"Dignify" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in telling a curious fact, makes a very curious mistake. "To dignify his capital," he says, "having discovered that the ancient name of Porto-Ferrajo was Comopoli (the city of Como), he commanded it to be called Cosmopoli, or the city of all nations." Now the old name of Porto-Ferrajo was in reality not Comopoli, but ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... come upon one of the unities most coveted in our literature, and most valued by us when attained, — the portrait, the individuality, the character. The construction of a plot we call invention, but that of a character we dignify with the name of creation. It may therefore not be amiss, in finishing our discussion of form, to devote a few pages to the psychology of character-drawing. How does the unity we call a character arise, how is it described, and what is the basis of ...
— The Sense of Beauty - Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory • George Santayana
... breathed too for Dolores or Mercedes in prison. "Virgin of Atocha, Virgin of the Pillar, Virgin of Sorrow, of Divine Compassion, send happy sleep to thy handmaid Manuela, shed the dew of thy love upon her eyelids, keep smooth her brows, keep innocent her lips. Dignify me, thy servant, Gil Perez, more than other men, that I may be worthy to sustain this high honour ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett
... Persecution tends to dignify and sanctify all the external marks of the sect, and it becomes a cardinal principle of the sect to maintain them. Any neglect of them is regarded as disloyalty and is punished as heresy. Persecution may eventually, as was the case ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... hunts, I after love: He leaves his friends to dignify them more; I leave myself, my friends, and all for love. Thou, Julia, thou hast metamorphosed me,— Made me neglect my studies, lose my time, War with good counsel, set the world at naught; Made wit with musing weak, heart sick ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... Commence is hol' Down at de gr'ad beeg hall, W'ere plaintee peopl' can gat seat For dem to see it all. De School Board wid dere president, Dey sit opon front row, Dey look so stiff an' dignify, For w'at ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... strangely sweet in sharing with her for the first time a mood of solemnity, seeing that their intercourse had always before been in the vein of pleasantry and badinage common to the first stages of courtships. This new experience appeared to dignify their relation, and weave them together with a new strand. At length ...
— Dr. Heidenhoff's Process • Edward Bellamy
... of the preacher were quite in unison with these thoughts, and pleased me so much that, were it admissible, I should be delighted to dignify my pages with them. By a few vivid touches, in language simple, yet beautiful, he sketched for us the first Sabbath amidst the living springs and fadeless bloom and verdant shades of Paradise, when sinless man communed with his Maker and his Father, not ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... leave, was heard in the front part of the house; and very soon a fashionably-dressed personage of a somewhat swaggering deportment, accompanied with many of those supercilious airs with which the colonial loyalists of the times often thought to dignify their carriage among despised republicans, made his appearance in the yard, where, equipped for riding, stood a stout, well-conditioned horse, which he approached and led out some distance into the road, preparatory to mounting. He then paused, and, with ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... was something so extraordinary that no really sane man could dignify it with the credit of having actually happened. I was standing, the last evening I was with you, half- hidden in the hedgegrowth by the orchard gate, watching the dying glow of the sunset. Suddenly I became ...
— Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches • Saki (H.H. Munro)
... decided at supper the evening before that the family as a unit should pay its respects to Reuben. From Sarah, comforting herself behind her widow's weeds with the doctrine of original sin, to Archie, eager to give his sweetheart a drive, one and all had been moved by a genuine impulse to dignify as far as lay in their power the ceremonial of decay. Even Abner, the silent, had remarked that he'd "never heard a word said against Reuben Merryweather in his life." And now at the end of that life the neighbours had gathered amid the ridges of green graves in the churchyard to bear witness ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... everywhere will still instinctively and gladly accept the high duties and helps of married life; but as society becomes more intelligent it will recognize the fitness of some persons, and the unfitness of others, making it impossible for these to accept such responsibilities and obligations, and so dignify and elevate home life instead of ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... sure, When such the theme, becomes the poet's task: Yet must he try by modulation meet Of varied cadence and selected phrase Exact yet free, without inflation bold, To dignify that theme." ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... his tone from her. There was no more heavy beneficence, no more attempts to dignify the situation with poetry or the Scriptures. None of them dared or was able ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster
... mercenary adventurers who, as we know, are called sophist by the multitude, and regarded as rivals, really teach nothing but the opinions of the majority to which expression is given when large masses are collected, and dignify them with the title of wisdom. As well might a person investigate the caprices and desires of some huge and powerful monster in his keeping, studying how it is to be approached, and how handled,—at ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... of these rebels," said he, "to dignify themselves as soldiers and claim the honours of war. But when we get hold of them they will learn that there is a difference between felony and warfare. Can you not persuade your brother out of it? I hear ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... 'following the gleam,'" said Coryston, with a sarcastic mouth. "Or to put it in another way—there's a hot coal in me that makes me do certain things. I dignify it by calling it a sense of justice. What is it? I don't know. I say, Lester, are ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... roots of the dead languages; but erudition does not naturally furnish them with its resources. The most ignorant, it sometimes happens, will use them most. The eminently democratic desire to get above their own sphere will often lead them to seek to dignify a vulgar profession by a Greek or Latin name. The lower the calling is, and the more remote from learning, the more pompous and erudite is its appellation. Thus the French rope-dancers have transformed themselves ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... not dignify it with the title since this habitation has been arranged with a certain art? Skillful hands have carved an ornamental facade in the rock. A large door affords access to it. Colored glass windows in wooden ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne
... children for the homes offered. It would be such a blessed privilege to have a missionary's child in the house. The various Judson children that were scattered here and there were perpetual curiosities. Their very presence was enough to sanctify, dignify, and make illustrious any ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... aunt endeavouring to calm her: she, however, politely addressed herself to Lady L——, and begging her aunt to withdraw for a few moments, she owned to her, in French, her passion for her brother: She was not, she said, ashamed to own it to his sister, who must know that his merit would dignify the passion of the noblest woman. She had endeavoured, she said, to conquer hers: she had been willing to give way to the prior attachments that he had pleaded for a lady of her own country, Signora Clementina della Porretta, whom she allowed to have had great merit; but ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson
... you have many, princess, judging from your standpoint; but you cannot right them by committing greater ones. Nothing can dignify or ennoble deliberate assassination, or wanton, cruel, secret murder. The nihilists ...
— Princess Zara • Ross Beeckman
... that lady again named them to the Queen at the moment they saluted her; if she and the tirewoman were absent, the first woman took the place and did that duty. The ladies of the bedchamber, chosen solely as companions for the Queen, had no domestic duties to fulfil, however opinion might dignify such offices. The King's letter in appointing them, among other instructions of etiquette, ran thus: "having chosen you to bear the Queen company." There were hardly any emoluments accruing from ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... self-control has created, the lover spirit will conquer the brute. He will regret the pain he has caused; he will want to forget and be forgiven quickly though he may not go through the formality of an apology. A formal apology and reconciliation will, in his judgment, dignify the episode and make a mountain out of a molehill. The wife will be wise to so regard it though it is an injustice to her. The husband will not underestimate the importance of the event, however, and in many ways will be a ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol. 3 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... of the work of skilled fingers serve to dignify the art of which it is capable, and to sing a varied song in the ears of the modern embroiderer, who follows her own will in spite of time-hallowed examples. The women of today, 1920, have been called to work that is widely different from ...
— The Development of Embroidery in America • Candace Wheeler
... been a wanderer, maestro, and so has Cospatric; therefore you understand. But the steady, industrious stay-at-homes, the people who think that they know what music really is, and what its limits are, and all about it, what would they say to these queer efforts of mine? They would not even dignify them by the word 'distorted.' They would call them unmitigated bosh, and set me down as a virulent maniac. No, signori, I am not ambitious, and so I shall not lay myself open to that sort of snubbing. Come across to the other room for cigarettes ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... which can nevermore be filled. It is not his visible presence or his tangible body that we shall so much miss. It is the magnetism of a pure mind, the silent, potent influence of a spotless character, the power of a great, good, and noble soul to elevate and dignify all with whom it came in contact that will prove our irreparable loss. No man ever associated with Gen. LEE without feeling the better for it. To have been with him made you feel like one who had drawn a long deep ...
— Memorial Addresses on the Life and Character of William H. F. Lee (A Representative from Virginia) • Various
... soft, youthful couples there may move, As chaste as stars converse and smile above. Th' hast taught their language and their love to flow Calm as rose-leaves, and cool as virgin-snow, Which doubly feasts us, being so refin'd, They both delight and dignify the mind; Like to the wat'ry music of some spring, Whose pleasant flowings at once wash and sing. And where before heroic poems were Made up of spirits, prodigies, and fear, And show'd—through all the melancholy flight— Like some dark region overcast with night, As if the poet ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan
... power was magnificently displayed in the campaign for Prohibition—a despotism exercised by a body of ignorant, superstitious, self-seeking and thoroughly dishonest men. One may, without prejudice, reasonably defend the Catholic clergy. They are men who, at worst, pursue an intelligible ideal and dignify it with a real sacrifice. But in the presence of the Methodist clergy it is difficult to avoid giving way to the weakness of indignation. What one observes is a horde of uneducated and inflammatory dunderheads, eager for power, intolerant of opposition and full of a childish vanity—a mob of ...
— The American Credo - A Contribution Toward the Interpretation of the National Mind • George Jean Nathan
... the chief power always been the rock on which republicanism has shipwrecked? If that power is given to the chief citizen, the way is prepared for the tyrant. If it abides peacefully in a royal house, it abides with cyphers who dignify, without obstructing, a popular constitution. Do not mistake me, Mr. Townshend. This is no whim of a sentimental girl, but the reasoned conclusion of the men who achieved our liberty. There is every reason to believe that General Washington shares our views, and Mr. Hamilton, whose ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... sign however is often added to names of things which we frequently hear personified, or which we wish to dignify, and to names of periods of time, and to words denoting value; as, the earth's surface, fortune's smile, eternity's stillness, a year's interest, a day's work, a dollar's ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... whose story is told in these pages was devoted and finally sacrificed to dignify their common country in the eyes of his countrymen, and to unite them in a common patriotism; he inculcated that self-respect which, by leading to self-restraint and self-control, makes self-government ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig
... attendants, filling [various] offices, came near me with this splendour and pomp. He addressed me with such kindness and complaisance that I cannot express it, and added, "O, sir, if shewing kindness and benevolence, you do me the favour to dignify my humble dwelling with your presence, then it will not be far from courtesy ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli
... proceed. You think women have no resolution, and no souls—be it so—and what you dignify with the name of perseverance in your own sex, you call obstinacy in ours. Be ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... is fit for serene days and graceful gifts and country rambles, but also for rough roads and hard fare, shipwreck, poverty, and persecution. It keeps company with the sallies of the wit and the trances of religion. We are to dignify to each other the daily needs and offices of man's life, and embellish it by courage, wisdom and unity. It should never fall into something usual and settled, but should be alert and inventive and add rhyme and ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... promptly that the quality q of a feeling is one and the same thing with a feeling of the quality q? The quality q, so far, is an entirely subjective fact which the feeling carries so to speak endogenously, or in its pocket. If any one pleases to dignify so simple a fact as this by the name of knowledge, of course nothing can prevent him. But let us keep closer to the path of common usage, and reserve the name knowledge for the cognition of 'realities,' meaning by realities things that exist independently of the feeling ...
— The Meaning of Truth • William James
... Peter put down the letter—he would not dignify such stuff by reading it. He realized that he would have to put his mind on the problem of Mrs. Godd once more. One woman like that, in her position of power, was more dangerous than all the seventeen "wobblies" who had been haled before the court. Peter inquired, and learned ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... beans, from seeds of Mexico, their perfume, their treasure, their soul; going so far as to chisel the diamond, chase the silver, melt the gold ore, paint the clay and woo every art that may serve to decorate and to dignify the bowl from which he feeds!—how can this king, after having hidden under folds of muslin covered with diamonds, studded with rubies, and buried under linen, under folds of cotton, under the rich hues of silk, under the fairy patterns of lace, the partner ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... since they know little about the ground or meaning of what they do, they feel content and safe if at least they have done it properly. Sacrifices are often performed in this spirit; and when a beautiful order and religious calm have come to dignify the performance, the mind, having meantime very little to occupy it, may embroider on the given theme. It is then that fable, and new religious sentiments suggested by fable, ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... near Matanzas, with a ragged wood behind it, stood for many years an unkempt cottage. In our land we should hardly dignify it by such a name. We would call it, rather, a hovel. Some rotting timbers of it may still be left, for the black people who live thereabout keep away, especially at night, believing that the hillock is a resort of spirits. Yet not many of them remember the incident that put ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... friendships with your own sex. Oh, no; they possess too great a charm to be thus rudely thrown aside. To me, there is hardly a more lovely sight in the world than the union of two congenial spirits in the tie of sincere and unselfish affection. But I do not dignify with the name of friendship those caprices of the moment, which so often assume its title and usurp its place. A young girl meets another at an assembly—she is pleased with her manners; thinks her ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur
... inevitableness of nature that the forest has ground into my soul. I'd rather cut off my right hand than take yours with it, in the parting that will come in the morning; but you are going, and I am sending you. So long as I am shaped like a human being, it is in me to dignify the possession of a vertical spine by acting as nearly like a man as I know how. I insist that you are my wife, because it crucifies me to think otherwise. I tell you to-night, Ruth, you are not and never have been. You are free ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... with whom Charles was in league. About this time Pascal I. occupied the pontificate, and the priests of the churches of Rome, from being near to the pope, and attending the elections of the pontiff, began to dignify their own power with a title, by calling themselves cardinals, and arrogated so great authority, that having excluded the people of Rome from the election of pontiff, the appointment of a new pope was scarcely ever made except ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... It was impossible to dignify the route by the name of a "road," as it presented an uneven surface and occasionally branched into several independent tracks, which re-united after an eccentric course of a few hundred yards; these were caused by droves of mules ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... some prospective parent. (By 'prospective' I mean one who was thinking of sending his son to Sanstead House. You may have twenty children, but unless you send them to his school, a schoolmaster will refuse to dignify you with the ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... far to dignify their daily needs," said Robert. "For instance, a poor man about to buy his to-morrow's dinner may feel his soul take a little fly above the prices of ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... whose "Tannhaeuser" he brought out in 1853, in spite of the Elector's opposition. In 1857 he was pensioned, and two years later died. He was born a musician and died one, and in his long and honorable life he was always true to his art and did much to ennoble and dignify it, notwithstanding the curious combinations in his musical texture. He never could understand or appreciate Beethoven. He proclaimed himself a disciple of Mozart, though he had little in common with him, and he declared Wagner the greatest of ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... that sometimes, as in the case of the stickleback, the father helps the mother to build a sort of nest, and does "sentry-go" outside it to keep off marauders. In this common care of the young we see what is in all essentials marriage, though some may prefer to dignify the word by confining it to those human associations which have been blessed by Church and State, even though the father throws the baby at the mother, or sends her into the streets to earn her bread and ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... great many of our thoughts, and bring new ideas into much of our conventional language. 'A good work' is not a piece of beneficence or benevolence, still less is it to be confined to those actions which conventional Christianity has chosen to dignify by the name. It is a designation that should not be clotted into certain specified corners of a life, but be extended over them all. The things which more specifically go under such a name, the kind of things that Judas wanted ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... Virtuous and Serpent-like Attitudes, has been scattering glory upon the Si-chow Hall of Celestial Harmony for many days past. It is an enlightened display which the high-souled Ling should certainly endeavour to dignify with his presence, especially at the portion where the amiable Li-Lu becomes revealed in the appearance of a Peking sedan-chair bearer and describes the manner and likenesses of certain persons—chiefly ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... Bob, "he is not, I should think, one of the community; he has, apparently, the manners of the well bred and accomplished gentleman." "And for that very reason, Sir, is the better qualified to 29 carry on his profession with impunity; he whom you dignify with the appellation of a well bred and accomplished gentleman, is all that you have expressed of him, with the exception of one word, that is, substitute for gentleman, swindler, and the character is justly delineated. This fellow, of desperate enterprize, is ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... mortgage.[1731] "Mortgagees," the Court said, "are constitutionally entitled to no more than payment in full. * * * To hold that mortgagees are entitled under the contract clause to retain the advantages of a forced sale would be to dignify into a constitutionally protected property right their chance to get more than the amount of their contracts. * * * The contract clause does not protect such a strategical, ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... gift of the Transvaal and Orange River Constitutions and the great settlement resulting therefrom will be by itself as a single event sufficient to vindicate in the eyes of future generations the administration of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, and to dignify his memory in Parliaments and periods which we shall not see. But our work abroad is not yet completed, has not yet come to its full fruition. If we should continue, as I expect we shall, to direct public affairs ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill
... dance halls, pass the splendid plants of the schools and the churches, standing dark and idle. Families must develop a public opinion that will demand, for the sake of their young people, a provision for amusement and recreation that, instead of poisoning the life, shall strengthen, dignify, and elevate it. If the demand for clean drinking-water is a proper one, is the demand for healthful food for the life of ...
— Religious Education in the Family • Henry F. Cope
... body, they now twist into bass-ropes; besides, the truncheons make a far better coal for gun-powder than that of alder it self; Scriblets for painters first draughts are also made of its coals; and the extraordinary candor and lightness, has dignify'd it above all the woods of our forest, in the hands of the Right Honourable the White-Stave officers of His Majesty's Imperial Court. Those royal plantations of these trees in the parks of Hampton-court, and St. James's, will sufficiently instruct any ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... more than one night on the way, we abandoned our steamer that evening, and set off at an early hour the next morning. We made camp at the end of the day's march within ten miles of Buford, and arrived at the post without having had any incident of moment, unless we may dignify as one a battle with three grizzly bears, discovered by our friendly Indians the morning of our second day's journey. While eating our breakfast —a rather slim one, by the way—spread on a piece of canvas, the Indians, whose bivouac was some distance ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... outright; and both the Blunts Kill'd by the hand of Douglas; young Prince John, And Westmoreland and Stafford fled the field: And Harry Monmouth's brawn, the hulk Sir John, Is prisoner to your son: O, such a day, So fought, so follow'd and so fairly won, Came not till now to dignify ...
— King Henry IV, Second Part • William Shakespeare [Chiswick edition]
... therefore, worth while for Thomson to pen such a passage as this:—'Your example sir, has recommended poetry with the greatest grace to the example of those who are engag'd in the most active scenes of life; and this, though confessedly the least considerable of those qualities that dignify your character, must be particularly pleasing to one whose only hope of being introduced to your regard is thro' the recommendation of an art in which you are a master.' ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... British. Between them no demarcation was made, or seen, or felt, in the majestic spectacle of the campaign of the Sutlej. Their toil and their perils were in common—so shall be their honours and their fame: and while all men agree that every excellence which can illuminate and dignify the character of a British soldier, was displayed in stainless brightness by our European regiments on these colossal battle-fields, all men will also agree that the exact and cloudless counterpart of such merit shone in the indefatigable hardihood, the indomitable ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... given that I could have procured that solemn grave visage of thine, to dignify this joke, as it has done full many a one of thine own! Thou hast so happy a knack of doing the most foolish things in the wisest manner, that thou mightst pass thy extravagances for rational actions, even in the eyes of ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... Kingdom and the Empire—and so the modern Frenchman and Italian are accustomed to settle their differences by an appeal to what they still call 'arms,' for the sake of what modern society is pleased to dignify ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... dreams, and fallacious reasoning, of all intents and purposes that might war with a sober and honourable discharge of exalted public duties. They are exalted, sir, and they may be so highly discharged, so ably and so loftily, as to infinitely dignify the office that has already great traditions. A Governor of Virginia may be the theme, sir, of many a ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... would have the untroubled mind, we must transfer our conscientious efforts from the small details of life—from the worry and fret of common things—into another and a higher atmosphere. We must transfigure common life, dignify it and ennoble it; then, although the old causes of worry may continue, we shall have gained a stature that will make us unconscious masters of the little troubles and in a great degree equal to the larger requirements. Life will be easier, not because we make ...
— The Untroubled Mind • Herbert J. Hall
... "resolution and independence" which dignify the lowly, and strengthen the unhappy, when no visible eye befriends them, been among the rich endowments of Chatterton's wonderful mind—had he possessed and cherished the courage that bears up against obloquy ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... trinkets, what not; and in the middle of all a little statuette of a Grecian nymph, which was a great favourite of Daisy's. Daisy began to guess that the pergne had something to do with her birthday. But the nymph? perhaps she came there by her beauty to dignify this use made of the stately old thing. However, she forgot all about fanatics and Mr. Dinwiddie for the present. The looks and smiles of the company were ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... reason in this. Was the thing not a fact which she had confessed? was he not a worshiper of fact? did he not even dignify it with the name of truth? and could he wish his wife had kept the miserable fact to herself, leaving him to his fools'-paradise of ignorance? Why then should he feel resentment against the man whose teaching had only compelled her to confess it?—But ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... northern nations did not escape the study of one who read rather to awaken the imagination than to benefit the understanding. And yet, knowing much that is known but to few, Edward Waverley might justly be considered as ignorant, since he knew little of what adds dignify to man, and qualifies him to support and adorn an ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... I asked, for the inverted wash-basin which the British dignify by the name of helmet is the most uncomfortable form of headgear ever ...
— Italy at War and the Allies in the West • E. Alexander Powell
... rest yielded easily to her entreaties. Mrs. Rose was delighted with the success of Lady Acacia and Mrs. Larch in their solicitations with the Forest and Fir Trees, whose majestic appearance and respectable characters she imagined would dignify her fete, never considering her own littleness might appear to them despicable; but from them she had nothing to fear, as they were too well bred to attend any meeting to ridicule it. 'Tis true when they did grace a public ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... sacrificed in childhood, when the mother and the family fail to develop the womanly qualities of modesty, grace, generosity of character, and geniality of temper, which dignify, adorn, and protect, ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell
... the fact being meanwhile that in all which is peculiar to Mr. Wordsworth's theory, Mr. Southey dissents perhaps as widely and as determinately as Mr. Coleridge; dissents, that is to say, not as the numerous blockheads among the male blue-stockings who dignify their ignorance with the name of dissent—but as one man of illustrious powers dissents from what he deems after long examination the errors of another; as Leibnitz on some occasions dissented from Plato, or as the great modern philosopher of Germany occasionally ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... pompously, yet with a certain gratification as though Harold Jupp had asked him to dignify the occasion ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... boast of it? If he has a voice, I have got the ghost of it! When I pitch it low, you may say how weak it is, When I pitch it high, heavens! what a squeak it is! But I never mind; for what does it signify? See my graceful hands, they're the things that dignify: All the rest is froth, and egotism's dizziness— Have I not played with Phelps? (To Wenman) I'll teach you ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... instinctively feel to be useful and safe. No sane child, for example, will deliberately stand in the way of a horse or a carriage at full speed,—or walk over a precipice,—or take burning coals from the fire with his fingers; were he to do so, we would not dignify the act so far as to say that it was "unreasonable," for that would be too mild an epithet,—but we would pronounce it at once to ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... Fancy's guide, Let stern-eyed Conscience o'er each thought preside; The passions, that on noblest natures prey, Oh! cast them, like corroding bonds, away! Disdain to act mean falsehood's coward part, 360 And let religion dignify thine art. If, by thy bed, thou seest at midnight stand Pale Conscience, pointing, with terrific hand, To deeds of darkness done, whilst, like a corse, To shake thy soul, uprises dire Remorse; Fly to God's mercy, fly, ere yet too late— Perhaps one hour marks thy eternal fate; ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... we should dignify by the name of ancestor-worship the older Roman festival of the Lemuria, which was held on the 9th, 11th and 13th of May. For the lemures were, like our unlaid ghosts, unburied, mischievous or inimical spirits, and these three days were nefasti or unlucky, because their ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... scene of conflict. In a little triangular tract of country on the east shore of Jamaica, hemmed in between the sea and the Blue Mountains, twenty-five miles long and two thirds as wide, occurred in October last what Governor Eyre has seen fit to dignify with the name of an insurrection. The first act of violence was committed at Morant Bay,—a town where it is said that no missionary to the blacks has been permitted to live for thirty-five years,—in the parish of St. Thomas in the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... exists in most of the mechanic arts is, however, far simpler than the science of cutting metals. In almost all cases, in fact, the laws or rules which are developed are so simple that the average man would hardly dignify them with the name of a science. In most trades, the science is developed through a comparatively simple analysis and time study of the movements required by the workmen to do some small part of his work, and ...
— The Principles of Scientific Management • Frederick Winslow Taylor
... earth degrade her, and so long as woman accepts the position that they assign her, her emancipation is impossible. Whatever the Bible may be made to do in Hebrew or Greek, in plain English it does not exalt and dignify woman. My standpoint for criticism is the revised edition of 1888. 1 will so far honor the revising committee of wise men who have given us the best exegesis they can according to their ability, although Disraeli said the last one before he died, contained 150,000 blunders ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... attentively watch the cupboard, where mamma has locked up her sweet things, and, when at last they get a delicious morsel, eat it greedily, and exclaim, "More!" These are certainly happy beings; but others also are objects of envy, who dignify their paltry employments, and sometimes even their passions, with pompous titles, representing them to mankind as gigantic achievements performed for their welfare and glory. But the man who humbly ...
— The Sorrows of Young Werther • J.W. von Goethe
... her own revenge; her reproach had killed the King; her summons brought him at once within the ban of that judgment to which she had called him. It would be well if one could believe the story; there would seem a dramatic justice—a tragic retribution—about it. Its very terror would dignify the story of a life that, on the whole, was commonplace and vulgar. But, for ourselves, we confess that we cannot believe in the mysterious letter, the fatal summons, the sudden fulfilment. There are ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... that you are willing to work, and I will give you your wages." It is for benevolence like this, well and usefully exercised, that Sir Robert Vaughan is especially remarkable, as well also for all those qualities which adorn and dignify the British country gentleman. Always careful of the welfare, habits, and comforts of the poor around him; patronizing the industry, ingenuity, and good conduct of his more humble countrymen, and ministering ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 10, No. 271, Saturday, September 1, 1827. • Various
... afternoon—as against the interior life, suggestion of which this vacant shadow-haunted house of innumerable memories presented to his mind! Was there any method by which the interior and exterior life could be brought into sane and fruitful relation, so that the former might sensibly permeate and dignify the latter? ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... something like a cottage. The roadside was no longer open, but had the low stone walls so familiar to Scottish eyes. As they drew near Elsie could see that the tiny tenement was only some crofter's cottage, and that the walls enclosed his bit of land, not large enough to dignify with the name of farm. Then it suddenly dawned upon her that their friend of the cart was most likely one of these crofters, whose poverty and hardships she had often heard her ...
— Little Folks - A Magazine for the Young (Date of issue unknown) • Various
... a ridiculous little shrub! We might just as well dignify mustard and cress with the title of trees. To whom does this very ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... complement or counterpart of the other, and that, alone, each is but a half sphere, and imperfectly rounded at that, I should more nearly approach to accuracy. To make the perfect whole which the Creator had in His idea, the two halves must be united. And so I dignify the oldest of human institutions—marriage. I accord to it the very perfection of wisdom, beauty, utility, adaptation. I am aware that in so speaking I hold to an old-fashioned belief, and tread incontinently, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... humility, and support with meekness the elevation to which thou art rising! May thy manners, language, and deportment, all evince that modest equanimity, and cheerful gratitude, which not merely deserve, but dignify prosperity! May'st thou, to the last moments of an unblemished life, retain thy genuine simplicity, thy singleness of heart, thy guileless sincerity! And may'st thou, stranger to ostentation, and superior to insolence, ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... to hear from Mr. Mackey some details about the Muni River, where he travelled in company with M. du Chaillu. It still keeps the troublous reputation for petty wars which made the old traders dignify it with the name of "Danger." The nearest Falls are about thirty miles from Olobe Island, and the most distant may be sixty-five. Of course we had a laugh over the famous Omamba or Anaconda, whose breath can be felt against the face before it ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... and a few with whom, during the energetic middle stage of life, from political differences or other accidental circumstances, he lived less familiarly, had all gathered round him, and renewed the full warmth of early affection in his later days. There was enough to dignify the connexion in their eyes; but nothing to chill it on either side. The imagination that so completely mastered him when he chose to give her the rein, was kept under most determined control when any of the positive obligations of active life came into question. ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... in his Discourse of the English Stage (1664), goes so far as to dignify these reconstructed inns with the name "theatres." At first, says he, the players acted "without any certain theatres or set companions, till about the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's reign they began here to assemble into companies, and set up theatres, first in the city (as in the inn-yards of ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams
... Madam, there are honest, discreet, religious, and true Protestant Knights in the City, that wou'd be proud to dignify and distinguish so worthy ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... the spurs of the Pyrenees, not very far from Toulouse, and still nearer to Bagneres-de-Luchon. It was the site of a bishopric until the Revolution, and has a cathedral which is visited by a certain number of tourists. In the spring of 1883 an Englishman arrived at this old-world place—I can hardly dignify it with the name of city, for there are not a thousand inhabitants. He was a Cambridge man, who had come specially from Toulouse to see St Bertrand's Church, and had left two friends, who were less keen archaeologists than himself, in their ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary • Montague Rhodes James
... the fellow, by way of asking pardon—ha, ha, ha! had the modesty to wait on me two or three days ago, to inform my honour—ha, ha, ha! as he was pleased to dignify me,—that the execution was now ready to be put in force against my honour;—but that out of respect to my honour—as he had taken a great deal of my honour's money— he would not suffer his lawyer to serve it, till he had first informed ...
— The Man Of The World (1792) • Charles Macklin
... that in the great leap from slavery to freedom we may overlook the fact that the masses of us are to live by the productions of our hands, and fail to keep in mind that we shall prosper in proportion as we learn to dignify and glorify common labour and put brains and skill into the common occupations of life; shall prosper in proportion as we learn to draw the line between the superficial and the substantial, the ornamental gewgaws of life ...
— Up From Slavery: An Autobiography • Booker T. Washington
... there we shall see the Bornouese population, in a purer state. Here it is mixed somewhat with the Kailouees and other tribes. At any rate, the manners of the people are somewhat influenced by the great number of foreigners. En-Noor and Lousou have both houses in Zinder, which the people dignify by the name of belad or "villages," but which are simply ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson
... conduct in regard to the riot. But let the Intendant recollect that, although a merchant, my father is above all things a Norman gentleman, who never swerved a hair-breadth from the path of honor—a gentleman whose ancient nobility would dignify even the Royal Intendant." Bigot looked daggers at this thrust at his own comparatively humble origin. "And this I have further to say," continued Philibert, looking straight in the eyes of Bigot, Varin, and Cadet, "whoever impugns my father's honor impugns ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... chemistry and in geology, by having traced the causes of the combinations of bodies to remoter origins, as well as those in astronomy, which dignify the present age, contribute to enlarge and amplify our ideas of the power of the Great First Cause. And had those ancient philosophers, who contended that the world was formed from atoms, ascribed their combinations to certain immutable properties received from the hand of the Creator, such as ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... irregular intervals. In the junctions of the story itself there are signs of roughness and want of skill, which make one suspect that the prose was only put together to connect a series of songs—a series of songs so moving and attractive that people wished to heighten and dignify their effect by a regular framework or setting. Yet the songs themselves are of the simplest kind, not rhymed even, but only imperfectly assonant, stanzas of twenty or thirty lines apiece, all ending with a similar vowel sound. And here, as elsewhere in that early ...
— The Renaissance - Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Pater
... upon the slightest contemplation of Negro Folk Rhyme classification, and is kind-hearted enough to dignify them with a claim to kinship to real poetry, the word Ballad rolls out without the slightest effort, as a term that takes them all in. Yes, this is very true, but they are of a strange type indeed. They are Nature Ballads, many of them, ...
— Negro Folk Rhymes - Wise and Otherwise: With a Study • Thomas W. Talley
... eaten and drunk the gatherings are costly. Our blind headman met the difficulty of expense in his village by getting the companies of believers to cultivate together in their spare time about three acres of land. His object was to associate religion and agriculture and so to dignify farming in the eyes of young men. He also wished to provide an object lesson in the results of good cultivation. The profits proved to be, as he anticipated, so considerable as to leave a balance after defraying the cost of ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott |
