"Serenity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 266. "Such a clatter of sounds indicate rage and ferocity."—Music of Nature, p. 195. "One of the fields make threescore square yards, and the other only fifty-five."—Duncan's Logic, p. 8. "The happy effects of this fable is worth attending to."—Bailey's Ovid, p. x. "Yet the glorious serenity of its parting rays still linger with us."—Gould's Advocate. "Enough of its form and force are retained to render them uneasy."—Maturin's Sermons, p. 261. "The works of nature, in this respect, is extremely regular."—Dr. Pratt's ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... poor Heidelberg Consistorium, as they could not undertake to give up their Church on request of his Serenity,—"How dare we, or can we?" answered they,—had been driven out by compulsion and stratagem. Partly strategic was the plan adopted, to avoid violence; smith's picklocks being employed, and also ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle
... although seventeen years old, and fast advancing to manhood, did not disdain to mingle his tears with those of his former playmate. It was some time before he could persuade Amber, who clung to him in her grief, to any degree of serenity. ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... master adopted the Panglossian view of the universe I used no arguments that might cloud his serenity. I acquiesced with mental reservations. We talked for a time, Paragot sitting primly on a straight-backed chair. He had abandoned his sprawling attitudes, for fear, I suspect, of spoiling his new clothes. The position, however, not making for ease of conversation, ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... enemies of God? As he entered their homes to drag them forth to prison, he got glimpses of their social life. Could such spectacles of purity and love be products of the powers of darkness? Did not the serenity with which his victims went to meet their fate look like the very peace which he had long been sighing for ...
— The Life of St. Paul • James Stalker
... response. He was standing at a window, looking out at the serenity of sea and sky. His forehead was drawn in thought. He knew that Von Ritz was right. Had Cara hated him, instead of merely finding herself unable to love him, he knew that the first threat of danger would arouse the ally in her, and that the suggestion of flight would throw her ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... to conceive a more intelligent, venerable looking head, than poor Herbert Stockhore presents; a fine capacious forehead, rising like a promontory of knowledge, from a bold outline of countenance, every feature decisive, breathing serenity and thoughtfulness, with here and there a few straggling locks of silvery gray, which, like the time-discoloured moss upon some ancient battlements, are the true emblems of antiquity: the eye alone is generally dull and sunken in the visage, but during his temporary ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... finding himself alone, lost the serenity of countenance which he had preserved in the presence of the pilot, and grief manifested itself ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... comforted in God, in time of danger, that your hearts, having been strengthened by confidence in the pity and presentness of God, may patiently wait for help and deliverance, and quietly maintain that peaceful serenity which is the beginning of eternal life, and without which there can be ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume I - Basil to Calvin • Various
... for the others. That never seemed to bother Plato—happy Plato! but—I'm sure I don't pretend to say if it ultimately means more or less greatness for the human race—but somehow since Christianity, people find it harder and harder to get back to Plato's serenity on that point. I'm not arguing the case against men like you, Morrison—except that there's only one of you. You've always seemed to me more like Plato than anybody alive, and I've regarded you as the most enviable personality going. I'd ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... clear of detaining and delaying objects like cradles, is cured and can go back with proper serenity to that which alone matters. Art and the work necessary to produce it. But she will have wasted time," he said, shaking his head. "She will most sadly ...
— Christine • Alice Cholmondeley
... keen ear these sounds were all they should have been, betokening an unchanged serenity of forestland. He was glad, for he had expected to hear the clipclop of white men's horses—which to hear up in those fastnesses was hateful to him. He and the Indian were friends. That fierce foe had no enmity toward the lone hunter. But there hid somewhere in the forest a gang of bad men, sheep-thieves, ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... morning as this, twelve years ago, Amiel wrote in his diary: "The whole atmosphere has a luminous serenity, a limpid clearness. The islands are like swans swimming in a golden stream. Peace, splendour, boundless space! . . . I long to catch the wild bird, happiness, and tame it. These mornings impress me indescribably. They ...
— Under the Trees and Elsewhere • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... one hand, and with the other caressed a great tumbler of iced beer. He was beautifully happy in his perfect idleness, and a sense was upon him of the eternal fitness of things in general. In the absolute serenity of his beatitude he fell asleep, with one hand still lazily clutching his beard, and the other still lingering lovingly near the great tumbler. This was surely not surprising, and on the face of things it would not have seemed that there was any reason for blushing at him. Yet a young ...
— An Old Meerschaum - From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories, Volume II. (of III.) • David Christie Murray
... the loss of an umbrella, which had happened somewhere between the time we boarded the basha on the yestereen and the hour of departure that morning, and an exhaustive but vain hunt for the same, first in the vehicle and then at the stables, nothing marred the serenity of our first half hour. The sky was dreamy; a delicate blue seen through a golden gauze. I fancy it was such a sky with which Danae fell in love. We rose slowly up the Shiwojiri pass, which a new road enabled even the basha to do quite comfortably; and the southern ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... contrary, exhibited no serenity whatever, and I found Canning and Palmerston shivering with apprehension in their frockcoats. The worst of it was that I could ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 18th, 1920 • Various
... and long before the end, when after an hour and a quarter a movement took the party, and it pushed away its cheese plates and rose sighing and stretching from the remains of the repast, little streaks and bands of dyspeptic irritation and melancholy were darkening the serenity ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... order to familiarise himself with its execution; but all the impressions arising from this thought remained in his own mind, and none was manifested on the surface. To everyone else he was the same; but for some little time past, a complete and unaltered serenity, accompanied by a visible and cheerful return of inclination towards life, had been noticed in him. He had made no charge in the hours or the duration of his studies; but he had begun to attend the anatomical classes very ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... patriarch were almost as rigid as though in death: but there was a serenity in his countenance which betokened an absence of pain. There were five physicians, members of the House, present, viz.:—Drs. Newell, Fries, Edwards, Jones of Georgia, and Lord. These gentlemen were unremitting in their attentions. Drs. Lindsley and ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... the neighborhood of Yazoo City to Jackson and below; and Forrest's, which was united, toward Memphis, with headquarters at Como. General Polk seemed to have no suspicion of our intentions to disturb his serenity. ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... serenity and sat down on an old stone seat, near which stood a weather-beaten statue of Venus. Seeing that she kept silent in spite of his broad hint, Lucian—to bring matters to a crisis—resolved to approach ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... tranquillity, felt as though instead of leaving a house, she were entering a cathedral—though of man-built cathedrals she knew nothing. It was the spirit which hallows cathedrals that brought to her deep young eyes a serenity and thanksgiving that made her face seem ethereal in its happiness—the spirit of benediction, of the presence of God and of ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... for a quarter of an hour she would dry her tears to give audience to milliners and jewellers. The sight of a new hat would call forth all Josephine's feminine love of finery. One day I remember that, taking advantage of the momentary serenity occasioned by an ample display of sparkling gewgaws, I congratulated her upon the happy influence they exercised over her spirits, when she said, "My dear friend, I ought, indeed, to be indifferent to all this; but it is a habit." Josephine ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... himself, bare and sad, in his russet woollen rug, with a hole to pass his head through, the natives of Galicia and Biscay have the delight of fine linen shirts, bleached in the dew. Their thresholds and their windows teem with faces fair and fresh, laughing under garlands of maize; a joyous and proud serenity shines out in their ingenious arts, in their trades, in their customs, in the dress of their maidens, in their songs. The mountain, that colossal ruin, is all aglow in Biscay: the sun's rays go in and out of every ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... more of her visitor; and shortly after, in an attempt to recover some mental serenity by violent physical exercise, she put on her hat and cloak and went out-of-doors, taking a path which led her up the slopes to the nearest spur of the wood. She disliked the woods, but they had the advantage of being a place in which ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... excited foreigner of some sort finally rushed from this quarter, and thrust his head into the booth where Lemuel and Mrs. Harmon sat, long enough to explode some formula of renunciation upon her, which left her serenity unruffled. She received with the same patience the sarcasm of a boarder who appeared at the office-door with a bag in his hand, and said he would send an express-man for his trunk. He threw down the money for his receipted ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... love with the sweet clearness of the summer nights, and so united that by the simple power of their love, they would easily divine each other's inmost thoughts. And that would endure indefinitely, in the serenity ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... there was another consultation between Mrs. Wortle and the Doctor, at which she explained how impossible it would be for the woman to go through the ceremony with due serenity and propriety of manner unless she should be first allowed to throw herself into his arms, and to welcome him back to her. "Yes," she said, "he can come and see you at the hotel on the evening before, and again in the morning,—so that if there be ...
— Dr. Wortle's School • Anthony Trollope
... wound, and Amy took him in her arms and tried to pacify him, while his father, who had strolled away with Mr. Clifford, speedily returned. The grandfather looked down commiseratingly on the sobbing little companion of his earlier morning walk, and soon brought, not merely serenity, but joy unbounded, by a ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... though he had something weighty in reserve. Olimpia, though by nature dull, was also sly. She had a suspicion about Angioletto now; but a quick-shifting glance from one to the other of the pair before her revealed nothing but serenity in the boy, and little but soft happiness in the girl. She opened her lips to speak, snapped them to again, and turned to the Captain and affairs more urgent than the love-making of babies. It was the hour of supper; the question was of a lodging. Captain Mosca knew ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... the sacrifice hurriedly proceeding: the women decking with shells and flowers the fairest maiden in their tribe, so soon to pass from them forever; the chiefs wrapped in the pride of Indian endurance hide from each other their feelings no tear betrays, or thoughts even mar the serenity of their countenances, which indicated only submission to fate while the necessary ceremonies were being provided for; and they filled the flower decked bark, moored in the little eddy above the rapids, with highly valuable contributions; and lighted the great pine-fires for the feast and ...
— Birch Bark Legends of Niagara • Owahyah
... her brother-in-law's admirable manner, Miss Merrivale soon recovered her wonted serenity of manner; while Lady Emily seemed never to have lost hers, so absolute was her trust and confidence in her husband, and his power to strengthen and reassure her. In less than half an hour, therefore, after the departure of the boat we were all sitting in a circle upon the sandy beach of the basin, ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... excuses for putting unwanted fingers into unwanted, dangerous pies. He thought of it like that—he could not help it; he saw too far into motive and internal action; was too impatient of the little storms, the paltry, tea-cup things. She, with her unique gift of serenity—her place was not among the busybodies grinding axes that were better blunt; interfering with the slow, slow working of the Mills of God. Her gift was example—rare and delicate; her light the silver light of a soul, that through suffering and patience and contemplation, ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various
... deep easy-chair sat the great-grandmother, dozing. Hers was the only face that did not show any change, or lose any of its usual serenity. She opened her eyes now and then, then dozed off again. Soon after twelve o'clock the women busied themselves with arranging the table ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko
... Bendel," she replied; "since I have awoke from my long dream, all has gone well with me. I now neither wish for death nor fear it, and think on the future and on the past with equal serenity. Do you not also feel an inward satisfaction in thus paying a pious tribute of gratitude and love to your ...
— Peter Schlemihl etc. • Chamisso et. al.
... time past, however, Virginia had felt her heart agitated by new sensations. Her fine blue eyes lost their lustre, her cheek its freshness, and her frame was seized with universal languor. Serenity no longer sat upon her brow, nor smiles played upon her lips. She became suddenly gay without joy, and melancholy without vexation. She fled her innocent sports, her gentle labours, and the society of her beloved family; wandering along the ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre
... had returned to the city, or had even fixed the dates for their weddings. Calthea was not a woman who would allow herself to be left behind in matters of this nature. From her general loftiness and serenity of manner, and the perfect ease and satisfaction with which she talked of her plans and prospects with her friends and acquaintances, no one could have imagined that she had ever departed from her original intention of ...
— The Squirrel Inn • Frank R. Stockton
... and envying; but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, in concupiscence. No further would I read; nor needed I: for instantly at the end of this sentence, by a light as it were of serenity infused into my heart, all the darkness of doubt ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... Martha's was a ruin; as unhappy a little building as St. Catherine's on the hill beyond the Wey. It was restored in 1848, and has taken out of the past a quiet and serenity that set it in the old years, in tranquil sunshine, in the peace of English Sundays. All the winds blow about it; it is alone in its acre of smooth down grass; within its churchyard wall are the graves of country labourers and their children, lowly mounds hardly seen, without the memory ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... were yellow, the reeds in the ditches that ran beneath each fence were greying and withering. The successive profiles of wood and hill, down the valley of the river went from orange and brown to a reddish purple, until, in the large serenity of the autumn evening, they softened to the universal ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... now from the life of Fuller we gain the still more important truth, that power is never so well aroused as in the face of obstacles. Few men endured more for art than he; none have waited more uncomplainingly for a recognition that was sure to come by-and-by, or received with greater serenity the approbation which the dull world came at last to bestow. His history is most wholesome in its record of steadfast resting upon conviction, and teaches quite as strongly as his pictures do, the value of absorption in a ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume I. No. VI. June, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... risks with the more spirited quadruped. His patrol had brought in a negro, whom he placed under guard. He had in his command a Captain Clarke, who, knowing the negro, set him free during the night. "Reader," says our colonel, with a serenity that is delightful, "behold a militia captain releasing a prisoner confined by his colonel commandant, and see the consequence!" The negro fell into the hands of the British, and conducted them upon the steps of our partisan. It so happened that ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... the Bishop should remain, instead of coming out to face the rioters as he wished, insulting him in the coarsest language and even threatening to kill him. The storm of popular fury broke itself against the imperturbable serenity and inflexible determination with which Las Casas met and dominated it. Though the crowd dispersed, cowed and sullen, to their houses, the murmuring continued, and the friars dared not leave their convents, for fear of provoking ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... energy for Claude in London. She feared it would be less easy to have energy for herself in Mustapha. But she resolved not to shrink back now. Rather vaguely she imagined that through theosophy lay the path to serenity and patience. Just now—indeed, for a long time to come, she needed, would need above all things, patience. In calm must be made the long preparations for that which some day would fill her life and Claude's with excitement, with glory, with the fever of fame. For the first ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... had disturbed her serenity by recounting the adventure of the evening before. Agnes had been silent from the habitual reserve which a difference of nature ever placed between her and her grandmother,—a difference which made confidence on her side an utter impossibility. There are natures which ever ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... brisk air and tempting serenity of the day made it seem emphatically an occasion for two lunches, and we passed on, along Pearl Street, in the bright checkerboard of sunbeams that slip through the trestles of the "L." It was cheerful to see that the same old Spanish cafes are still ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... in our country, and I neither had leisure nor inclination to interfere with her arrangements. Satisfied with her sincere friendship for me, I could easily forgive a few trifling infidelities, and nothing had disturbed the serenity or gaiety of our establishment until this unfortunate expose which I was obliged to make, and to prove the truth of in her presence, viz., that I had been a barber. Her pride revolted at the idea of having formed such a connection, her feelings towards me were ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... the fence, impatience written with a wandering reflection all over the serenity of her every-day expression. Susan only waited to lay aside her bonnet and mitts and then hastened ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... lives made one, the man and wife (A mystic thing to world of strife), Serenity of oneness, wholeness, Repose of love as ...
— Song-waves • Theodore H. Rand
... for a time may they thus think and speak. Happy if they can, at moments, lift up their hearts unto the Lord, and catch one glimpse of Him enthroned in perfect serenity and perfect order, governing the worlds with that all-embracing justice, which is at the same time all-embracing love, and so, giving Him thanks for His great glory, gain heart and hope to—what? To descend again, even were it from the beatific vision itself, to this disordered earth, to work a ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... had been interrupted. The chain of connection had been broken and the links would not weld easily. So, after some futile efforts to return to the circle I had long deserted, I desisted and accepted my exclusion with serenity. I am not sure that I desired the old relationships re-established. And as my long absence had prevented any fresh shoots of friendship being grafted, I found myself alone in London. ...
— The Crack of Doom • Robert Cromie
... smiled up at me, and Talbot turned. But his eyes met mine with perfect serenity. He even held up his cards for me to see. "What ...
— Somewhere in France • Richard Harding Davis
... I stood on the hill, gazing round to enjoy every shape and shade at leisure, my eye turned on the Castle. It spoiled all my serenity at once. I felt that it was a spot from which I was excluded by nature; that it belonged to others so wholly, that scarcely by any conceivable chance could it ever be mine; and that I could remain within its walls no longer, but with a sense of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... between Sire Edward and Queen Ysabeau. Lord Berners, for one, vexed himself not inordinately over the outcome, since he protested the King's armament to consist of fools and the Queen's of rascals; and had with entire serenity declined to back ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... from the melancholy remembrance of the past. But she had loved too faithfully, she had been wounded too deeply, to feel in any adequate degree the influence of the moral remedies which she employed. Persons who met with her in the ordinary relations of life, deceived by her outward serenity of manner, agreed that 'Miss Lockwood seemed to be getting over her disappointment.' But an old friend and school companion who happened to see her during a brief visit to London, was inexpressibly distressed by the change ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... with assistance, to bandage his leg; and after the first week of rest had expired, he amused himself with making a pair of crutches, and in manufacturing Indian paddles for the canoe, axe-handles, and yokes for the oxen. It was wonderful with what serenity he bore this ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... apparently, was now the political atmosphere, that men could not avoid accusing themselves of having judged rashly the mighty conqueror, who, by a word, could restore serenity as easily as he had disturbed it. It was not yet known by what power he was restrained. In compliance with the requirements of the treaty of Villafranca, Piedmont, indeed, withdrew her commissioners from Central Italy. The public, however, soon ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... general's forehead. At his side, proud, calm, and queenly in her womanly dignity and virtue, stood Rachel, the beloved mistress of the Hermitage. Her dress of stiff and creamy silk could add nothing to the calm serenity of the soul beaming from the gentle eyes, whose glance, tender and fond, strayed now and then to the figure of her husband, and rested for a brief moment upon the strong, gentle face with something akin to reverence in their shadowy depths. Her face, beautiful and beneficent, was not ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 21, August, 1891 • Various
... published in 1674, a copy of which is in the Editor's possession. The author's object is to correct some fatal errors which then peculiarly abounded, and to recommend the gospel in its purity to the acceptation of his fellow-sinners. Possessing that inward peace, serenity, happiness, and safety, arising from a scriptural knowledge of Christ and him crucified, he proclaims, 'I have ventured my own soul thereon with gladness,' and 'if all the souls in the world were mine, I would venture ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... time seen on their knees drinking ardent spirits, as they flowed down the kennel of the street in Holborn. Thus maddened, who can wonder at the excesses which followed? Thirty-six fires were seen on this night blazing in different quarters of the great metropolis, and nothing but the serenity of the night saved it from destruction. The panic was universal. Persons were seen on every hand removing their goods, as none could tell but that they might be destroyed by the merciless mob; or if a wind should suddenly spring up, by the devouring element. At the same time the dreadful reports ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... have left him severely alone—told him the matter concerned himself altogether. He has given up reading and argumentation of every kind. He says the Veni Creator every day. But I think, under Heaven, it is the patience and divine serenity of this poor child ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... in his studio. Work he could not; something had come over him—an influence unseen hovered near. He was not sad, nor was he joyous. There was a deep quiet reigning such as he had never before experienced. He seemed to be moving into a new faith; a serenity of softest light lingered around his spirit—a mild delight into which one would sink until it blossomed into ...
— Saronia - A Romance of Ancient Ephesus • Richard Short
... race. Such a people like to find the higher morality for themselves, not to have it imposed upon them by those who live under entirely different conditions. They feel—and with some reason—that it is a cheap form of virtue which, from the serenity of a well-ordered household in Beacon Street or Belgrave Square, prescribes what the relation shall be between a white employer and his half-savage, half-childish retainers. Both branches of the Anglo-Celtic race have grappled with the question, ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the eyes of the people as he did so; then sat down himself, and a long glance and a long nudge of shoulders passed over the meeting-house. Burr and his mother both knew it, but she sat in undisturbed serenity of pallor, and he stirred not a muscle, though a red spot ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... windy nights, the solemn stars, the moon-blanched valley with its grazing herds, the beautiful wild mourn of the hunting wolf and the whistle of the stag, and always and ever the murmur of the stream—in these, and in the solitude and loneliness of their haunts, he found his goal, his serenity, the truth and best of ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... lull in the work of blood, for in December all eyes had been turned to the spectacle of the trial of the king. From the 10th of August he had remained a close prisoner in the Temple, watched and insulted by his ruffian guards, and passing the time in the midst of his family with a serenity of mind, a calmness, and tranquility which went far to redeem the blunders he had made during the preceding three years. The following is the account written by the princess royal in her journal of the manner in which the family passed their days: "My father rose at seven and said prayers till ...
— In the Reign of Terror - The Adventures of a Westminster Boy • G. A. Henty
... varying expressions that crossed her face as her eyes travelled down the pages. It occurred to me after I had retired to my room that night, that an English girl of twenty-one would not have weathered the concentrated gaze of three strangers with such serenity of features. An observant and invisible critic might have imagined us to have been awaiting the decision of a young and charming Sibyl, so intently did we gaze and so neglectful was she of our regard. This apparent ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... died, and was soon followed by his wife and child; and now Dilly was quite alone with the house and the family debts. The time had come, wrote Jethro, for them to marry. She was free, at last, and he had enough. Would she take him, now? Dilly answered quite frankly and from a serenity born of faith in the path before her and a certainty that no feet need slip. She was ready, she wrote. She hoped he was willing she should sell the old place, to pay Tom's debts. That would leave her without ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... suggestions of imperturbability and being, as against the human trait of mere seeming. Then the qualities, almost emotional, palpably artistic, heroic, of a tree; so innocent and harmless, yet so savage. It is, yet says nothing. How it rebukes by its tough and equable serenity all weathers, this gusty-temper'd little whiffet, man, that runs indoors at a mite of rain or snow. Science (or rather half-way science) scoffs at reminiscence of dryad and hamadryad, and of trees speaking. But, if they don't, they do as well as most speaking, writing, poetry, sermons—or ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... once, but in the girl's breast a new pulse beat; a new instinct stirred, blindly importuning her for recognition; a new confusion threatened the ordered serenity of her mind, vaguely menacing it ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... threshold of that very cottage. She was wearing the same dress; her hair was done in the same way; she had on the same bangles and necklaces as in The Happy Princess; and her lovely face, with its rosy cheeks and laughing eyes, bore the same look of joy and serenity. ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... represented with a sinister glance, deadly mien, mysterious and savage aspect—a spectre, not a woman—is not true to nature. Her self-possession, cool cunning, supreme elegance, imperturbable tranquillity, calmness, moderation, noble serenity, and dignified poise, gave her an individuality such as few women ever possessed. Gentle in crime and tragedy, polite like an executioner toward his victim—this Machiavellianism which is equal to every trial, which nothing alarms or surprises, and which with tranquil dexterity makes ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... him against her. During his convalescence he remembered them and they conjured up the doubt whether Barine could endure the solitude of this desolate cliff, whether she would not lose the bright serenity of soul whose charm constantly increased. Would it be any marvel if she should pine with longing in this solitude, and even suffer physically from their ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... now, I saw, I understood. The plain spread out naked and deserted, all white in the broad sunlight. It exhibited its desolation beneath the intense serenity of heaven; heaps of corpses were sleeping in the warmth, and the trees that had been brought down, seemed to be other dead who were dying. There was not a breath of air. A frightful silence came from those piles of inanimate bodies; then, ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... the printer himself, and we often found ourselves together at the University Press, where The Atlantic Monthly used to be printed. But outside of his own house Longfellow seemed to want a fit atmosphere, and I love best to think of him in his study, where he wrought at his lovely art with a serenity expressed in his smooth, regular, and scrupulously perfect handwriting. It was quite vertical, and rounded, with a slope neither to the right nor left, and at the time I knew him first, he was fond of using a soft pencil on printing paper, though commonly he wrote with a quill. Each letter ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... mighty Pan, by covering his chin and breast with long grass-blades, that looked like a verdant and venerable beard." The pleasantness and peace of his surroundings and of his modest home, in Lenox, may be taken into account as harmonizing with the mellow serenity of the romance then produced. Of the work, when it appeared in the early spring of 1851, he wrote to Horatio Bridge these words, now ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Jennings, in his Rambles among the Hills, was fascinated by the placid air of this unambitious town—as an American might be expected to be in the uncongenial atmosphere of age and serenity. "One almost expects," he wrote, "to see a fine green moss all over an inhabitant of Steyning. One day as I passed through the town I saw a man painting a new sign over a shop, a proceeding that so aroused my curiosity that I stood for a minute or two to look on. The painter filled in one letter, ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... his Grandfather entered the house, and with the same serenity related his accident to his wife, who bestowed every ...
— Fanny, the Flower-Girl • Selina Bunbury
... seniors on either side gloom prevailed. Even Ranger, the lighthearted, was snappish, as his fag discovered; and Denton, the amiable, hoped he would not, for his temper's sake, meet too many Moderns between morning and evening. The captain, though he kept up his usual show of serenity, was evidently worried. But he had no notion of giving in. No! If the School was to be thrashed let them take their thrashing like men, and not whine ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... of this calm serenity and joy she derived from her life of prayer. It is no small matter for the writer of these pages to know, that there was not a day for upwards of sixteen years in which he was not personally and specially remembered by this lowly saint at ...
— The Cities of Refuge: or, The Name of Jesus - A Sunday book for the young • John Ross Macduff
... councillorship, so do thou make him Wazir of the Left." The King said, "With love," and followed his advice; nor was it long before his heart inclined o the hearts of his two Ministers and the time waxed clear to him and the coming of these two youths brought him serenity for a length of days and they also were in the most joyous of life. But as regards their mother; when her sons went forth from her, she bode alone—And Shahrazad was surprised by the dawn of day and fell silent and ceased saying her permitted ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... not quarrel with the well-behaved young man. She would not even quarrel with him because he was taking from her own Ralph the inheritance which for so many years had been believed to be his own. Thus in the plenitude of her affection and in the serenity of her heart she had told everything to her cousin. And now also her father knew it all. How this had come to pass she did not think to inquire. She suspected no harm from Patience. The thing had been so clear, that all the world might see it. Ralph, ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... fall, she will be sorrowful and depressed, instead of joyous and exhilarated, for the rest of the year during which she will be bound to her "wearisome silk-winding, coil on coil." Such a possibility, thinks Pippa's trustful heart, must surely be enough to cajole the weather into beauty and serenity. ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... whole. No one was bold enough, however, to make a second effort. Necessity at times gives birth to a swift capacity. Fresh from her simple country life, Phyllis found herself still able with effortless serenity to confound the most hardened boulevarders who paused to ogle her. Her eyes and lips expressed with ease the most convincing and absolute indifference to their approaches. A man may sometimes brave anger; ...
— A Maker of History • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... drove, the chariot passed a fair open space, on the outskirts of the city. A sudden chill froze the serenity of Ascobaruch's mood. He prodded the charioteer sharply in ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... himself to wonder a little if she were jealous when another woman took him away. Then he made out that Mrs. St. George wasn't glaring at the indifferent maiden. Her eyes rested but on her husband, and with unmistakeable serenity. That was the way she wanted him to be—she liked his conventional uniform. Overt longed to hear more about the book she had induced him ...
— The Lesson of the Master • Henry James
... there a Man, an Honour to the Age, Unsully'd by the keenest Party-rage; By Vice untainted; who, from early Youth, Firmly adher'd to Honour, Justice, Truth; Whom no unruly Passions e're cou'd blind, Nor ruffle his Serenity of Mind; His Country's Good, the Patriot's noblest View, Unbrib'd, unaw'd, does stedfastly pursue; Polite in Manners, and rever'd his Sense, And long in Senates fam'd for Eloquence; But if to these Endowments of the Mind, A graceful ...
— Two Poems Against Pope - One Epistle to Mr. A. Pope and the Blatant Beast • Leonard Welsted
... Lovelace.— The lady's sight begins to fail her. She blesses God for the serenity she enjoys. It is what, she says, she had prayed for. What a blessing, so near to her dissolution, to have her prayers answered! Gives particular directions to him about her papers, about her last ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... of suspense. I prepared to throw off my outer garments in case we were attacked, and roused the doctor, who had been some time asleep. At the cry of "wolf," he was very soon awake, though he did not lose that calm serenity that always distinguished him. The yemshicks continued their search for the road, one of them keeping near the sleigh and the other walking in circles in the vicinity. ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... she could have spoken with that hard serenity, how she could have gone steadily on with story after story, poem after poem, till Allan's grip on her hands relaxed, and he fell into a heavy, ...
— The Rose Garden Husband • Margaret Widdemer
... meet the bunch myself," he admitted; and led the way back to Estra. The Venusian looked at him with no change of expression, although there was something very disconcerting in the precocious wisdom of his eyes. Their very kindliness and serenity gave him an appearance of superiority, such as only aggravated the ...
— The Lord of Death and the Queen of Life • Homer Eon Flint
... needed for his meditative life, had bereft his eyes of the audacious pride which is so attractive in some faces, and which had so shocked our masters. Peaceful mildness gave charm to his face, an exquisite serenity that was never marred by a tinge of irony or satire; for his natural kindliness tempered his conscious strength and superiority. He had pretty hands, very slender, and almost always moist. His frame was a marvel, a model for a sculptor; but our iron-gray uniform, ...
— Louis Lambert • Honore de Balzac
... enfeebled and unbelieving Apostles, as contrasted with the rapture of devotion of the other three, and with the lowly submission and faith of Moses and Elias. Perhaps, too, the difference between the calm serenity of the mountain, and the hell-tortured misery of the plain—between the converse with the sainted perfected dead, and the converse with their unworthy successors—made Christ feel more sharply and poignantly than ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... privilege of reading his letters to his family from the day of April when, as a private in the New York Seventh, he obeyed the President's first call. Some day they must be published, for they form a veritable poem for serenity and simplicity of tone. He took to camp life as if it were his native element, and (like so many of our young soldiers) he was at first all eagerness to make arms his permanent profession. Drilling and disciplining; interminable marching and counter-marching, ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... made up his mind to endure it. Indeed, the world into which he had desired his son to enter was not at that moment treating the admiral well. He was suffering impeachment and the gout at the same time. He saw that William's religion was giving him a serenity in the midst of evil fortune which he himself did not possess. He could appreciate his heroic spirit. He admired him in ...
— William Penn • George Hodges
... for nearly ninety years. Recalling in 1905 the experiences of his boyhood, and among them a sharp illness at Eton, he was able to add, "Never during my long life have I again been seriously ill." To that extraordinary immunity from physical suffering was probably due the imperturbable serenity which all men recognized as his most characteristic trait, and which ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... energy is bent upon acquiring some false emotion, not his own, but belonging to the past, or to other persons, because he has been taught that such and such a result of it will be fine. Every attempted sentiment in relation to art is hypocritical; our notions of sublimity, of grace, or pious serenity, are all secondhand: and we are practically incapable of designing so much as a bell-handle or a door-knocker, without borrowing the first notion of it from those who are gone—where we shall not wake them with our knocking. ...
— Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture - Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... old Tom demanded, with a profane qualification as to the region. But young Tom seemed to be the only being capable of serenity amongst the flames that ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... — but no less Are to themselves incalculably something, And therefore to be cherished. God, you see, Being sorry for them in their fashioning, Indemnified them with a quaint esteem Of self, and with illusions long as life. You know them well, and you have smiled at them; And they, in their serenity, may have had Their time to smile at you. Blessed are they That see themselves for what they never were Or were to be, and are, for their defect, At ease with mirrors and the dim remarks That pass ...
— The Three Taverns • Edwin Arlington Robinson
... serenity of temper when he was out of the housekeeper's sight. One important discovery he had made, in spite of the difficulties placed in his way. A compromising circumstance had unquestionably occurred in Stella's past life; and, in all probability, ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... shaft of a cart with his back against a rick, listened to this narration with an air of dreamy abstraction, but Adam's quick eyes noticed that despite the unruffled serenity of his brow, his chin seemed ...
— The Money Moon - A Romance • Jeffery Farnol
... kingdom of heaven—the violent do not always take it by force. There are times when beauty and serenity should be the only bells in your chime. Force is only one of the great extremes of contrast—use neither it nor quiet utterance to the exclusion of other tones: be various, and in variety find even greater force than you could attain by ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... came to a climax. That was a long time ago from to-day, but the shock when it came shattered all the sacred feelings in Lady Baltimore's heart. She grew cold, callous, indifferent. Her mouth, a really beautiful feature, that used to be a picture of serenity and charity personified, hardened. She became austere, cold. Not difficult, so much as unsympathetic. She was still a good hostess, and those who had known her before her misfortune still loved her. But she made no new friends, ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... watched him and listened to the talk about him and dreamed of being just such a real scout as he. He moved about unconsciously among them, simple, childlike, stolid, but with a kind of assurance and serenity which he may have ...
— Tom Slade on Mystery Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... impelling him to curse those who condemned him to death, and refusing to reconcile himself with the Church.' But, as the Jesuit said, such boastfulness, the work of the Evil One, fails in the presence of danger, and cannot compare to the serenity of the ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... how much prudence, is serenity attributed amongst the titles of Princes, and the beams of the sun to irradiate their Crowns; That the Scepter bears a Flower; since as that glorious planet produces, so does it also wither them; and there is nothing lasting, save their vertues, which are indeed their essential ...
— An Apologie for the Royal Party (1659); and A Panegyric to Charles the Second (1661) • John Evelyn
... when I woke. I had slept, and horrified as the idea flashed upon me that she must be dead and that I had not been with her, I started up. She lay upon her bed, pale as marble, and with that calm serenity that the features assume when the cares of life no longer act upon the mind and the body rests in death. The dreadful thought bowed me down; but as I gazed upon her in fear her chest gently heaved, not with the convulsive ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker
... children are related to the sexless idealised race of Sir Edward Burne-Jones's heroes and heroines; they are purged of earthy taint, and idealised perhaps a shade too far. They adopt attitudes graceful if not realistic, they have always a grave serenity of expression; and yet withal they endear themselves in a way wholly their own. It is strange that a period which has bestowed so much appreciation on the work of the artists of "the sixties" has seen no knight-errant with "Arthur ...
— Children's Books and Their Illustrators • Gleeson White
... hatchet" is, of course, to be avoided: but the purpose of self-examination and self-knowledge is not to encourage morbid introspection, but by frank acknowledgment and repentance to get rid of the past and with recovered hope and serenity to reach forward towards the future. A man cannot "walk in the Spirit" unless he ...
— Religious Reality • A.E.J. Rawlinson
... think I could have painted with a calm mind if I knew that at my door there was a dun whom I could not pay? Art needs serenity; and if an artist begin his career with as few shirts to his back as I had, he must place economy amongst the rules ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... entered the garden they found it as quiet and as uninhabited as any pair of swordsmen could desire. They walked in silence along the path between the flowers and the vegetables, Lagardere only pausing for a moment to pluck a wild rose which he proposed in the serenity of his confidence to present to Gabrielle, and while he paused AEsop eyed him maliciously and amused himself by kicking with his heel at a turnip and hacking it into fragments. Lagardere put his flower into the lapel of his coat, and the pair resumed their silent progress ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... was one of the lowly of the earth and had been a tiller of the soil before he became a soldier. Their understanding was perfect; they made a very good couple, as Silvine said with her grave smile. There was never the least embarrassment between them; when she dressed his leg the calm serenity that dwelt in the eyes of both was undisturbed. Always attired in black, in her widow's garments, it seemed almost as if she had ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... into a beautiful face, lively, yet possessing that unmarred serenity which the Greeks gave to their female statues; but it was warm as living flesh is warm. Every feature expressed nobility in the catholic sense of the word; the proud, delicate nose, the amiable, curving mouth, the firm chin and graceful throat. In the candle-light the skin ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... this temperament is a serenity—Heiterkeit—which characterises Winckelmann's handling of the sensuous side of Greek art. This serenity is, perhaps, in great measure, a negative quality: it is the absence of any sense of want, or corruption, or shame. ...
— The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Horatio Pater
... of this episode served to restore somewhat Selma's serenity, but she kept her attention fixed on the table where the Williamses were sitting, observing with a sense of injury their gay behavior. To all appearances, Flossy was as light-hearted and volatile as ever. Her attire was in the height of fashion. Had adversity taught ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... design are evidently either sketches of this very subject by Giotto himself, or dexterous compilations from his works by a loving pupil. Lord Lindsay has not done justice to the upper division—the Satan before God: it is one of the very finest thoughts ever realized by the Giotteschi. The serenity of power in the principal figure is very noble; no expression of wrath, or even of scorn, in the look which commands the evil spirit. The position of the latter, and countenance, are less grotesque and more demoniacal than is ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... dear Marcus and Lucilia, came down to dwell upon earth, they could not but choose Palmyra for their seat, both on account of the general beauty of the city and its surrounding plains, and the exceeding sweetness and serenity of its climate. It is a joy here only to sit still and live. The air, always loaded with perfume, seems to convey essential nutriment to those who breathe it; and its hue, especially when a morning or evening sun shines ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... will, let us hope, continue to resist, the influence of injurious institutions founded exclusively upon individual selfishness and the right of the strong hand. If you would understand the mildness and the serenity which are natural to the Turk, you must observe the peasant among his fields, or at the market, or on the threshold of a cafe. Seedtime and harvest, the price of grain, the condition of his family—these are the invariable topics of his simple childlike conversation. He never ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... confessed to you. Yes. It is true that I was cruel to you—deliberately. I did want to hurt you. And do you know why? I wanted to shatter that Olympian serenity of yours. You were too strong, too self-confident. You had the air of a being that nothing could hurt. You ...
— King Arthur's Socks and Other Village Plays • Floyd Dell
... pacing the quad below. But it was not the formidable affair, nor was Mr. Slowcoach the formidable man, that Mr. Verdant Green had anticipated; and by the time that he had turned a piece of Spectator into Latin, our hero had somewhat recovered his usual equanimity of mind and serenity of expression: and the construing of half a dozen lines of Livy and Homer, and the answering of a few questions, was a mere form; for Mr. Slowcoach's long practice enabled him to see in a very ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... sorrow, I know that that not unhappy state of mind must soon arise. The death of infants is a release from so much chance and change—from so many casualties and distresses—and is a thing so beautiful in its serenity and peace—that it should not be a bitterness, even in a mother's heart. The simplest and most affecting passage in all the noble history of our Great Master, is His consideration for little children, and in reference to yours, as many millions of bereaved mothers poor and rich will do in reference ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 3 (of 3), 1836-1870 • Charles Dickens
... historical phenomenon, leaving his hearers to determine for themselves whether it was human or divine; but his influence proved more enduring than his writings. Weiszaecker, his successor at Tuebingen, in his Apostolic Age, described with consummate scholarship and passionless serenity the life and organization of the early Christian communities. The necessity of a careful study of the soil out of which Christianity has grown is now generally recognized, and great scholars such as Schuerer and Pfleiderer have re-created the religious ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... her thoughts and feelings, when, after having spent her breath, she found her husband quietly opposed to this conclusion, words cannot tell. Her words could not; she was absolutely dumb, till he had said his say; and then, appalled by the serenity of his manner, she left indignation on one side for the present and began to argue the matter. But Mr. Van Brunt coolly said he had promised; she might get as many helps as she liked, he would pay for them and welcome; but Ellen would have to stay where she was. He had promised ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... child came to live with old Mr. Roscoe at Linlithgow. Happily for the young mourner, the household cares of the manse now devolved upon her, in addition to the charge of Margaret; and these occupations, no doubt, aided greatly in restoring the serenity of her spirit. She had little time to brood over her sorrows—those small solicitudes and minute attentions to the feelings and comfort of others, which fill up so large a portion of a true woman's time, were with her a double blessing, cheering both the giver and ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... purpose. The discord which arose between these honoured personages was of a double character, for they were Norman and Saxon, and, moreover, differed in opinion concerning the time of holding Easter. This, however, was but a slight gale to disturb the general serenity of Eveline; for with her unhoped-for union with Damian, ended the trials and ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott |
