"Nobleness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... offend your majesty! I?—never! All my life through I have maintained that kings are above all other men, not only from their rank and power, but from their nobleness of heart and their true dignity of mind. I never can bring myself to believe that my sovereign, he who passed his word to me, did ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... who was drawn into the movement, almost in spite of himself, by the attraction of the character of the leaders, the greatness of its object, and the purity and nobleness of the motives which prompted it. He was naturally a man of metaphysical mind, given almost from a child to abstract and indeed abstruse thought.[31] He had been a student of S.T. Coleridge, whom the Oriel men disliked as a misty thinker. ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... reach his deduction. M. de Chateaurien, breaking into his narrative, addressed him very quietly. "Monsieur," he said, "none but swine deny the nobleness of that good and gentle lady, Mademoiselle la Princesse de Bourbon-Conti. Every Frenchman know' that her cousin is a bad rebel and ingrate, who had only honor and rispec' for her, but was so wilful he could not let even ...
— Monsieur Beaucaire • Booth Tarkington
... "Eikon Basilike," supposed to be written by Charles the First, says:—There was in it a nobleness and justness of thought with a greatness of style, that made it to be looked on as the best writ book in the English language.—Swift. I think it a poor treatise, and that the King did ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... understand. You found things out about me to-day, and you have behaved—well, splendidly. I didn't give you credit for it. I didn't know you. Now I do know you, and I see that no girl in the school can be compared to you for nobleness and courage, and just for being downright splendid. But, Aneta, I cannot bear that which is ...
— The School Queens • L. T. Meade
... counseled her from the heavens, she bade deck out the rood with gold and with gems, adorn it most artfully with precious 1025 stones; then to seal it with locks in a casket of silver. There hath the rood of life, best tree of victory, dwelt since then, indestructible in its nobleness. There shall it be ever ready, a solace for 1030 the ill of any disease, affliction, or sorrow. Then straightway shall men find aid and divine grace through ...
— The Elene of Cynewulf • Cynewulf
... for the time by the unexpected defeat at Ethandune, or that long residence in a Christian land and contact with Christian subjects have shaken his faith in his own gods, or that he has learned to measure and appreciate the strength and nobleness of the man he had so often deceived, at any rate for the time Guthrum is subdued. At the end of fourteen days he sends to Alfred, suing humbly for terms of any kind; offering on the part of the army as many hostages as may be required, without asking ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... diversities of time and circumstances, has had the same moral source; who contend that such champions of liberty as Brutus, William of Orange, De Witt, Chatham, however haughty and aristocratic the ideas of some of them, were yet of the same political faith, filled with ideas of human nobleness and dignity, conceding much, if not to the masses, at least to the advanced and enlightened classes which in their eyes represented humanity. Thinkers of this kind are not far to seek; witness Scherer, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... at all, Maggie; the nobleness has been yours in waiting so patiently. And your brothers would insist on it at any rate. They're watching me ...
— What Every Woman Knows • James M. Barrie
... keeping with its owner's taste; and that it should earn the praise of Evelyn as likely to be the stateliest house in London. [Footnote: "To my Lord Chancellor at Clarendon House," says Pepys, in his Diary for May 9, 1667. "Mightily pleased with the nobleness of this house, and the brave furniture and pictures, which indeed is very noble." He had been impressed with it as strongly in its early stages, and writes in January, 1666: "It is the finest pile I ever did see in my life, and will be a glorious house." The building was begun ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... condition to the acceptance of the utilitarian standard; for that standard is not the agent's own greatest happiness, but the greatest amount of happiness altogether; and if it may possibly be doubted whether a noble character is always the happier for its nobleness, there can be no doubt that it makes other people happier, and that the world in general is immensely a gainer by it. Utilitarianism, therefore, could only attain its end by the general cultivation ...
— Utilitarianism • John Stuart Mill
... state of wealth and influence, I might have saved, and reclaimed, and preserved him, even to the present day. He would not have been so old as my brother-judge, Lord Glenlee, or Lord Lynedoch, or a dozen others that one meets daily in society. And what a creature, not only in genius, but in nobleness of character, potentially at least, if right models had been put ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 435 - Volume 17, New Series, May 1, 1852 • Various
... to make better the mind—the heart—but of this has Mr. 'Arry no need. Is not, Sir Kildene? I call you always Sir as title to nobleness of character. We have, in our country, to inherit title, but here to make it of such character. It is well, ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... life and that ascension to God, there is all that men need, all that they want for life, all that they want for godliness. The basis of their creed, the sufficient guide for their conduct, the formative powers that will shape into beauty and nobleness their characters, all lie in the germ in this message, 'God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself.' Whoever keeps that in mind and memory, ruminates upon it till it becomes the nourishment of his soul, meditates on it till the precepts ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... upon, from every side, with an equal satisfaction. Search the wide world over, and you shall not find among the literary men of any nation, one on whom the dignity of a free and manly spirit sits with a grace more native and familiar—whose spontaneous sentiments have a truer tone of nobleness—the course of whose usual feelings is more expanded and honorable—whose acts, whether common and daily, or deliberate and much-considered, are wont at all times to be more beautifully impressed with those ...
— Poems • George P. Morris
... always be attended—it may be looked upon by English readers with somewhat of the admiration which I have long felt for the original, on account of the artistic finish of its execution, the purity of its tone, and the delicacy and the nobleness of the sentiment ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... The beauty and nobleness of the stallion could not fail to excite envy wherever and by whomever seen. His owner believed that Amokeat would steal him if he had the chance, but it need not be explained that the circumstances rendered that impossible. In venturing upon this raid, the Nez Perces were sure to come in collision ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... or caves?—Not so! The soul Breasts her own griefs; and, urged too fiercely, says: "Why tremble? True, the nobleness of man ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... Marchese—go, and leave me. It would perhaps be better so for both of us. I am not used to show to anybody the very inmost secrets of my heart, as I have been doing to you,—I know not why. Forget what I have said. Go, and forget me;—forget the poor comedian to whom your goodness, your nobleness, and—your love— seemed for a passing minute to open a blessed glimpse of a heaven upon earth; but never—never again propose to me to associate the name of Lamberto di Castelmare with names that I would—oh, so ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... shall, for the most part, meet with them in low men. Arrogance is a weed that ever grows on a dunghill. It is from the rankness of that soil that she hath her height and spreadings. To be modest and unaffected with our superiors is duty; with our equals, courtesy; with our inferiors, nobleness. There is no arrogance so great as the proclaiming of other men's errors and faults, by those who understand nothing but the dregs of actions, and who make it their business to besmear deserving fames. Public reproof is like striking a deer ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... his own bitterness rather than to amuse his fellow-men. As Mr. Whibley says, he is not a cynic. He is not sufficiently indifferent for that. He is a satirist, a sort of perverted and suffering idealist: an idealist with the cynic's vision. It is the essential nobleness of Swift's nature which makes the voyage to the Houyhnhnms a noble and not a disgusting piece of literature. There are people who pretend that this section of Gulliver's Travels is almost too terrible for sensitive persons ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... by these jacks-in-office; and that I still permit myself to play before them is a duty I owe to this Brotherhood,—because it deepens and sustains my bond with you all. There is no king on the face of the earth who has dignity and nobleness of character enough to command my respect,—much less my reverence! I take nothing from kings, remember!—they dare not offer me money—they dare not insult me with a jewelled pin, such as they would give to a station-master who sees a Royal train off. ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... refer to that spirit of self-assertion, which lies so deep in what may be called the religion of literature, to that wide-spread tendency to regard all reform of the individual man as being an evolution of some hidden nobleness, or an appeal to a perfect internal light or law, together with what may be called the worship of genius, the habit of nourishing all hope on the manifestation of the divine, by gifted individuals. We care not how this last ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... Laws." Cf. George Eliot, in Romola: "The contaminating effect of deeds often lies less in the commission than the hero the avowal of a just and brave act, it will go unwitnessed and unloved. One knows it himself and is pledged by it to sweetness of peace and to nobleness of aim, which will prove in the end a better proclamation of it than the relating of the incident." And, we may add, ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... then Sir Launcelot took Sir Carados by the collar and pulled him under his horse's feet, and then he alighted and pulled off his helm and struck off his head. And then Sir Launcelot unbound Sir Gawaine. So this same tale was told to Sir Galahad and to Sir Tristram:—here may ye hear the nobleness that followeth Sir Launcelot. Alas, said Sir Tristram, an I had not this message in hand with this fair lady, truly I would never stint or I had found Sir Launcelot. Then Sir Tristram and La Beale ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume I (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... who do not think it right to join in them would either do so against their consciences, or feel left out and forlorn; pretty girls would get overheated, tumbled, and torn, and carry about the marks of black arms on their delicate waists; and youths, unsurpassed in the natural nobleness of their port and presence, would make ridiculous faces in their well-founded anxiety lest they should lose the time or meet with collisions. But I give them, to make such amends as I can, plenty of room, pure air, neither hot nor cold, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... condiment, as a relaxation, pleasure seeking, if of the right sort, is not only allowable but commendable. He who gave life intended it to be a joy. To be always seeking after pleasure, however, exercises a dissipating and debilitating influence on the mind, and prevents the acquirement of true nobleness and worth of character. And would a creature, which is the highest workmanship of Infinite Excellence with which we are acquainted, yield himself to this, if given to the consideration of the fact the Almighty ...
— The Wesleyan Methodist Pulpit in Malvern • Knowles King
... own worth and nobleness when you insult so very helpless a being, and one whom fate has thrown so totally into your power. You know who and what I am, and how impossible it is that Menteith or you can use language of affection to me, beyond that of friendship. You know from what ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... and I do wish it would not so generally happen that English warriors go into battle almost nude; at least, we must suppose so, from their invariably receiving their death-wounds in that condition. I will not believe that a sculptor or a painter is a man of genius unless he can wake the nobleness of his subject, illuminate and transfigure any given pattern of coat and breeches. Nevertheless, I never go into St. Paul's without being impressed anew with the grandeur of the edifice, and the ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... mind and nobleness their seat Build in her loftiest, and create an awe About her as a guard ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... world that he owed his good fortune to merit alone, he disdained to court the soldiers by largesses; in short, he displayed a nobleness of disposition worthy of the most illustrious birth, and befitting the exalted station to which he had arrived. This prince was the founder of the noble amphitheatre, called the Coliseum, which remains to this day. Twelve thousand ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... and take it away from him. This act, so characteristic of the despotic arrogance which marked Richard's character, shows that the reckless ferocity for which he was so renowned was not softened or alleviated by any true and genuine nobleness or generosity. For a rich and powerful king thus to rob a poor, helpless peasant, and on such a pretext too, was as base a deed as we can well conceive ...
— Richard I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... of your charity, that, since this revolution, wherein I have patiently suffered the ruin of my small fortune, and the loss of that poor subsistence I had from two kings, whom I served more faithfully than profitably to myself,—then your Lordship was pleased, out of no other motive than your own nobleness, without any desert of mine, or the least solicitation from me, to make me a most bountiful present, which, in that time when I was most in want of it, came most seasonably and unexpectedly to my relief." This passage was the sole authority, we suspect, Prior ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... almost my only friend! You cannot, do not think I intended to say that!" interrupted Mabel, almost breathless in her haste to relieve his mortification. "If courage, truth, nobleness of soul and conduct, unyielding principles, and a hundred other excellent qualities can render any man respectable, esteemed, or beloved, your claims are inferior to those of no other ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... am sorry for that young lady and I ask you to have a heart," Mr. Meyers ventured to say to his chief with a boldness which he himself could not understand, but with which Mr. Vandeford was strangely patient. He ended with, "It will be a nobleness for you to not produce a cold show for her, but pay a small damage sum for such a beautiful lady and call ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess
... yellow, and white—to shoot down and scalp wherever they were to be found on top of the earth. But the creed he had so long adhered to, fought for, and gloried in had now on a sudden been knocked, picked, and crumpled up into a cocked hat by this young barbarian, whose conduct in the nobleness of soul it had displayed was utterly unlike any thing he had ever witnessed, heard of, or dreamed of, in this race. Big Black Burl took off his bear-skin war-cap, for the first time since quitting home, and with the back of his sweaty hand ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... reasons, old man," replied the priest, "for devoting thy life to the ruining of his, and what I guess at be such as I dare not voice; but let us understand each other once and for all. For all thou dost and hast done to blight and curse the nobleness of his nature, I have done and shall continue to do all in my power to controvert. As thou hast been his bad angel, so shall I try to be his good angel, and when all is said and done and Norman of Torn swings ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... were to be informed of the particulars of your kindness to me,—if it were described to him in all its delicacy and nobleness,—and he should afterwards be told that I suffered eight weeks to elapse without writing to you one word of thanks or acknowledgment, he would deem it a thing absolutely impossible. It is nevertheless true. This is, in fact, the first time that I have taken up a pen, not ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... power of energetic action depend upon our being able to breathe and live in the cloud; content to see it opening here, and closing there; rejoicing to catch through the thinnest films of it, glimpses of stable and substantial things; but yet perceiving a nobleness even in the concealment, and rejoicing that the kindly veil is spread where the untempered light might have scorched us, or the infinite clearness wearied. And I believe that the resentment of this interference of the mist is one of the forms of proud error ...
— Frondes Agrestes - Readings in 'Modern Painters' • John Ruskin
... said he, and suppose must not presume to ask, what those terms were. But I can but too well guess at them; and that I was to have been the preliminary sacrifice. But you must allow me, Madam, to say, That as much as I admire the nobleness of your sentiments in general, and in particular that laudable pride which you have spoken of, I wish that I could compliment you with such an uniformity in it, as had set you as much above all submission to minds implacable and unreasonable, (I hope I may, without offence, ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... by purity, and generally inculcated nothing unfriendly either to virtue or religion. But it was the religion of sentiment, and the virtue of the natural heart; of which it must be confessed we find far more in fictitious tales, than in real life. When we consider the nobleness of the motive that led her to seek a popular path to favor and emolument—to increase the comforts of her excellent and honored mother—our censure, were we disposed to indulge any, is disarmed and almost changed ...
— Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons • Arabella W. Stuart
... mysterious power that he possesses? His power is too great to spring from an honorable source. Sabine is sacrificing herself to this man for some reason or other, and he, like a dastardly cur, is ready to take advantage of the nobleness of her heart." ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... knew them all, and, with affectionate delight, remember their virtues, and recall the social hours we have enjoyed together, when they were matrons, and I the companion of their sons. And now, when all are gone, and time is crowding me to the grave, the nobleness of their characters, the simplicity of their bearing in the discharge of their household duties, and the ingenuousness of their manners in social intercourse, is a cherished, venerated memory. None of these women ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... Ainsworth exhibited nobleness of mind in his generosity to the humble miller and his daughter, Patty; when he found her blessed with all the qualities that captivate and endear life, and knew she was capable of adorning a higher sphere; when he had interviews with her upon the subject in which was painted the amiableness of ...
— George Washington: Farmer • Paul Leland Haworth
... "Nelson's nobleness of mind was a prominent and beautiful part of his character. His foibles—faults if you like—will never be dwelt upon in any memorandum of mine," he declares, and goes on— "he whose splendid and matchless achievements will be remembered with admiration while there is gratitude in the hearts ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... Charles IX. had a disposition that in good hands might have achieved great nobleness; and though cruelly bound and trained to evil, was no sooner allowed to follow its natural bent than it reached out eagerly towards excellence. At this moment, it was his mother's policy to appear to leave ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Was ever woman's nobleness of character so exemplified as in your life? Be comforted, Zoe, that in all my black sorrow I cling desperately to my pride in your strength. I long to shout abroad what you did and why you would never marry me, to ...
— The Diary of a U-boat Commander • Anon
... hospital she had had a vision. There she had seen suffering softened by gentleness, there empty lives were filled from generous hearts, and men and women inspired to make new and better starts. She had visioned the nobleness of giving—and the unanswered call of her mother-nature had responded. She was not fully well, she was not deeply living, she had never fulfilled the best of self, and she hungered for the hospital. Her aunt's conventional pride was echoed by the laws and the in-laws, and ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll
... of song, And looks as one who feels a hidden wrong, Or gazes on some feat of gramarye. 'When thou canst use it, thine the book!' she cried: He blush'd, and clasp'd it to his breast with pride:— 'Unkingly task!' his comrades cry; In vain; All work ennobles nobleness, all art, He sees; Head governs hand; and in his heart All knowledge for his province he ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... in which I find many a noble history of every state and degree; first rehearsing the conditions and the array of each of them as properly as possible is to be said. And after their tales which be of nobleness, wisdom, gentleness, mirth, and also of very holiness and virtue, wherein he finisheth this said book, which book I have diligently overseen and duly examined, to that end it be made according unto his own making. For ...
— Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse • Various
... therefore, for the sake of our spirits, even more than of our bodies, we must live by faith. If we wish to be loving, pure, wise, manly, noble, we must ask those excellent gifts of God, who is Himself infinite love, and purity, wisdom and nobleness. If we wish for everlasting life, from whom can we obtain it but from God, who is the boundless, eternal, life itself? If we wish for forgiveness for our faults and failings, where are we to get it but from God, ...
— Twenty-Five Village Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... up the tale and greatly bepraised Gudruda's beauty; nor in truth, for all his talk, could he praise it too much. He told of her dark eyes and the whiteness of her skin, of the nobleness of her shape and the gold of her hair, of her wit and gentleness, till at length Ospakar grew afire to see this flower ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard
... so too the most skilful sower. Ask any question you may choose about results thus beautifully wrought, and not one feature in the whole performance will the doer of it seek to keep concealed. To such height of nobleness (he added), Socrates, does husbandry appear, like some fair mistress, to conform the soul and disposition of ...
— The Economist • Xenophon
... literary critic we should not pass by, as he does not often take that part. Alcinous, praising the tale of Ulysses, says: "Form of words is thine, and a noble meaning, and a mythus, as when a minstrel sings." Three important qualities of poetry are therein set forth: beauty of language, nobleness of content, and the fable in its totality—all of which belong to the preceding narrative. Moreover, Alcinous draws a sharp contrast with that other sort of storytellers, mere liars, "of whom the ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... your intercalated comments, and the slight way of bringing in the second clause, serves to bring out the full, undivided force of the whole sentence! What a charming union of acuteness and moral nobleness it exhibits! Equally admirable for the same qualities is your distinction between basing a government upon slavery and basing it upon a great truth about slavery. Mr. Stephens has said that the corner stone of his new Government rests upon the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various
... partisans. Plutarch says that they fastened up one in a chest with vipers. When Blossius was brought before his judges he avowed that he would have burned the Capitol if Gracchus had told him to do it, so confident was he in his leader's patriotism—an answer testifying not only to the nobleness of the two friends, but to the strong character of one of them. Philosophers are not so impressed by weak, impulsive men. Blossius was spared, probably because he had connexions with some of the nobles rather than because his reply inspired ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
... not aid them better than by settling on the soil, and so being continually at hand in order to help them. In time, they said, they hoped to raise and train the natives to such a point that they would be able to look after themselves. Lanc spoke with some degree of eloquence upon the nobleness of the mission which they had undertaken, and the others clattered their cups of mead (a jar of that unpleasant drink was on the table) in ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the pallor and excitement of the young man, "the nobleness of your heart fills me with joy and admiration. It is not you who will have to thank me, but rather the nation whom you will render happy, the posterity whose name you will make glorious. Yes; I shall indeed have bestowed upon you more than life, I ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... was deeply moved by the nobleness of his niece, and reproved his daughter more harshly than he had ever done before, for the feebleness that created so strong and unjust a passion. This had the contrary effect to what he had hoped for: she did not hesitate to say that her cousin had endeavoured to ...
— Turns of Fortune - And Other Tales • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... energy, was shed over her regular features. She had the traits of a Hebe, and the form of a Juno. When she smiled and displayed her dazzlingly white teeth, she was irresistibly charming. When, in a serious mood, she raised her large dark eyes, full of nobleness and spirit, then might people fall at her feet with adoration. Countess Lapuschkin had often been compared and equalled to the Princess Elizabeth, and yet nothing could be more dissimilar or incomparable than these two beauties. Elizabeth's was wholly ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... had become common to look at them. He was simply now one of them himself—he was in the dust, without a peg for the sense of difference; and there were hours when, before the temples of gods and the sepulchres of kings, his spirit turned for nobleness of association to the barely discriminated slab in the London suburb. That had become for him, and more intensely with time and distance, his one witness of a past glory. It was all that was left to him for proof or pride, yet the past glories of Pharaohs were nothing ...
— The Beast in the Jungle • Henry James
... "it is not that I think highly of myself, as you well know; you well know with what anguish I have deplored our wants; it is pretension I despise, and rise above; talent, and learning, and virtue, and nobleness, that I ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... a soul of wondrous nobleness. He had not been hurt by popularity, as so many men are. Not all good people pass through times of great success, with its attendant elation and adulation, and come out simple-hearted and lowly. Then even a severer test of character is the time of waning favor, when the crowds ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... of a Franciscan convent, dedicated to Santa Maria de Rabida, and asked for a little bread and water for his poor child and for himself. The superior of the convent, Juan Perez de Marchena, gave hospitality to the unfortunate traveller. He questioned him, and was surprised by the nobleness of his language, but still more astonished was he, by the boldness of the ideas of Columbus, who made the good Father the confidant of his aspirations. For several months the wandering sailor remained in this hospitable convent; some of the monks were learned men, and interested themselves about ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... the statesman whose upright patriotism, moderation, and nobleness of purpose thus breathed through every word spoken by him in public or whispered to friends was already held up by a herd of ravening slanderers to obloquy as a ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... help himself in that way, the lion cannot have much fear of man," observed Wilmot; "and his lurking abroad in the night takes away much from the nobleness of disposition which you are ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat
... his mind, and perhaps there is no better demonstration of his fulfilment of the character of the monk than this constant solicitude to benefit others by every bit of investigation that he carried out. For him, with medieval nobleness of spirit, "the first part of every work must be the invocation of God, and the last, though no less important than the first, must be the utility and fruit for mankind that can ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... and to all who appreciate nobleness in others I lovingly dedicate these pages, devoted to a recital of the life and work of ...
— The Old Franciscan Missions Of California • George Wharton James
... with a perfect courage and chivalry against oppression and wrong. He instinctively appealed in fact to their higher nature, and such an appeal seldom remains unanswered. In the roughest costermonger there is a vein of real nobleness, often even of poetry, in which lies the whole chance of his rising to a better life. I remember, as an instance of the way in which such a vein can be touched, the visit of a lady, well known for her work in the poorer districts of London, to a ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... was not safe to be just, and where property, which you had garnered up by the thrift and industry of to-day, might be wrung from you by the caprices of the mob to-morrow,—that very Athens probably secured the greatest human happiness and nobleness of its era, invented art, and sounded for us the depths of philosophy: God lent to it the noblest intellects, and it flashes to-day the torch that gilds yet ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns
... for all comment, the might of anguish in a fragile woman, the dark depths masked by a fair face, the tears of four years of mourning fascinated Vandenesse; he sat silent and diminished in the presence of her woman's greatness and nobleness, seeing not the physical beauty so exquisite, so perfectly complete, but the soul so great in its power to feel. He had found, at last, the ideal of his fantastic imaginings, the ideal so vigorously invoked by all who look on life as the raw material ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... They brought us, for our dearth, Holiness, lacked so long, and Love, and Pain. Honour has come back, as a king, to earth, And paid his subjects with a royal wage; And Nobleness walks in our ways again; And we have ...
— The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke • Rupert Brooke
... calm, pure-spirited Angiolina is developed most admirably. The great difference between her temper and that of her fiery husband is vividly portrayed, but not less vividly touched is that strong bond of union which exists in the common nobleness of their deep natures. There is no spark of jealousy in the old man's thoughts. He does not expect the fervor of youthful passion in his young wife; but he finds what is far better—the fearless confidence of one so innocent that she can scarcely believe in the existence of guilt.... She thinks ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... the ardor of his early Anglomania, and in this, as in everything, she wished to humor him to the utmost. No one could have realized more than she his essential fineness, his innate nobleness. Marriages are what the parties to them alone really know them to be, but from the outside I should say that this marriage was one of the most perfect. It lasted in his absolute devotion to the day of ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... ridding him of all faith in a Divinity and in an immortal life, and thus exonerating him from all accountability and all future retribution. But it failed to perceive that, in the most effectual manner, it annihilated all real liberty, all true nobleness, and made of ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... wonted scene, the place and the lights, and the flowers and the dresses, yes, and the voices, gave her the new sense of being at home. Nevertheless, Daisy mused a little over some things that were not altogether pleasant. The faces that she scanned had none of them the placid nobleness of the face of her black nurse; no voice within her hearing had such sweet modulation; and Daisy felt a consciousness that Juanita's little cottage lay within the bounds of a kingdom which Mrs. Randolph's ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... this occasion he was thoroughly like himself. There was a kind of rightness and nobleness in what he did; but it was in the wrong place. If he had only been as prompt inside Gethsemane to do what he was bidden as outside it to do what he was not bidden! How much better if he could have drawn the spiritual sword and cut on the ear which was to be betrayed by a maid-servant's taunt! ...
— The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ - A Devotional History of our Lord's Passion • James Stalker
... agreeable to the general dictates of justice. Wherefore Papinian declares it is better to give false judgment than none at all, seeing how men without justice are no better than wild beasts in the woods, whereas by justice is made manifest their nobleness and dignity, as is seen by the example of the Judges of the Areopagus, who were held in special honour among the Athenians. So, seeing it is necessary and profitable to give judgment, and that it is not possible to do so without fault or mistake, it follows that mistake and faultiness ...
— The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France
... truth there is no practice more crossing the genuine nature of genteelness, or misbecoming persons well-born and well-bred; who should excel the rude vulgar in goodness, in courtesy, in nobleness of heart, in unwillingness to offend, and readiness to oblige those with whom they converse, in steady composedness of mind and manners, in disdaining to say or do any unworthy, any ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... been sent forward alone. You could wade the Atlantic as easily as he, unsupported, could go beyond that stone wall. But, from all one can learn, Lee was in fact not responsible for Pickett's lack of support, although in almost guilty nobleness of spirit he assumed the responsibility, and silently rested under the imputation ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII • John Lord
... drowned in the sea. This intelligence seemed to awaken great diversity of opinion. The hopeful philanthropist esteemed it a token that the millennium was already come; while persons of another stamp, in whose view mankind was a breed of bulldogs, prophesied that all the old stoutness, fervor, nobleness, generosity, and magnanimity of the race would disappear,—these qualities, as they affirmed, requiring blood for their nourishment. They comforted themselves, however, in the belief that the proposed abolition of war was impracticable for ...
— Earth's Holocaust (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Wilderness the cypress wreath— All these have passed away. The life in the veins of Treason lags, Her daring color-bearers drop their flags, And yield. Now shall we fire? Can poor spite be? Shall nobleness in victory less aspire Than in reverse? Spare Spleen her ire, And think how ...
— Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War • Herman Melville
... very stiff upon their Charter (PACTA CONVENTA, or whatever the name is); who wrangle much upon privileges, upon taxes, and are difficult to keep long in tune. Ten days ago (September 11th), her Majesty tried them on a new tack; summoned them to her Palace; threw herself upon their nobleness, "No allies but you in the world" (and other fine things, authentically, as above, legible in the Archives to this day):—so spake the beautiful young Queen, her eyes filling with tears as she went on, and yet ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... human nature observe that nothing so much shows the nobleness of the soul as that its felicity consists in action. Every man has such an active principle in him, that he will find out something to employ himself upon, in whatever place or state of life he is posted. I have ...
— The De Coverley Papers - From 'The Spectator' • Joseph Addison and Others
... only saying that he is Harold Transome still. That he does so choose when the forecast probabilities are all against those objects which the mere man of the world most desires, proves that under that hard external crust dwells as essential a nobleness as any we recognise in Felix Holt. There is an inherent strength and manliness in Harold Transome to which Arthur Donnithorne or ...
— The Ethics of George Eliot's Works • John Crombie Brown
... goodness, and steady industry, and faithfulness. He had honoured his master highly, as though he had been his own father; and the latter had fully reciprocated this affection, and had chosen Brusson, in spite of his poverty, to be his son-in-law, since his skill was equal to his faithfulness and the nobleness of his character. All this the girl related with deep, true, heart-felt emotion; and she concluded by saying that if Olivier had thrust his dagger into her father's breast in her own presence she should take it for some illusion caused by Satan, rather than believe that Olivier could be capable ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... except the Tales of a Grandfather and the Introduction to the Chronicles, remained to be added to it—when that fatal bill of Constable's was suffered by Hurst & Robinson to be returned. And the trials which followed, though they showed the strength, the nobleness, the rare balance and solidity of his character, did not create these virtues, which had been formed and established by habit long before. Respice finem is not here a wise, at least a sufficient, maxim: we must ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... than is generally imagined. Beauty and simplicity have so great a share in the composition of a great style, that he who has acquired them has little else to learn. It must not, indeed, be forgot that there is a nobleness of conception, which goes beyond anything in the mere exhibition, even of perfect form; there is an art of animating and dignifying the figures with intellectual grandeur, of impressing the appearance of philosophic wisdom or heroic virtue. ...
— Seven Discourses on Art • Joshua Reynolds
... thought on which the projected apologetic of Pascal was to revolve as on a pivot, is the contrasted greatness and wretchedness of man,—with Divine Revelation, in its doctrine of a fall on man's part from original nobleness, supplying the needed link, and the only link conceivable, of explanation, to unite the one with the other, the human greatness with the human wretchedness. This contrast of dignity and disgrace should ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... bravest gentleman, an' the best that ever stood, And your eyelid never thrembled for danger nor for dread, An' nobleness was flowin' in each stream of your blood— My bleasing on you night au' day, an' ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume II. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... basis. His opinions are considered strictly evangelical, though doubtless embodied in a modified form. In regard to the extent and soundness of his learning, the clearness of his perceptions, and the purity and nobleness of his character, there can be but one feeling among those who are qualified to pronounce a judgment on ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 8 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 19, 1850 • Various
... would bring it to a rich and glorious blossom in the sunshine of my favour. Wondrous is the tale of the wooing of you twain and happy shall be its end. General Olaf, you conquered me in war and dealt with those of my servants who fell into your hands according to the nobleness of your heart. Shall I, then, be outdone in generosity by one whom a while ago I should have named a Christian dog? Not so! Let the high priest of the Christians, Politian, be brought hither. He stands without, and with him the lady named ...
— The Wanderer's Necklace • H. Rider Haggard
... kindred race. Her Biscayan origin has endowed her with a fine figure of full development, withal in perfect feminine proportions; while her mother has transmitted to her what, in an eminent degree, she herself possessed—beauty of face and nobleness of feature. ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... its seeming extinction. Without such a hope, how could they have endured the existence they had? True, there are in our day men who profess unbelief in that future, and yet lead an enjoyable life, nor even say to themselves, "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die;" but say instead, with nobleness, "Let us do what good we may, for there are men to come after us." Of all things let him who would be a Christian be fair to every man and every class of men. Before, however, I could be satisfied that I understood the mental ...
— Miracles of Our Lord • George MacDonald
... humanity would have granted him. Having once imbued my hands in innocent blood, my cruelty and moroseness knew no bounds. I doomed to death several whole families, whose loyalty I merely suspected. Not a day passed without bloodshed. I defiled my soul with the blood of innocence, virtue and nobleness. All these things hastened a rebellion, excited by the nobles, who had been ...
— Niels Klim's journey under the ground • Baron Ludvig Holberg
... her specialities,—in which, other women, I fancy, have neither part nor lot, ... even here!—Altogether, the book is a sort of rambling 'Odyssey,' a female 'Odyssey,' if you like, but full of beauty and nobleness, let the faults be where they may. And then, I like those long, long books, one can live away into ... leaving the world and above all oneself, quite at the end of the avenue of palms—quite out of sight and out of ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... a kindly man, who never shed blood if he could help it, and, now that he was alone at Rome, won every one's heart by his gracious ways, while Antonius' riots in Egypt were a scandal to all who loved virtue and nobleness. So far was the Roman fallen that he even promised Cleopatra to conquer Italy and make Alexandria the capital of the world. Octavia tried to win him back, but she was a grave, virtuous Roman matron, and coarse, dissipated Antonius ...
— Young Folks' History of Rome • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... his name in after times that we wish more particularly to dwell. There have been no people who honoured their heroes so much as the Celts. With them valour and value were synonymous terms. Theirs was not a nobility of money, or literature, or aesthetics, or even of territory. Nobleness should be the qualification of a nobleman, and strange as it may seem, it was among the uncivilised Celts of Ireland and Scotland that such a character was properly appreciated. But they held nobleness and heroism to be identical. They seem to have thoroughly ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 3, January 1876 • Various
... without dealing heavy blows. "Graces flowed from his lips," said Chancellor d'Aguesseau, "and he seemed to treat the greatest subjects as if, so to speak, they were child's play to him; the smallest grew to nobleness beneath his pen, and he would have made flowers grow in the midst of thorns. A noble singularity, pervading his whole person, and a something sublime in his very simplicity, added to his characteristics a certain prophet-like air. Always original, always creative, he imitated nobody, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... confess I was irritated, that I was ready to decline to see her, but my curiosity, coupled with my desire not to offend her, led me to receive the unexpected guest. Assuming the expression of majestic nobleness with which I usually greet my visitors, and softening that expression somewhat by a smile in view of the romantic character of the affair, I ordered my servant to open ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... Charles; "shame!" echoed each of the boys present. And to show their sympathy, several of them sprang forward to aid the poor woman; but Charles Mansfield, the oldest, and always an example of nobleness and generosity, was the first. "Let me get the water for you, ma'am," and he gently took ...
— Tiger and Tom and Other Stories for Boys • Various
... by our incapacity on proper occasions to express, and on improper ones to control it. The pride of a gentleman of the old school used to be in his power of saying what he meant, and being silent when he ought (not to speak of the higher nobleness which bestowed love where it was honorable, and reverence where it was due); but the automatic amours and involuntary proposals of recent romance acknowledge little further law of morality than the instinct of an insect, or the effervescence ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... would know what God is, think of all the noble, beautiful, loveable actions, tempers, feelings, which you ever saw or heard of. Think of all the good, and admirable, and loveable people whom you ever met; and fancy to yourselves all that goodness, nobleness, admirableness, loveableness, and millions of times more, gathered together in one, to make one perfectly good character—and then you have some faint notion of God, some dim sight of God, who is the eternal ...
— The Good News of God • Charles Kingsley
... beyond all other things. For money she would sell right, nobleness, virtue. All those moral qualities which are so precious in God's sight Lydia would part with for that ...
— The Children's Pilgrimage • L. T. Meade
... charm of feeling or nobleness of instinct, beauty, or shade, it does not ask for, but it does ask for olives—olives that shall round off its dessert, and flavour its dishes, and tickle its sated palate; olives that it shall pick up without ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... enemies, and he expresses pity rather than revenge towards those who, through wantonness or malice, plan to undermine his character. No man, perhaps, ever passed through so much abuse, and none, I am confident, ever bore up against its virulence with more nobleness of spirit, with a steady perseverance in the pursuit of the sublimest of human professions. He has travelled on heedless of the sneers, the ridicule, or the detraction of his enemies, and he has arrived at ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... out of account, in reckoning the loss and gain of that tremendous year, the extraordinary examples of heroism called forth by its trials, which have made our annals richer, and have set the ideal of English nobleness higher. The amazing achievements and the swiftly following death of the gallant Havelock did not indeed eclipse in men's minds the equal patriotism and success of his noble fellows, but the tragic completeness ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling
... blessedness of Mary Elsmere's letters. She had seen the apology; she knew nothing of its causes. But she betrayed a joy that was almost too proud to know itself as joy; since what doubt could there ever have been but that right and nobleness would prevail? Catharine wrote the warmest and kindest of letters. But Mary's every word was balm, just because she knew nothing, and wrote out of the fulness of her mere faith in him, ready to let her trust take any shape he would. And though she knew nothing, she seemed by ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... have dissuaded a further prosecution of the Trojan success, has been repeated by many of the most devoted patriots the world ever saw. We, who defy augury in these matters, can yet add nothing to the nobleness of the ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... died 13th of April, 1828, of a pulmonary disease, brought on by exposure to the cold climate of Philadelphia, where he had gone to prepare himself for the practice of medicine. Possessed of a mind strong and vigorous, and of a firmness of spirit a stranger to fear, he died manifesting that nobleness of soul which characterized him while living, the brightest promise of his parents, and the fondest hopes of their ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... with my assistance. I do not think, that, during the month, we were in bed for one whole night. Two-thirds of these patients were unable to pay a cent. During these years, I learned all of life that it was possible for a human being to learn. I saw nobleness in dens, and meanness in palaces; virtue among prostitutes, and vice among so-called respectable women. I learned to judge human nature correctly; to see goodness where the world found nothing but faults, and also to see faults where the world could see nothing but virtue. ...
— A Practical Illustration of Woman's Right to Labor - A Letter from Marie E. Zakrzewska, M.D. Late of Berlin, Prussia • Marie E. Zakrzewska
... sceptre is properly a staff to lean upon; and that as a crown or diadem is first a binding thing, a 'sceptre' is first a supporting thing, and it is in its nobleness, itself made of the stem of a young tree. You may just as ...
— Proserpina, Volume 1 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... will be interested in every circumstance of it. What signify the silly, idle gewgaws of wealth, or the ideal trumpery of greatness! When fellow-partakers of the same nature fear the same God, have the same benevolence of heart, the same nobleness of soul, the same detestation at everything dishonest, and the same scorn at everything unworthy—if they are not in the dependence of absolute beggary, in the name of common sense are they not EQUALS? And if the bias, the ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... sent to ask me to send them some of these rhymed words of mine; wherefore I, thinking on their nobleness, resolved to send to them and to make a new thing which I would send to them with these, in order that I might fulfill their prayers with the more honor. And I devised then a sonnet which relates my condition, and I ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... penetrate the bulwark of my breast; My fingers, used to tune the amorous lute, Are not of force to hold this steely glaive. So I am left to wail my parents' death, Not able for to work my proper death. Ah, Locrine, honored for thy nobleness! Ah, Estrild, famous for thy constancy! Ill may they fare that wrought ...
— 2. Mucedorus • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... reached to the very borders of it, even to me. So that, if our general good fortune had not raised up your lordship to defend us, I know not whether any thing had been more ridiculous in court than writers. It is to your lordship's favour we generally owe our protection and patronage; and to the nobleness of your nature, which will not suffer the least shadow of your wit to be contemned in other men. You have been often pleased, not only to excuse my imperfections, but to vindicate what was tolerable in my writings from their censures; ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... deed can be said to have been by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, and that is that God did not interfere to save Jesus from the last dread ordeal. He allowed wickedness to do its worst, and thereby made the disinterested nobleness of the character of Jesus all the clearer. In such a time as that in which Jesus lived such a life as His was sure to end on a Calvary of some kind, unless He ran away from it, or God supernaturally intervened ...
— The New Theology • R. J. Campbell
... before whom they had trembled so long. The knights around him broke out at the tidings in a passionate burst of fury, and clamoured for the blood of Richard of Cornwall and his son, who were prisoners in the castle. But Simon had enough nobleness left to interpose. "To God and him alone was it owing" Richard owned afterwards, "that I was snatched from death." The captives were not only saved, but set free. A Parliament had been called at Winchester at the opening of September, and ...
— History of the English People, Volume II (of 8) - The Charter, 1216-1307; The Parliament, 1307-1400 • John Richard Green
... the time life was to him a poet's dream. He lived in a continual glamour of spiritual romance, bathing everything, from the old deities of the Valhalla down to the champions of German liberation, in an ideal glow of purity and nobleness, earnestly Christian throughout, even in his dealings with Northern mythology, for he saw Christ unconsciously shown in Baldur, and Satan ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... charming and lovely apparition, full of nobleness and grace, full of fire and energy; and yet, in spite of her youthfulness, not wanting in a certain grandeur and dignity. Elizabeth, though still almost a child, and frequently bowed and humbled by misfortune, yet ever remained her ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... friends to give as little loose as possible to such passions: this will prove the most effectual means to prevent the same in the enemies of my royal cause. And this my declaration will vindicate to all posterity the nobleness of my undertaking, and the generosity of ...
— Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers and Other Poems • W.E. Aytoun
... without being either thrillingly impressed or made to experience unusual emotions. The conclusion is, therefore, unavoidable, that every soul can become great. By processes of culture to which it is able to subject itself, it can perpetually increase in wisdom, in strength, and in nobleness. ...
— The Jericho Road • W. Bion Adkins
... with divorces; but I will humble myself to his Queen that is to pray her give me ease and him if the marriage be not consummated. For, so I love him that I will humble mine own self in the dust; but so I love love and its nobleness that, though I must live and die a cookmaid, I will not stoop in ...
— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford
... life, exhibited most conspicuously by Burns, has given a tone to the poetry of that century which is better explained by reference to its historical origin than by naming it, in the common criticism of our day, artificial. There is again, a nobleness of thought, a courageous aim at high and, in a strict sense manly, excellence in many of the writers:—nor can that period be justly termed tame and wanting in originality, which produced poems such as Pope's Satires, Gray's Odes and Elegy, the ballads of Gay ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... is evident that the being common to brutes, or peculiar to man, can alone be no rational test of inferiority, or dignity in pleasures. We must not assume that man is the nobler animal, and then deduce the nobleness of his delights; but we must prove the nobleness of the delights, and thence the nobleness of the animal. The dignity of affection is no way lessened because a large measure of it may be found in lower animals, neither is the vileness ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... on which my boy has so set his heart that, if I bring him it not, I fear lest he grow so much worse of the malady that he has, that thereby it may come to pass that I lose him. And so, not for the love which thou dost bear me, and which may nowise bind thee, but for that nobleness of temper, whereof in courtesy more conspicuously than in aught else thou hast given proof, I implore thee that thou be pleased to give me the bird, that thereby I may say that I have kept my son alive, and thus made him ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... mused compassionately, with a touch of youthful sentiment affecting me.—"Poor man! Working himself into his very grave, and with never a sign or murmur of complaint—worn and weighed down with the burden of his work, and yet with a nobleness of spirit and resolve that still conceals behind glad smiles and laughing words the cares that lie ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley
... home work needs to be taken from the hands of indifferent, careless servants and confided to those who realize the nobleness of the responsibility, and will strive to meet it faithfully. Ultimately, the ignorant, careless ones must be taught, but that will never be till culture is a manifest necessity and finds a fit reward. When a man undertakes the charge of a new business, he learns, not only its general ...
— Homes And How To Make Them • Eugene Gardner
... be in a large paper copy of a Catalogue of Books which merits the appellation of "nobleness" and "richness?" ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... contracted by Goldsmith with Mr. afterward Sir Joshua Reynolds. The latter was now about forty years of age, a few years older than the poet, whom he charmed by the blandness and benignity of his manners, and the nobleness and generosity of his disposition, as much as he did by the graces of his pencil and the magic of his coloring. They were men of kindred genius, excelling in corresponding qualities of their several arts, for style in writing is what color is in painting; both are ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... only on its intellectual side indeed that Elizabeth touched the England of her day. All its moral aspects were simply dead to her. It was a time when men were being lifted into nobleness by the new moral energy which seemed suddenly to pulse through the whole people, when honour and enthusiasm took colours of poetic beauty, and religion became a chivalry. But the finer sentiments of the men about her touched ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green
... been so blessed as to be caused to shed tears of joy and pride at hearing proofs of his tenderness, kindness, and generosity related by the recipients of some token of his nobleness, but of which we never should have ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... judgment, but to what we may each enter upon at any moment. The believing man 'hath eternal life,' and 'cometh not into judgment.' That life is not reserved to be entered on in the blessed future, but is a present possession. True, it will blossom into unexampled nobleness when it is transported into its native country, like some exotic in our colder climates if it were carried back to the tropics. But it is a present possession, and heaven is not different in kind from the Christian life on earth, but differs mainly in degree ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... through all the rooms. There were a great many of them, and, decorated for the occasion and filled with a stately crowd, their somewhat tarnished nobleness recovered its lustre. Mrs. Tristram, looking about her, dropped a series of softly-incisive comments upon her fellow-guests. But Newman made vague answers; he hardly heard her, his thoughts were elsewhere. They were lost in a cheerful sense of success, of attainment ...
— The American • Henry James
... and more magnificent career; and his name ranks among the few chosen examples of human achievement. And yet it was not only an unhappy life; it was a poor life. We expect that such an overwhelming weight of glory should be borne up by a character corresponding to it in strength and nobleness. But that is not what we find. No one ever had a greater idea of what he was made for, or was fired with a greater desire to devote himself to it. He was all this. And yet being all this, seeing deep into man's worth, his capacities, his greatness, his weakness, his ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church |
