associations. In this string of pictures I believe the gist of the psalm to have consisted; I believe it had no more to say to me; and the result was consolatory. I would go to sleep dwelling with restfulness upon these images; they passed before me, besides, to an appropriate music; for I had already singled out from that rude psalm the one lovely verse which dwells in the minds of all, ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... woman, clad in a blue-checked homespun dress, and seated before a great hand-loom, as a lady sits before a piano or an organ. The creak of the treadle, and the thump, thump of the batten, punctuated, as it were, her consolatory disquisition. ...
— The Young Mountaineers - Short Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... the contemplation of the vegetable giant, that for a short space I almost forgot my troubles; but as I rode away from the tree they returned to me in full force, and my reflections were certainly of no very cheering or consolatory nature. I rode on, however, most perseveringly. The morning slipped away; it was noon, the sun stood high in the cloudless heavens. My hunger had now increased to an insupportable degree, and I felt as if something were gnawing within me, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... for his Holiness we intend this consolatory declaration of our own weakness, and of the tyrannous temper of his grand enemy. That prince has known both the one and the other from the beginning. The artists of the French Revolution had given their very first essays ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... common soldiers (houspilleurs), guarded the prisoner;[2141] they were not the flower of chivalry. They mocked her and she rebuked them, a circumstance they must have found consolatory. At night two of them stayed behind the door; three remained with her, and constantly troubled her by saying first that she would die, then that she would be delivered. No one could speak to ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... solitude. I was particularly fond of the ruined greenhouse. I would climb up on the high wall, and perch myself, and sit there, such an unhappy, lonely, and melancholy youth, that I felt sorry for myself—and how consolatory where those mournful sensations, how ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... people of this country, who raised him from their own ranks to the high office he filled, but by the people of all friendly nations, whose messages of sympathy and hope, while hope was possible, have been most consolatory in this time ...
— Messages and Papers of William McKinley V.2. • William McKinley
... pronounced these consolatory words when a voice was heard from the staircase asking Gryphus ...
— The Black Tulip • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... his hands in the early part of the evening. "Thank Heaven!" he added, laying down his pen, and consulting a huge silver bull's eye which he pulled from a threadbare fob, "I shall soon get through this job, and then, hey for roast potatoes and the charming society of Mrs. Q.!" And with this consolatory reflection, he resumed his ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... and the books were never sent, for my mother, who was to have forwarded them, learnt that Mademoiselle Guyon had died. Some of the consolatory remarks which the letter contains may seem very trite, but are there any better ones to offer a person afflicted with cancer? They are, at all events, as good as laudanum. As a matter of fact the Revolution had left no impress upon the people among whom I lived. The religious ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... succeeding year will be augmenting in a rapid manner the value of his farm, and that the same spot which administers to his and their present wants, cannot fail to suffice for their future. This is of itself a most consolatory prospect; it at all events prevents the present good from being embittered with any dread of future evil; it permits the industrious man the tranquil enjoyment of the fruits of his labours, and rescues him from the necessity ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... took it up. How few to-day knew its melodious secret! He looked around. All these daintinesses and prettinesses had a meaning. They signified the magical little beauties of life—things which asserted a range of spiritual truths, none the less real and consolatory because vice and crime and ugliness and misery and war co-existed in ghastly fact on other facets of the planet Earth. The sweetness here expressed was as essential to the world's spiritual life as the sweet elements of foodstuffs to its physical life. To the getting together ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... recourse to it in all our anxieties and straits, we should feel that, if it be a deeply serious and solemn fact that "the Lord reigneth," it is also, to all his trusting and obedient children, alike cheering and consolatory; and he who can relish the sweetness of our Lord's words when he spake of "the birds of the air" and the "flowers of the field," will see at once that Stoicism is immeasurably inferior, both as a philosophy and ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan
... in receipt of a type-written communication from an unknown party, and am not unwilling to inform the writer that Mrs. Lockwin's mail all comes to me. I have for a year burned every one of the consolatory letters alluded to, in common with thousands of other screeds, which I have considered as so many assaults on the ...
— David Lockwin—The People's Idol • John McGovern
... many cases among the highest types of mankind to reduce the physical factor to a secondary place. Such a return to the nakedness of the brute must be retrograde. And Diderot, as it happened, was the writer who, before all others, habitually exalted the delightful and consolatory sentiment of the family. Nobody felt more strongly the worth of domestic ties, when faithfully cherished. It can only have been in a moment of elated paradox that he made one of the interlocutors in the dialogue on Bougainville pronounce Constancy, "The poor vanity ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... sad meeting for the girls!" said Ishmael, who, from time to time, did not cease to utter something which he intended should be consolatory to the bruised spirit of his partner. "Asa was much regarded by all the young; and seldom failed to bring in from his hunts ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... in this dread entertained, especially in Boston, by Mr. Webster's friends, of soon seeing the mighty fabric of our government trembling over their heads, it may, Sir, be consolatory to you and others to know how so dire a calamity may be averted. The chivalric Senator from Mississippi—the gentleman who threatens to hang one Senator if he dare place his foot on the soil of Mississippi, who draws a loaded pistol on another, and ...
— A Letter to the Hon. Samuel Eliot, Representative in Congress From the City of Boston, In Reply to His Apology For Voting For the Fugitive Slave Bill. • Hancock
... there was a heavy silence in the room. It cost the girl a painful effort to sit still, apparently unmoved, but there was strength in her, and she would not betray her distress. She felt that her grief must be endured bravely. It was almost overwhelming, but there was mingled with it a faint consolatory thrill of pride, for it was clear that the man who had loved her had done a splendid thing. He had given all that had been given him—she knew she would never forget that phrase of his—willingly, ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss
... As I was walking out beyond the Porta San Giovanni the other day, I heard the most ingenious and consolatory periphrasis for a defeat that it was ever my good-fortune to hear; and, as it shows the peculiar humor of the Romans, it may here have a place. Two of a party of contadini had been playing at Mora, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... they shed be corpses," is the consolatory reflection of the hunter. "So long as thar's breath left in thar bodies we kin hev hope, as I sayed arready. Let's keep up our hearts by thinkin' o' the fix we war in atween the wagguns, an' arterwards thet scrape in the cave. We kim ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... explaining the matter, and as her infantine reminiscences and prejudices about caste were strong, I even let her think so, if she would: it was a far better alternative than my own sad thoughts about the business: and, however painful was the process, it was something consolatory to observe, that this voluntary humiliation mellowed and chastened her own character, subduing tropical fires, and tempering the ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... palace of St. James for her residence, and presented her with the greater part of the queen's jewels. But a mutual jealousy and disgust subsisted under these exteriors of friendship and esteem. The two houses of parliament waited on the king at Kensington, with consolatory addresses on the death of his consort; their example was followed by the regency of Scotland, the city and clergy of London, the dissenting ministers, and almost all the great corporations ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... longer upon such a dinner-party than I, with no consolatory bone to gnaw in private, find myself inclined to do. To me it is depressing, and a little cruel, to be compelled to betray the inadequacy of the personal element at Alicia's banquets, especially in connection with the conspicuous ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... I dare not trust myself to guess! And yet—ah, no—it cannot be myself! I am so young—one is still young at six!—What man can say that I have injured him? Since, in my Mother's absence all the day engaged upon Municipal affairs, I peacefully beguile the weary hours by suction of consolatory thumbs. (Here he inserts his thumb in his mouth, but almost instantly removes it with a start.) Again I meet those eyes! I'll look no more—but draw the blind and shut my terror out. (Draws blind and lights candle; Stage lightens.) Heigho, I ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 9, 1890. • Various
... which threatened to diffuse among the European nations the dissolute and ferocious habits of a predatory soldiery ... had been brought to a close.... Europe seemed to breathe after her sufferings. In the midst of this fair prospect and of these consolatory hopes, Napoleon Bonaparte escaped from Elba; three small vessels reached the coast of Provence; their hopes are instantly dispelled; the work of our toil and fortitude is undone: the blood of Europe is ...
— The Revelation Explained • F. Smith
... Conclusion of his Odes The Lex Talionis upon Benjamin West Barry's Attack upon Sir Joshua Reynolds On the Death of Mr. Hone On George the Third's Patronage of Benjamin West Another on the Same Epitaph on Peter Staggs Tray's Epitaph On a Stone thrown at a very great Man, etc. A Consolatory StanzaEpigrams by Robert Burns. The Poet's Choice On a celebrated Ruling Elder On John Dove On Andrew Turner On a Scotch Coxcomb On Grizzel Grim On a Wag in Mauchline Epitaph on W—- On a Suicide Epigrams from the German ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... me to proffer the consolatory thought with which one of our wittiest caricaturists closes his satiric observations: "Man is not perfect!" It is sufficient, therefore, that our institutions have no more disadvantages than advantages in order to be reckoned excellent; for the human ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... Club of which he was a member, he was observed to look melancholy.—"What is the matter, Sir William?" cried Hare, of facetious memory.—"Ah!" replied Sir W., "I have just lost poor Lady D."—"Lost! What at? Quinze or Hazard?" was the consolatory rejoinder ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... the chord of proper pride. "Nay, sir," said he, "never mind that. Nil te quaesiveris extra," implying that his reputation rendered him independent of outward show. Happy would it have been for poor Goldsmith could he have kept this consolatory compliment perpetually in mind, ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... Miss Bellingham departed, Thorndyke and Jervis would have gone too; but noting my bereaved condition, and being withal compassionate and tender of heart, they were persuaded to stay awhile and bear me company in a consolatory pipe. ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... glens, seemed to him to be types of his own stormy, unprofitable, and fruitless life, and to foretell a career which, though it might have touches of grandeur, was doomed to be barren of all that is genial and consolatory. ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... detention of the slaves in bondage under the circumstances which are yet existing,' says an advocate; by which consolatory avowal we are taught that the criminality of man-stealing depends upon circumstances, and not upon the fact that it is a daring violation of the rights of man and ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... to say something consolatory, but he would not hear me; and it was not until after he had made a savage attack upon the eggs and rashers and had swallowed three cups of tea, that his ...
— The Motor Pirate • George Sidney Paternoster
... not only be able to unravel the intricate web of past affairs, but shall also find a clue for the guidance of future statesmen in the art of political prediction. Nay more, this clue 'will open a consolatory prospect into futurity, in which at a remote distance we shall observe the human species seated upon an eminence won by infinite toil, where all the germs are unfolded which nature has implanted within it, and its destination ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 3: Condorcet • John Morley
... paper-makers. Reams upon reams must have gone to the making of 'Rathillet,' 'The Pentland Rising,' {18} 'The King's Pardon' (otherwise 'Park Whitehead'), 'Edward Daven,' 'A Country Dance,' and 'A Vendetta in the West'; and it is consolatory to remember that these reams are now all ashes, and have been received again into the soil. I have named but a few of my ill- fated efforts, only such indeed as came to a fair bulk ere they were desisted from; and ...
— The Art of Writing and Other Essays • Robert Louis Stevenson
... she herself had left far behind. For his part, on his way to the assignation, he had come to what he thought the most sensible decision, resolving to break off the intercourse after the fashion of a well-bred man, with all sorts of fine consolatory speeches. But sternness was not in his nature. He was weak and soft-hearted, and had never been able to withstand a woman's tears. Nevertheless, he endeavoured to calm her, and in order to rid himself of her embrace, he made her sit down upon the sofa. And there, beside her, he ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... Evil One who puts these thoughts into your head," replied Nicholas, "and who fills your heart with promptings of despair, that he may again obtain the mastery over it. But take a calmer and more consolatory view of your condition. Human justice may require a public sacrifice as an example, but Heaven, will be satisfied with ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... of our most disagreeable sensations. Hence, when horrid scenes of cruelty are represented in pictures, we wish to disbelieve their existence, and voluntarily exert ourselves to escape from the deception: whereas the bitter cup of true Tragedy is mingled with some sweet consolatory drops, which endear our tears, and we continue to contemplate the interesting delusion with a delight which it is not ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin
... consolatory, and at other times menacing voices, under the appearance of bright or coloured gleams of light, issuing from the mouths of these different apparitions; and I see the feelings of their souls, their interior sufferings, and in a word, their every thought, under ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich
... war, been so great, that selection and rejection were impossible. Whole battalions were composed of deserters or of prisoners. It was hardly to be hoped that thirty years of repose and industry would repair the ruin produced by seven years of havoc. One consolatory circumstance, indeed, there was. No debt had been incurred. The burdens of the war had been terrible, almost insupportable; but no arrear was left to embarrass the ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... splendid performance, it might be, but at present crying out to be played upon. This is the condition of a man in harness, whom witlings may call what they will. He is subjugated: not won. In this state of subjugation he will joyfully sacrifice as much as a man in love. For, having no consolatory sense of happiness, such as encircles and makes a nest for lovers, he seeks to attain some stature, at least, by excesses of apparent devotion. Lady Charlotte believed herself beloved at last. She was about to strike thirty; and Rumour, stalking with a turban of cloud on her head,—enough ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... such case all would be right, but he did feel that much as he might regret the fate of the poor Crawleys, and of the girl whom in his warmth he had declared to be almost an angel, nevertheless to him personally such a verdict would bring consolatory comfort. ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... in his mind the true Christian scheme, at once rational and consolatory, uniting justice and mercy in the Divinity, with the improvement of human nature, previous to his receiving the Holy Sacrament in his apartment, composed and fervently uttered ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... only reply to this consolatory remark—and there was an uneasy nestling throughout the ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... o'clock. I must go to sleep. I take from my shelves Epictetus, who might be expected to throw cold water on the most burning fever of the mind. I have not read far before I come across this consolatory apophthegm: "The contest is unequal between a charming girl and a beginner in philosophy." He is mocking me, the cold-blooded pedagogue! I throw his book across the room. But he is right. I am but a beginner in philosophy. No armour wherein my reason can invest me is of avail against Carlotta. ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... nervous language. This grew to force—compressed, condensed, controlled. The heart was thrilled, the mind astonished, by the power of the preacher: neither were softened. Throughout there was a strange bitterness; an absence of consolatory gentleness; stern allusions to Calvinistic doctrines—election, predestination, reprobation—were frequent; and each reference to these points sounded like a sentence pronounced for doom. When he had done, instead of feeling better, calmer, ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... alone must at least have the consolatory thought that when they die the world will soon console itself. For it has been decreed that he who takes no heed of others shall himself be taken no heed of. We soon learn to do without those who are indifferent to us and useless to us. Lord Ferriby ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... be a more conclusive testimony to his worth than this from a stranger? and if French geographers are excelled in these days by those of Germany and England, is it not consolatory and encouraging to them to know, that they have excelled in a science, in which they are now struggling to regain ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... there is a joy in grief, when peace dwelleth in the breast of the sad.... Morose as I am in judging of poetry, I could find nothing inelegant in the whole piece. I hope you will in your next (since you are such a master of the plaintive) send me some verses consolatory to a hermit; for my sequestered situation sometimes stamps a firm belief on my mind that I am actually an anchorite. In return for your welcome poetical effusion, I have nothing at present but a chorus of the Jepthes of Buchanan, written soon ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... consolatory, has not the desired effect. Instead of drying her eyes and declaring herself glad that Luttrell is unhappy, Molly grows more and more ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... given Kit the consolatory piece of information relative to the settlement of his trifle of business at the Old Bailey, and the probability of its being very soon disposed of, turned out to be quite correct in his prognostications. In eight days' time, the sessions commenced. In one day afterwards, ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... this that my mother will or must die, or that all hope is at an end; she may recover and be restored to health, but only if the Lord wills it thus. After praying to God with all my strength for health and life for my darling mother, I like to indulge in such consolatory thoughts, and, after doing so, I feel more cheerful and more calm and tranquil, and you may easily imagine how much I require comfort. Now for another subject. Let us put aside these sad thoughts, and still hope, but not too much; we must place our trust in the Lord, and ...
— The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, V.1. • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
... not so much in its essence as in its forms, not so much in the spiritual idea which lies latent at the bottom of it, as in the symbols and dogmas in which that idea is embodied. The truest religion would, in many points, not be comprehended by the ignorant, nor consolatory to them, nor guiding and supporting for them. The doctrines of the Bible are often not clothed in the language of strict truth, but in that which was fittest to convey to a rude and ignorant people the practical essentials of the doctrine. ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... moment of time, and overlooks not the meanest creature in existence. Nor is this all; for the Word of God assures the believer that 'all things work together for good to them that love God, who are the called according to his purpose.' Nothing that imagination could conceive, is more truly consolatory than this, to be assured that all things, however painful at the time, not excepting the failure of our favorite schemes, the disappointment of our fondest hopes, the loss of our dearest comforts, shall be overruled ...
— Golden Steps to Respectability, Usefulness and Happiness • John Mather Austin
... and candid," replied Frank; "and it's consolatory, too, for I can fancy no greater reproach to a man, than to be set store on by you. I do not comprehend at all, how A—- bears up under it. But come, do make that egg-nog that ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... sinking; everything must sink under such a proof of family weakness, such an assurance of the deepest disgrace. She could neither wonder nor condemn, but the belief of his self-conquest brought nothing consolatory to her bosom, afforded no palliation of her distress. It was, on the contrary, exactly calculated to make her understand her own wishes; and never had she so honestly felt that she could have loved him, as now, when ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... would be tipped overboard by the sudden swaying of the boat, or passing by of one of the boatmen—of course, accidentally—and no words could induce the rascals, in their feigned ignorance of my language, to stop; and, looking back at the helpless waif, it was not altogether consolatory to see another boat dart from between some shipping, where it had been waiting, as accidentally, ready to pounce upon any such ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole
... have always felt the severest punishment. The wound indeed is of the same dimensions; but the edges are jagged, and there is a dull underpain that survives the smart which it had aggravated. For there is always a consolatory feeling that accompanies the sense of a proportion between antecedents and consequents. The sense of Before and After becomes both intelligible and intellectual when, and only when, we contemplate the succession in the relations of Cause and Effect, which, like the two poles of the magnet manifest ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... Mycenae, and Thebes, and Delos, and Persepolis, and Agrigentum? What is become, brother Toby, of Nineveh and Babylon, of Cyzicum and Mytilene? The fairest towns that ever the sun rose upon" (and all, with the curious exception of Mytilene, enumerated by Burton) "are now no more." And then the famous consolatory letter from Servius Sulpicius to Cicero on the death of Tullia is laid under contribution—Burton's rendering of the Latin being followed almost word for word. "Returning out of Asia," declaims Mr. Shandy, "when I sailed from Aegina towards Megara" (when ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... ill-health, and yet from the age of fifty-one to that of sixty-three the inherent vigour of his constitution, and his invincible desire to live, were unabated. From all his pains and sorrows he took refuge, as so many have done before him, in the one unfailing Nepenthe, the consolatory self-forgetfulness of literature. It was in the Tower that the main bulk of his voluminous ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... consolatory remark, Bryan patted the fish on the head, and proceeded to wring the water from his upper garments, after which he repaired his broken tackle, and resumed his sport with an eagerness and zest that cold and water and mud could not diminish in ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... think of him when the poor man was alive. His breathing image was no longer in his power. This consideration, closely affecting his own identity, filled his breast with a mournful and angry desire for action. In this his instinct was unerring. Action is consolatory. It is the enemy of thought and the friend of flattering illusions. Only in the conduct of our action can we find the sense of mastery over the Fates. For his action, the mine was obviously the only field. It was imperative ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... everybody's—except Herbert's: he explains it all on biological grounds as the beautiful discriminative action of natural selection. Simple, but not consolatory. Still, look at the other side of the question. Suppose you and everybody else were to give up all superfluities, and confine all your energies to the unlimited production of bare necessaries. Suppose you occupy every acre of land with your corn-fields, or your piggeries; and sweep away all ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... bitten to death by these deadly creatures; the pigs, whose fat it seems does not accept the venom into its tissues with the same effect, escape unhurt for the most part—so much for the anti-venomous virtue of adipose matter—a consolatory consideration for such of us as are inclined to take on flesh more than ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... in proportion as the environment varies from place to place, the colouring must vary in order to simulate it. There is a deep biological joy in the term 'environment'; it almost rivals the well-known consolatory properties of that sweet word 'Mesopotamia.' 'Surroundings,' perhaps, would equally well express the meaning, but then, as Mr. Wordsworth justly observes, 'the ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... and night airs retain their terrors, stay at home and rest. Edith and Sir Victor, Trix and the Honorable Angus Hammond, saunter down arm in arm to the boat. Charley and the two Irish boatmen bring up the rear—Mr. Stuart smoking a consolatory cigar. ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... in which no human voice broke the silence. In the midst of greatest perils there is something consolatory in the sound of a man's voice—something which makes the danger appear less; and as if struck by this idea, some one asked Benito to continue the ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... home, liable to be used in their own or adjacent States. These two measures would have completed what I deemed necessary for the entire security of our country. They would have given me, on my retirement from the government of the nation, the consolatory reflection, that having found, when I was called to it, not a single sea-port town in a condition to repel a levy of contribution by a single privateer or pirate, I had left every harbor so prepared by works and ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... was heartily glad of a pretence of escaping from a numerous cohort of folles amours, with Madame D'Anville at the head; and the very circumstance which men who play the German flute and fall in love, would have considered the most vexatious, I regarded as the most consolatory. ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... against Dr. Pearse's divorce from his see, not as illegal, but improper, and of bad example, have determined the King, who left it to them, not to consent to it, though the Bishop himself still insists on it. As this decision disappoints Bishop Newton, Lord Bath has obtained a consolatory promise for him of the mitre of London, to the great discomfort of Terrick and Warburton. You see Lord Bath(575 does not hobble up the back-stairs for nothing. Oh, he is an excellent courtier! ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... "After all they are only harmless owls." Her consolatory words were as much for the benefit of her own nerves as for those of ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... enlightened nation, against its ancient institutions? Could such small drops have produced an overflowing, if the vessel had not already been filled to the very brim? These explanations are incredible, and if they were credible, would be anything but consolatory. If it were really true that the English people had taken a sudden aversion to a representative system which they had always loved and admired, because a single division in Parliament had gone against their wishes, or because, in a foreign country, in circumstances ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... after the departure of my friend Mr. Hobhouse for England, I was seized with a severe fever in the Morea, these men saved my life by frightening away my physician, whose throat they threatened to cut if I was not cured within a given time. To this consolatory assurance of posthumous retribution, and a resolute refusal of Dr. Romanelli's prescriptions, I attributed my recovery.[gg] I had left my last remaining English servant at Athens; my dragoman was as ill as myself, and my poor Arnaouts nursed me with an attention which would have done ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... rallied somewhat, and offered the consolatory remark that "they were in a mighty bad fix. I'll be honest," said he, "and confess that I depended upon that money to set me up in business. I was going to shave notes, and in order to do so I must ...
— Cousin Maude • Mary J. Holmes
... thee. Though his clutch Be heavy, Time doth still afford That fine consolatory touch— It hardly seems to go for much, But ...
— Rhymes of the East and Re-collected Verses • John Kendall (AKA Dum-Dum)
... recital of so many calamities, the mind is soothed by turning to consolatory remembrances. When the great catastrophe of Caracas was known in the United States, the Congress, assembled at Washington, unanimously decreed that five ships laden with flour should be sent to the coast of Venezuela; their cargoes to be distributed among the most needy of the inhabitants. ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... is home in a huff: not to reappear in active life for some years to come. "The Little Marlborough,"—so they call him (for he was at Blenheim, and has abrupt hot ways),—will not participate in Prince Karl's consolatory Visit, then! Better so, thinks Friedrich perhaps (remembering Mollwitz): "This is the freak of an imitation ANGLAIS!" sneers he, in mentioning it to Jordan.—Friedrich's Synopsis of this Moravian Failure of an Expedition, in ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... after I had ended a consolatory discussion, which it was but too manifest had fallen unprofitably upon her ear, "such dreadful, impious thoughts come into my mind, whether I choose it or not; they come, and stay, and return, strive as I may; and I can't ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 4 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... week, we were allowed to teach poor children. In this room, also, we instructed our dear little brother and sister. Our father, in his beautiful handwriting, used to set them copies, texts of Scripture, such as he no doubt had found of a consolatory nature. On one occasion, however, I set the copies, and well remember the tribulation I experienced in consequence. I always warred in my mind against the enforced gloom of our home, and having for my private reading at that time Young's Night Thoughts, came ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... most other respects. The passions of mankind are similar every where; the same instincts are active in the slave and the prince; consequently the history of their effects must ever be the same in every country." It is both mortifying and consolatory to think, that the utmost height to which ambition may aspire, will not exempt one from the polluting agency of "mire and dirt." Death, we see, is not the only leveller in ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... as if to convince herself; she turned her eyes from the trees and forest-paths she loved; she hid her face in my bosom, and we— yes, my masculine firmness dissolved—we wept together consolatory tears, and then calm—nay, almost cheerful, we returned to ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... do I consent", said David, adjusting his iron-rimmed spectacles, and producing his beloved little volume, which he immediately tendered to Alice. "What can be more fitting and consolatory, than to offer up evening praise, after a ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... of the common doctrine of endless misery with any worthy idea of God is made clear by a process of reasoning whose premises are as undeniable as its logic is irrefragable and its conclusion consolatory. God is infinite justice and goodness. His purpose in the creation, therefore, must be the diffusion and triumph of holiness and blessedness. God is infinite wisdom and power. His design, therefore, must be fulfilled. Nothing ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... heel, with a brief, oblique nod over his shoulder, and made his way out into the open air. Here, as he walked, he drew a succession of long consolatory breaths. It was almost as if he had emerged from the lethal presence of the fumigator itself. He took the largest cigar from his case, lighted it, and sighed smoke-laden new relief as he strolled ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... artist may have a life apart from his art, and that to Peace religion was an essential pursuit. So he died, having released from an unjust sentence the poor wretch who at Whalley Range had suffered for his crime, and offering up a consolatory prayer for all mankind. In truth, there was no enemy for whom he did not intercede. He prayed for his gaolers, for his executioner, for the Ordinary, for his wife, for Mrs. Thompson, his drunken doxy, and he went to his death with the sure step of one who, having ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... that I could say my brother Christian also—receive it, Darby, and in the proper spirit too; it is a tract written by the Rev. Vesuvius M'Slug, entitled 'Spiritual Food for Babes of Grace;' I have myself found it graciously consolatory and refreshing, and I hope that you also ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... friends, and those considerations of a higher kind which he had cultivated from early life, and which returned to him, as they return to all who reverence them, with additional force when their presence was more consolatory and essential. But old age naturally strips us of those who gave an especial value to life; and after seeing his brother Lord Stowell, and Lady Eldon—his Elizabeth, for whom he seems to have always retained the tenderness of their early years—taken from him, he ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... put in the vicar, in a consolatory manner; "you have had a sharp attack, but then there is a good constitution to ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... considerations more than equivalent, both as to number and variety, to the vague fears entertained in early ages of the general conflagration of the world by 'flaming swords', and stars with 'fiery streaming hair'. As the consolatory considerations which may be derived from the calculus of probabilities address themselves to reason and to p 111 meditative understanding only, and not to the imagination or to a desponding condition of mind, modern science ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... moving up a chair and seating me in it with a fatherly air which, under the circumstances, was more discouraging than consolatory. "We have simply heard of a new witness, or rather a fact has come to light which has turned our inquiries into a ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green
... trouble, said a few general consolatory words in a judicious bass, such as the noble fathers used in olden comedies, ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... she IS exclusive!" she said. Winterbourne wondered whether she was seriously wounded, and for a moment almost wished that her sense of injury might be such as to make it becoming in him to attempt to reassure and comfort her. He had a pleasant sense that she would be very approachable for consolatory purposes. He felt then, for the instant, quite ready to sacrifice his aunt, conversationally; to admit that she was a proud, rude woman, and to declare that they needn't mind her. But before he had time to commit himself to this perilous mixture of gallantry and impiety, ...
— Daisy Miller • Henry James
... the weather, was bathed in perspiration. A keen sense of having "put his foot into it" almost crushed him for a time. Then he assured himself that, after all, the Duke "could not eat him," and with that consolatory reflection he crept back to the house and up to his ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... Venetia had been considerable. After the excitement of the last year of her life, and the harassing and agitating scenes with which it closed, she found a fine solace in this fair land and this soft sky, which the sad perhaps can alone experience. Its repose alone afforded a consolatory contrast to the turbulent pleasure of the great world. She looked back upon those glittering and noisy scenes with an aversion which was only modified by her self-congratulation at her escape from their exhausting and contaminating sphere. Here she ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... themselves with the points of sharp instruments. I could not but reflect that theirs is a sorrow without hope: all is gross darkness with them as to futurity; and they wander through life without the consolatory and cheering influence of that gospel which has brought life ...
— The Substance of a Journal During a Residence at the Red River Colony, British North America • John West
... Carton, very gently; "don't grieve. I encouraged Doctor Manette in this idea, because I felt that it might one day be consolatory to her. Otherwise, she might think 'his life was want only thrown away or wasted,' and that ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... offering a trumpery reward and to take a direct and manly course. They ought to accept Mr.——'s preposterously liberal offer, and admit him to the two Unions, and thereby disown the criminal act in the form most consolatory to the sufferer: or else they should face the situation, and say, "This act was done under our banner, though not by our order, and we stand by it." The Liberal will continue to ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... the dead, and that the honours due only to excellence are paid to antiquity, is a complaint likely to be always continued by those, who, being able to add nothing to truth, hope for eminence from the heresies of paradox; or those, who, being forced by disappointment upon consolatory expedients, are willing to hope from posterity what the present age refuses, and flatter themselves that the regard which is yet denied by envy, will be at last ...
— Preface to Shakespeare • Samuel Johnson
... were consolatory; and when I came to hear the story, this was the way the accident happened. As I mentioned before, even this drift had thawed till it was soft at the surface and worn away almost to the rocks. During ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... pleasure in it, had given sudden brilliancy. Jock was so much astonished that he uttered no reproach, but went on by her side, after a moment, pondering. He could not see how any offence could have lurked in the encouraging and consolatory words he had said. ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... prey to remorse, if guilty he were, the King commanded him to withdraw, and then shut himself up in his closet to prepare a consolatory message to the English Court. According to the written statement, which was also published in the newspapers, Madame had been carried off by an attack of bilious colic. Five or six bribed physicians certified to that effect, and a lying set of ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... the blast furnace. Yet that discovery has elevated Scotland to a considerable rank among the iron-making nations of Europe, with resources still in store that may be considered inexhaustible. But such are the consolatory effects of Time, that the discoverer of 1801 is no longer considered the intrusive visionary of the laboratory, but the acknowledged benefactor of his country at large, and particularly of an extensive class of coal and ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... taunt me again!" I exclaimed, walking homeward; "let him mock me for my weak and childish notions, as he calls them, and attempt to be facetious at the expense of all that is holy, and good, and consolatory in life. Let him attempt it, and I will annihilate him with a word!" When, however, I grew more collected, I began to understand how, by such proceeding, I might shoot very wide of my mark, and give my friend an advantage after all. He had explained his presence at the church to his colleague ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... was his friend's consolatory remark as they left the house and returned to their hammocks; "it can't damage your good looks, an' 'll prove a mighty source ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... decided, was the kind of girl whose surroundings rub off on her; or was it rather that Mrs. Carstyle's idiosyncrasies were of a nature to color every one within reach? Vibart, looking across the table as this consolatory alternative occurred to him, was sure that they had not colored Mr. Carstyle; but that, perhaps, was only because they had bleached him instead. Mr. Carstyle was quite colorless; it would have been impossible to guess his native tint. His wife's ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... communicate to you a Misfortune which frequently happens, and therefore deserves a consolatory Discourse on the Subject. I was within this Half-Year in the Possession of as much Beauty and as many Lovers as any young Lady in England. But my Admirers have left me, and I cannot complain of their Behaviour. I have within that Time had the Small-Pox; ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... come down to see him off, tried (with his mouth full of buckwheat cake) to say something consolatory, and gave it as his experience, "that a fellow soon got over that sort of thing; that separations must occur sometimes," &c.—and, on the whole, endeavoured to talk in a very manly and philosophical strain; but his precepts and practice proved to be at utter variance, for when ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... of ingratitude. Nor is there any harm in the reflection that no fool is so troublesome as the clever fool; nor in this, that only great men have any business with great defects; nor, finally, in the consolatory saying, that we are never either so happy or ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... all in the passionate excitement of the chase. But, in truth, the possession of such a power—weak and transient though it be—is one of the great alleviations of the lot of man. Religion, with its powerful motives and its wide range of consolatory and soothing thoughts and images, has much power in this sphere when it does not take a morbid form and intensify instead of alleviating sorrow; and the steady exercise of the will gives us some real and increasing, though imperfect, control over ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... it may, his consolatory tactics certainly succeeded in my case, and I went home quite infected with his rosy cheeks and words. Yet, on the occasion of my next visit a week or two later, there was still nothing doing—not just then, though one never knows, does ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... thoughts. He was much more easy and comfortable now that there had been an explanation between them, though it was one of those explanations which explained nothing. He even forgave Uncle John for knowing more than he did, moved thereto by the consolatory thought that John's advice had never been taken, and that his mother had always followed her own way. This was an incalculable comfort to Pippo's mind, and gave him composure to wait calmly for the clearing ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... himself from Huxter's arm, and made a rush as if to get to his own home unattended: but he reeled and lurched so, that the young surgeon insisted upon accompanying him, and, with many soothing expressions and cheering and consolatory phrases, succeeded in getting the General's dirty old hand under what he called his own fin, and led the old fellow, moaning piteously, across the street. He stopped when he came to the ancient gate, ornamented with the armorial bearings ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the common rate of desolate women, [2014] while I am studying which way to moderate my woe, and if it were possible to augment my love, I can for the present find out none more just to your dear father, nor consolatory to myself, than the preservation of his memory, which I need not gild with such flattering commendations as hired preachers do equally give to the truly and titularly honourable. A naked undressed narrative, speaking the simple truth of him, will deck him with ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... had felt sore and angry about it, and the comments in the newspapers had not been consolatory. She had learned to dread even the comic papers; but there was nothing spiteful in the one which Tom produced that evening. It ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... appeared before 1839? Gifford gives an extract from it in Massinger's City Madam, Act II., where the daughters of Sir John Frugal make somewhat similar stipulations from their suitors. When speaking of this letter as "a modest and consolatory one," Gifford adds, "it is yet extant." The editor of a work entitled Relics of Literature (1823) gives it at length, with this reference, "Harleian MSS. 7003." The property of Lady Compton's father, Sir John Spencer, is stated ...
— Notes and Queries, 1850.12.21 - A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, - Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc. • Various
... help laughing a little at this. But afterwards she said, on a key consolatory, "Ah, well, he has gone away now, so let us hope your friend Prospero will promptly ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... Article II in its efforts to weed out every kind of synergistic or Romanistic corruption. For here we read: "Thus far the mystery of predestination is revealed to us in God's Word; and if we abide thereby and cleave thereto, it is a very useful salutary, consolatory doctrine; for it establishes very effectually the article that we are justified and saved without all works and merits of ours, purely out of grace alone, for Christ's sake. For before the time of the world, before we existed, yea, before the foundation of the ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... observed, and whenever Lady Ashbridge was present her husband made a point of addressing a few remarks to Michael, but there their intercourse ended. Michael found opportunity to explain to Aunt Barbara what had happened, suggesting as a consolatory simile the domestic difficulties of the seals at the Zoological Gardens, and was pleased to find her recognise the aptness of this description. But heaviest of all on the spirits of the whole party sat the anxiety about Lady ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... both pleasant and consolatory to Cecilia; who was now relieved from her suspence, and revived in her spirits by the intelligence that Delvile had no share in sending her a present, which, from him, would have been humiliating and impertinent. She regretted, indeed, that she had not instantly returned it to the castle, ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... it," returned Earnscliff. "We are sent here, in one sense, to bear and to suffer; but, in another, to do and to enjoy. The active day has its evening of repose; even patient sufferance has its alleviations, where there is a consolatory sense of ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott |
