"Gentle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... watchfulness. And presently I was rewarded by that vibrating rap at my bait. I stood up so the better to see. The swells were just right and the sun was over my shoulder. I spied the long, dark shape back of my bait, saw it slide up and strike, felt the sharp rap—and again. Then came the gentle tug. I let out line, but he let go. Still I could see him plainly when the swell was right. I began to jerk my bait, to give it a jumping motion, as I had so often done with flying-fish bait when after swordfish. He sheered ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... Montgomery hammered with nervous vigour at the piano, and Kate stood by his side, her soul burning in the ardours of her task. She would have preferred the part of Germaine; it would have better suited her gentle mind than the frisky Serpolette; but it seemed vain to hope for illness or any accident that would prevent Beaumont from playing. True, Leslie was often imprudent, and praying for a bronchial visitation they watched at night to see ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... to me, as it has to others, that a nearly level or very gently inclined surface, covered with turf, could suffer no loss during even a long lapse of time. It may, however, be urged that at long intervals, debacles of rain or water-spouts would remove all the mould from a very gentle slope; but when examining the steep, turf-covered slopes in Glen Roy, I was struck with the fact how rarely any such event could have happened since the Glacial period, as was plain from the well- preserved state of the three successive "roads" or lake-margins. But the difficulty ...
— The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the action of worms with • Charles Darwin
... Boston, one of the noblest men I ever knew, sweet, gentle, true: he came to me one day, and said: "Mr. Savage, I have tried all my life to be an honest man. I do not own an ill-gotten dollar. I have tried to be kind and helpful to people in need, in trouble; and yet," and then it began to dawn on him ...
— Our Unitarian Gospel • Minot Savage
... and witty lady; three Fathers, and us. Discourse good and pleasant. And here was an Oxford scholar, in Doctor of Laws' gowne, sent from the College where the Embassador lay when the Court was there, to salute him before his return to Spain. This man, though a gentle sort of scholar, yet sat like a fool for want of French or Spanish, but knew only Latin, which he spoke like an Englishman, to one of the Fathers. And by and by he and I to talk; and the company very merry at my defending ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... sea had clad me. What could I do? So once again I sought my dear, old sea, I knelt before its mighty waves, I prayed: "Oh, cover me, my dear, old sea, for nowhere else can I seek aid. The cruel stranger rules my home; my gentle children lifeless lie. And dost thou see those horrid flames, that rise where once my temples stood? Oh, cover me, protect me, my dear, my dear, old sea, for nowhere ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... easy-going son of God and throws off a world every now and then, or puts one on, with quips and jests. When the laugh dies away his jokes are prophecies. It behooves us therefore to walk softly, you and I, Gentle Reader, while we are here with him—while this dear gentle ground is still beneath our feet. There is no telling his reach. Let us notice ...
— The Voice of the Machines - An Introduction to the Twentieth Century • Gerald Stanley Lee
... seemed to me, and I doubted not it would to my father, much more reasonable and natural that a boy like John Halifax—in whom from every word he said I detected a mind and breeding above his outward condition—should come of gentle ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... he retired, wrapped in gentle thought, into his form-room; and from the noise which ensued immediately upon his arrival, the shrewd listener would have deduced, quite correctly, that he had organized and taken the leading part in a ...
— A Prefect's Uncle • P. G. Wodehouse
... citizens of Borealis were not on hand, attempting always to get the solemn little foundling to answer some word to their efforts at baby conversation. But neither to them, for the strange array of presents they offered, nor to Jim himself, for all his gentle coaxing, would the tiny chap vouchsafe the slightest hint of who he was ...
— Bruvver Jim's Baby • Philip Verrill Mighels
... didn't believe you would enter into it. But I've always had the idea; I've always thought it a part of the education of one's daughter. One's daughter should be fresh and fair; she should be innocent and gentle. With the manners of the present time she is liable to become so dusty and crumpled. Pansy's a little dusty, a little dishevelled; she has knocked about too much. This bustling, pushing rabble that calls itself society—one should take her out of it occasionally. Convents are very ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... said, "I will send back your belongings, together with the tar and feathers, which you may find useful some other day. The night is mild, and a gentle trot will keep you from taking chills. I should recommend hurry, for in five minutes the dogs will be loosed. ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... to break it to you," he said, "but the result is revolt, revolt all along the line. Yes, ladies; women, lovely, refined, gentle, educated women utterly refuse to be dictated to by political leaders, and openly sneer at ward bosses. They can't be kept in line. They no longer sing the sweet strains of 'The land of the free and the home of the ...
— An American Suffragette • Isaac N. Stevens
... interpret Mr. Browning's conclusion) the ideal of that divine and human Love which would have given the freest range to his spirit and yet accepted that law. Eglamor began with love. Will Sordello find it, meeting that gentle spirit ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... the first pages of a more wondrous legend still. Lifted above the many-gabled roof, yet not cut off from the echo of human speech, the little grove seemed a green sanctuary, fringed about with violets, and full of summer melody and bloom. Gentle creatures haunted it, and there was none to make afraid; wood-pigeons cooed and crickets chirped their shrill roundelays, anemones and lady-ferns looked up from the moss that kissed the wanderer's feet. Warm airs were all afloat, full of vernal ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... gentle manners and quiet ways, the new Chief Secretary ruled the then disturbed Ireland with an iron hand. He was known as "Bloody Balfour" by the Irish agitators until he began to show his milder ways upon the restoration of peace. He remained in Ireland until 1891. He had endured ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... nomad, a wandering child of Nature, whose birthright was a craving for the warpath, with courage and endurance probably exceeded by no other people, and with cunning beyond reckoning. Although his character is a strong mixture of courage and ferocity, the Apache is gentle and affectionate toward those of his own flesh and blood, particularly his children. Fear, to him, is unknown. Death he faces with stolid indifference; yet Apache men have been known to grieve so deeply over the loss of a friend as to end ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis
... in half-articulate interviews over the cradle ("We're no women for these nun bodies, going about the house like ghosts, are we, villish?"), but on the fifth day it burst into the fiercest flame and the gentle old thing flung ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... rumour at Aldershot or the military clubs, will know where to find this feast of reason. The flow of soul in these male festivals is perhaps, on the whole, more genial when found in a society of young gentlemen, graduates of the Turf and the Marlborough, and guided in their benignant studies by the gentle experience and the mild wisdom of White's. The startling scandal, the rattling anecdote, the astounding leaps, and the amazing shots, afford for the moment a somewhat pleasing distraction, but when ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... Charles as presiding in his court, as associating with his family, it is difficult to imagine a character at once more respectable and more amiable. A kind husband, an indulgent father, a gentle master, a steadfast friend; to all these eulogies his conduct in private life fully entitled him. As a monarch too, in the exterior qualities, he excelled; in the essential, he was not defective. His address and manner, though perhaps inclining a little towards stateliness and formality, in ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... Chloe put her head in at the door, having taken the precaution first to give a gentle tap, to inquire if dinner should be served. Lucy dined at four, and it was now drawing ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... his skin, his breath grew fetid and he became in sorry case. When the people of the town came to pray the morning-prayer, they found him lying there, sick and weak with hunger, yet showing signs of gentle breeding. As soon as they had done their devotions, they came up to him and finding him cold and starving, threw over him an old mantle with ragged sleeves and said to him, 'O stranger, whence art thou and what ails thee?' ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... told you what I'd do if you loaded them guns?" roared the judge. "Gentle, limping, baldheaded—" [Deleted by censor.] "How many more times I got to tell you? Now you know what you'll get. You'll get your needings—that's what you'll get! All day to-morrow! You hear me? You'll wear 'em all day ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... masters; put your torches out: The wolves have prey'd: and look, the gentle day, Before the wheels of Phoebus, round about Dapples the drowsy east with spots of grey: Thanks to you all, and leave ...
— Much Ado About Nothing • William Shakespeare [Knight edition]
... there, indeed, such a resemblance as the crowd had testified? Alas, Ernest could not recognize it! He beheld a war-worn and weather-beaten countenance, full of energy, and expressive of an iron will; but the gentle wisdom, the deep, broad, tender sympathies were altogether wanting in ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... companions passed away, And left the leaf to lone decay. The gentle gales of spring went by: The fruits and flowers of summer die. The autumn winds swept o'er the hill, And winter's breath came cold and chill. The leaf now yielded to the blast, And on the rushing stream was cast. Far, far it glided to the sea, And whirled ...
— Poems • Sam G. Goodrich
... lie in the British Islands. Pray be not displeased, gentle reader, if perchance thou hast imagined that I was about to conduct thee to distant lands, and didst promise thyself much instruction and entertainment from what I might tell thee of them. I do assure thee that thou hast no reason to be displeased, inasmuch as ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... the corner. From the hill came the weird tones of a whip-poor-will, and from the far-away bend of the river, the echoes of a steamer's wheel. The moon shot a beam of light through the window and the rays seemed to rest tenderly upon the calm and gentle face. Doctor Hissong's ...
— Shawn of Skarrow • James Tandy Ellis
... in interest when we consider that it succeeded in its scientific purpose. The mysterious bamboo was discovered, and large quantities of it were procured and brought to the Wizard's laboratory, there to suffer another wondrous change and then to light up our pleasure-haunts and our homes with a gentle radiance." ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... of their good or bad qualities. This is the origin of names like Wise, Gay, Hardy, Friend, Truman, Makepeace, Sweet, etc. The people who have these names may well believe that the first of their ancestors who bore them was of a gentle and amiable disposition. Names like Proud, Proudfoot, Proudman, Paillard (French for "lie-a-bed") show that the first people who had them were not so well liked, and were considered proud ...
— Stories That Words Tell Us • Elizabeth O'Neill
... to remember her, Sir Guy; docile and safe, and gentle withal, Sir Guy. But I don't drive her myself, Sir Guy," added Mr. Waxy, raising his hands deprecatingly, as who should say, "Heaven forbid!" "I don't drive myself, sir; no—no, my lad assumes the reins; and notwithstanding the potency of your Scamperley ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... own bed and lay looking at the whiter patch of the nearest window long after Helen's gentle, regular breathing announced her chum asleep. There were few other sounds about the dormitory. A door shut softly in the distance. Somewhere a dog barked once. Ruth was not sleepy at all. The day's doings passed in a not ...
— Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall - or Solving the Campus Mystery • Alice B. Emerson
... found, with Mrs. Chesterton at the Biltmore, this big, gentle, leonine man of letters six feet of him and 200 odd lbs. There is a delightful story of how an American, driving with him through London, remarked "Everyone seems to ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head." Even the beasts of the field and the birds of the heaven had warmer welcome in this world than he in whose heart was the most gentle love that ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... to have escaped with so gentle an admonition, returned to Lantza to resume his command. He was indeed more circumspect than in the past; but he found and seized the occasion to revenge himself on the town for the compulsory self-denial the Emperor had imposed on him. On his arrival he found ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... hand being laid upon me. I lifted my head which had fallen close against her cheek. The doctor stood beside me, his grave and kindly face bent low. He spoke some gentle words. I saw him replacing the needle in its ...
— The Garden of Survival • Algernon Blackwood
... lightly up on deck and looked round; the cutter was already under weigh, and with a gentle breeze was running along the smooth surface of Southampton waters; the ivy covered ruins of Netley Abbey were abreast of them, and behind was ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... imagined, I passed an unquiet night, disturbed by the most gloomy forebodings. It now appeared to me that all the amenity of the Sultan had been assumed, in order that he might first get all he could out of us by gentle means, previous to resorting to threats and bullying. As to resistance, it is, of course, impossible, if imperative demands be made. In the morning En-Noor sent a message, to the effect that he could not see us unless we had made up our minds to give him the seven ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson
... beach, the land rose up on both sides of the fiord in a gentle slope to the hills above, which latter were broken away in some places, forming flat level tables of basaltic debris that had tumbled from the tops of the cliffs; and, these stretches of table-land being under the lee of the hills, were sheltered from the snow that ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... the right level and gave her little butterfly kiss, while Dorothea encircled her with gentle arms and pressed her lips gravely on ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... little stockings dangling like a badly matched row of executed soldiers, the fire sinking into embers to facilitate the epic descent from the chimney, the breathing of dreaming children trembling for their to-morrow—this gentle Hestia of a thousand, thousand Christmas Eves was not on the ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... a frolic on the beach with her playfellows. Zeus transformed himself into a bull, and joined the game. A fine sight he was—spotless white skin, crumpled horns, and gentle eyes. He gambolled on the shore with them, bellowing most musically, till Europa took heart of grace and mounted him. No sooner had she done it than, with her on his back, Zeus made off at a run for the sea, plunged in, and began swimming; she ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... not fit for anything better than a duck to live in; but I'm an altered man now, and I repent. It's a regular heaven compared to this Klondike country. Hullo, Scruff, my son, how are you?" The dog gave an amiable growl, and seemed to enjoy the gentle caress the big miner gave him with his heavy boot, as he lay stretched out ...
— To Win or to Die - A Tale of the Klondike Gold Craze • George Manville Fenn
... fair sample of human freedom, and that he was to make a great many discoveries. When he was about fifteen, he achieved a momentous one. He ascertained that his mother was a saint. She had always been a very distinct presence in his life, but so ineffably gentle a one that his sense was fully opened to it only by the danger of losing her. She had an illness which for many months was liable at any moment to terminate fatally, and during her long-arrested convalescence she removed the mask which she had worn for years by her husband's order. Rowland spent ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... not the worst! If only as I sat here beside my large new window, around which the old rose-bush has been trained and now is blooming, I could look across to her window where the white curtains hang, and feel that behind them sat, shy and gentle, the wood-pigeon for whom through Mays gone by I ...
— A Kentucky Cardinal • James Lane Allen
... was gentle, and the elements So mixed in him, that nature might stand up And say to all the world, This was ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... a charming bit of sentiment, gracefully written and deftly touched with a gentle humor. It is a dainty book—daintily illustrated."—New York Tribune. "A wholesome, bright, refreshing story, an ideal book to give a young girl."—Chicago Record-Herald. "An idyllic story, replete ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... left this school and when he was about eleven went to Charterhouse. Here Thackeray was not much happier. He was a pretty, gentle boy, and not particularly clever, either at games or at lessons. The boys were rough and even brutal to each other, and Thackeray had to take his share of the blows, and got a broken nose which disfigured his good-looking ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... description: "As the afternoon session was about closing Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, retiring national president, who has endeared herself to all by her gracious courtesy, her firm yet gentle sway, presented to the convention its choice for her successor. Miss Shaw was not as clear-eyed as usual when she faced the cheering audience and her voice trembled and choked a little as she declared she had accepted the office only ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... attitude, with knees jammed against knees, and eyes wherever they can find a place to put them; women crushed between stout fellows, and indecently nudged at every apology of a jolt; in short, a penthouse of ill-humour; twelve 'all full' people; whiskerandi, gentle maidens, wives, and 'live widders,' ranged with solemn regularity like coffins in a vault. All fix their eyes where their minds are, on vacuity, and try to be for the time present, what they seem to be, as stupid as the devil, as if ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... ancestors is the mainspring of all virtues. No one who discharges his duty to them will ever be disrespectful to the gods or to his living parents. Such a man also will be faithful to his prince, loyal to his friends, and kind and gentle to his wife and children. For the essence of this devotion is indeed ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... that a crossing place must be found before the morrow, for it was inevitable that the farther they went down stream the larger it would become, because of its numerous tributaries. The Missouri was an eighth of a mile across at its junction with the Musselshell, but its current was gentle. Not an Indian had been seen for four days, and Deerfoot was on foot searching the northern shore for a good crossing place ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... Heard (SMITH, ELDER), with the sub-title, Before and After 1914. I say short stories, but actually these have so far outgrown the term that a half-dozen of them make up the volume. They are all examples of the same gentle and painstaking craft that their writers have before now exhibited elsewhere. Here are no sensational happenings; the drama of the tales is wholly emotional. My own favourites are the first, called "The Little Tinker," a half-ironical study of the temptation of a tramp mother to ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 152, Feb. 7, 1917 • Various
... As we hope, gentle public, to pass many happy hours in your society, we think it right that you should know something of our character and intentions. Our title, at a first glance, may have misled you into a belief that we have no other intention than the amusement of a thoughtless ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 1, July 17, 1841 • Various
... picture, her very voice is characteristic, "ever soft, gentle, and low; an excellent thing ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... The gentle Pardoner, "that straight was come from the court of Rome," begged to be excused; but the company would not spare him. "Friends and fellow-pilgrims," said he, "of a truth the riddle that I have made is but a poor ...
— The Canterbury Puzzles - And Other Curious Problems • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... London had heard something of him before, how that he was idiotic but gentle, and wonderfully managed by Lady Wondershoot's agent and the Vicar; how in his dull way he revered these authorities and was grateful to them for their care of him, and so forth. So that when they ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... the room with a feeling of relief; for if he were dull without her, she should not feel responsible, and unhappy at her own stupidity. The open air, that kind soothing balm which gentle mother Nature offers to us all in our seasons of depression, relieved her. The rain had ceased, though every leaf and blade was loaded with trembling glittering drops. Ruth went down to the circular dale, into which the brown-foaming mountain river fell and made a deep pool, and, after resting ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... stopped, and then she asked, with a kind of gentle bewilderment: "What did you want ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... 'All right, don't forget it.' And the master and the bailiff would laugh in each other's faces. With the servants, and with the serfs in general, his 'subjects' (Alexey Sergeitch liked that word) he was gentle in his behaviour. 'Because, think a little, nephew; nothing of their own, but the cross on their neck—and that copper—and daren't hanker after other people's goods ... how can one expect sense of them?' It is needless to state that ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... Cairo and he had a wife who ever boasted of her gentle blood and her obedience and her docility and her fear of the Lord. Now she happened to have in the house a pair of fatted ganders[FN482] and she also had a lover whom she kept in the background. Presently the man came to visit her and seeing beside her the ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... her shake her head in that way?" said my wife, apprehensively, as she observed the interesting beast making sundry demonstrations with her horns. "I hope she's gentle." ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... has befallen me and mine, as well as the Nation. The overwhelming misfortune of my dearly-loved grandson having been thus suddenly cut off in the flower of his age, full of promise for the future, amiable and gentle, and endearing himself to all, renders it hard for his sorely-stricken parents, his dear young bride and his fond Grandmother to bow in submission to the inscrutable ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins
... hurled at the center, only to be stopped by Wellington's cavalry with appalling loss. In the afternoon the Emperor delivered a series of cavalry attacks upon the allied center. Twelve thousand horsemen thundered up the gentle slope past the English guns, only to break against the bayonet-hedged squares of the infantry. At the end of eight hours' fighting the French center had advanced to within sixty yards of the British position, but the line still held, and Blucher's Prussians were rapidly coming ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... the crest of a series of ridges there lay before them a long gentle slope smooth and dun-colored as some soft pelt, dropping down into a tender vale with levels of purple vapor hanging over it. At the end of this declivity, leagues in length, was a faint blue shape, cloudlike and almost merged with the cold color of the eastern horizon, but suddenly ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... then to say a finite quantity or extension consists of parts infinite in number is so manifest a contradiction, that every one at first sight acknowledges it to be so; and it is impossible it should ever gain the assent of any reasonable creature who is not brought to it by gentle and slow degrees, as a converted Gentile to the belief of transubstantiation. Ancient and rooted prejudices do often pass into principles; and those propositions which once obtain the force and credit of a principle, are not only themselves, but likewise whatever ...
— A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge • George Berkeley
... looked away from her with an irritated expression. "Little stupid!" he muttered—she didn't appreciate him and he was a fool to expect it. But "art for art's sake"; and he went on in tones of gentle melancholy. "I love you, but fate has again caught me up. I am being whirled away. I stretch out my arms to you—in vain. Do you understand?" It exasperated him for her to be so ...
— The Fortune Hunter • David Graham Phillips
... endeavors to reduce the emotions which move him to a degree which will render participation in them possible for the former. In these reciprocal efforts we have the beginnings of the two classes of virtues—the gentle, amiable virtues of sympathy and sensibility, and the exalted, estimable virtues of self-denial and self-command. Both of these conditions of mind, however, are considered virtues only when they ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... objects be as if they were not familiar; it reproduces all that it represents, and the impersonations clothed in its Elysian light stand thenceforward in the minds of those who have once contemplated them, as memorials of that gentle and exalted content which extends itself over all thoughts and actions with which it coexists. The great secret of morals is love; or a going out of our own nature, and an identification of ourselves with the beautiful which exists in thought, ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... that way," said this gentle, but admirable creature, "has hitherto been done on a principle that is quite as false and vicious as that by which they are now oppressed. We have had a great deal written and said, lately, about uniting people of property, but it has been so evidently with an intention to make ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... sixteen, full-blown roses of thirty, haughty court dames, and smiling city beauties, come like delicious phantoms, and fill my mind with images graceful as your own forms, and melting as your own hearts! Thanks, gentle spirits! ye have heard my call, and now, inspired by you, I seize my pen, and give to my paper the thoughts which ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, December 11, 1841 • Various
... brought her some food. Up to the age of thirteen, which she had now reached, he had behaved to her with the most extreme harshness and severity; but now, to poor Beatrice's great astonishment, he all at once became gentle and even tender. Beatrice was a child no longer; her beauty expanded like a flower; and Francesco, a stranger to no crime, however heinous, had marked her ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... back into our car and I followed. He turned the bend almost on two wheels, and let her out as we swept down a short hill and then took the gentle incline on high speed, eating up the distance as though it had been inches instead of ...
— Guy Garrick • Arthur B. Reeve
... Caesar could appease. 4. By his moderation and humanity he soon restored tranquillity to the city, scarcely making any distinction between those of his own and the opposite party. 5. Having, by gentle means, restored his authority at home, he prepared to march into Africa, where Pompey's party had found time to rally under Scipio and Cato, assisted by Juba, king of Maurita'nia; and, with his usual diligence, landed with a small party in Africa, while the rest of his army followed him. 6. ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... the duty that lies nearest you," replied Nyoda, pressing her shoulder with a gentle hand. "You can be just as much of a Torch Bearer at home as anywhere. I know the prospect seems empty, even with the knowledge that you are doing your duty. By all the tokens, your place in life seems to ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... But he did not move from the doorway and returned my stare in an extraordinary, equivocal manner for a time. Then his eyes wavered, all his expression changed, and in a voice unusually gentle, almost coaxingly: ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... lookout for English cruisers, espied him. He was taken on board of a fine bark bound from Rotterdam for Java, with orders to choose the track least infested by that ravenous shark Britannia. Scudamore was treated with the warmest kindness and the most gentle attention, for the captain's wife was on board, and her tender heart was moved with compassion. Yet even so, three days passed by with no more knowledge of time on his part than the face of a clock has of its hands; and more than a week was gone before both body and mind were in tone and ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... her head nor hesitate; but she caught the extended hand and held it warmly in both her own, with gentle little pats, while ...
— Miss Billy's Decision • Eleanor H. Porter
... beautiful Persephone was playing with the girls who lived there with her. She was the daughter of the lady Demeter, and every one loved them both, for Demeter was good and kind to all, and no one could be more gentle and merry than Persephone. She and her companions were gathering flowers from the field, to make crowns for their long flowing hair. They had picked many roses and lilies and hyacinths, which grew in clusters around them, ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... very moment a man passed by, who looked into the pale, thin, hungry face of the sobbing child, with a kind, gentle look, and let himself be led into the wretched hut, where the poor dead mother lay. His heart bled for the poor orphans, for he was one who was full of tenderness: so he spake kind words to them; and when his servants came up after a while, he gave orders that their dead ...
— The Rocky Island - and Other Similitudes • Samuel Wilberforce
... I undertook a tour through the country, and the diversity and beauties of nature I met with in this charming season, expelled every gloomy and vexatious thought. Just at the close of day the gentle gales retired, and left the place to the disposal of a profound calm. Not a breeze shook the most tremulous leaf. I had gained the summit of a commanding ridge, and, looking round with astonishing delight, beheld the ample plains, the beauteous tracts ...
— The Adventures of Daniel Boone: the Kentucky rifleman • Uncle Philip
... holiness comes to the same, as we shall state further on (Q. 81, A. 8). Eucharistia (gratitude) means "good thanksgiving," and is mentioned by Macrobius: wherefore Isidore says (Etym. x) that "a kind man is one who is ready of his own accord to do good, and is of gentle speech": and Andronicus too says that "kindliness is a habit of voluntary beneficence." Liberality would seem ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... for a moment shrink. In his heart he felt that it was one of his inspired moments. There was confidence alike in his bearing and in his gentle reply. ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... anus, and so feel ashamed of it; even when speaking to their husbands, or to a doctor, or among themselves; they have absolutely no name for the vulva (I mean among the upper classes, and people of gentle birth), but speak of it as 'down below,' ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... search was fruitless; for after a few moments of indolent and listless examination, he suffered his huge frame to descend the gentle declivity, in the same sluggish manner that an over fatted beast would have yielded to ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... phrase. The king was in one of his gloomy moods; for royalty, with reverence be it spoken, has its moments of merriment and ill-humour, its mixture of sunshine and of cloud; and be it known to thee, gentle reader, that ticklish is the position of a courtier when majesty is in the dumps. To mend, or rather to mar the matter, the grand chamberlain, imagining that the sadness which overshadowed the royal brow came from regret, fixed his eyes upon a portrait of the queen, hung ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... vade mecum [Lat.]; manual; map, plan, chart, gazetteer; itinerary &c (journey) 266. hint, suggestion, innuendo, inkling, whisper, passing word, word in the ear, subaudition^, cue, byplay; gesture &c (indication) 550; gentle hint, broad hint; verbum sapienti [Lat.], a word to the wise; insinuation &c (latency) 526. information theory. [units of information] bit, byte, word, doubleword [Comp.], quad word, paragraph, segment. [information storage media] magnetic media, paper medium, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... and was much refreshed, before that his panting had become gasping though he kept up with us bravely, only lying down for a moment when we came to a little bit of shade—not often met with, the last three or four miles. For the last day or two, I have been almost continually in a cool, gentle perspiration, this is a great contrast to my state when at Peshawur, where my skin was always as dry as a bone, and I look upon that as a healthy symptom, I have had no headache since I ...
— Three Months of My Life • J. F. Foster
... bottom of the long, gentle slope that stretched to the Double A ranchhouse he did not spare his horse. The terrible spurs sank in again and again, stirring the animal to a frenzy of effort, and he rushed up the slope as though it were a level, snorting with pain and fury, but holding ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer
... by the lightnings of the ironical mode of presentation as always to seem unreal in himself and seriously to imperil the reality of the story. And, lastly, there are the chivalrous Percy Waring and the inscrutable Mrs. Lovell, two gentle ghosts whose proper place is the shadow-land of the American novel. But when all these are removed (and for the judicious reader their removal is far from difficult) a treasure of reality remains. What an intensity of life it is that hurries and throbs and ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... villainy of man born and reared in these cold northern climates; and in the land of Petrarch and Romeo, of the citron and myrtle, there was reason to expect that the native monster would be more amenable to gentle influences, less obstinately hardened in his iniquities. Without entering farther into these hypotheses, it is sufficient to say, that on Signor Riccabocca's appearance in the drawing-room, at Hazeldean, Miss Jemima felt more than ever rejoiced that she had relaxed ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... flights of marble steps, following these gentle sounds, and walked along a broad terrace adorned with fantastically curved dwarf-trees, set in rich porcelain pots, and made stately with enormous bronze braziers. The Russian officer, and even the Russian sergeant, were agreeably ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... mutatas dicere formas. The servile current of my sliding verse Gentle shall run into his thick-skinn'd ears; Where it shall dwell like a magnifico, Command his slimy sprite to honour me For my high, tiptoe, strutting poesy: But if his stars hath favour'd him so ill, As to debar him by his dunghill thoughts, ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... very quietly up to this time; she was a gentle little girl who loved her books, and never thought of thrones and kings and queens. When she was quite young she could speak French and Italian, wrote Latin, and understood Greek, Hebrew, Chaldee, and Arabic. This was the more wonderful because ...
— The Children's Book of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... replied Ledscha hesitatingly, gazing thoughtfully into vacancy. "She was what her demons made her. Hard as steel and gentle as a tender girl. I have experienced it. Oh, that she should die with rancour against me in her faithful old heart! She could be so kind!—even when I confessed that you had won my love, she still held me dear. But there are many great and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... band of workers which increased as time went on, until it included a great number of remarkable men. First in importance to the enterprise, acting with Diderot on equal terms, was D'Alembert, an almost typical example of the gentle scholar, who refused one brilliant position after another to devote himself to mathematics and to literature. Next, perhaps, should be mentioned the Chevalier de Jaucourt, a man of encyclopaedic learning, who helped in the preparation of the book with patient enthusiasm, ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... her all through her beautiful life for she was but a girl when she married, and little more when I can first recall her busy fingers and her gentle voice. I see her as a lovely woman with kind, dove's eyes, somewhat short of stature it is true, but carrying herself very bravely. In my memories of those days she is clad always in some purple shimmering stuff, with a white kerchief ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... and send him away with a hearty slap on the shoulder. Some of the shorter, when they are bent to mischief, dip a twig in the gutter, and drag it across our polished boots: on the contrary, when they are inclined to be gentle and generous, they leap boisterously upon our knees, and kiss us with bread-and-butter ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... covered to their summits with trees, and add much to the beauty of the scenery, the Sugarloaf rising in the distance behind them. The river immediately in front of the town forms a bay, which affords good anchorage to vessels of all classes. The town rises with a gentle ascent from the banks of the river, and presents a very good appearance for nearly a mile long, and the streets are broad and intersect each other at right angles. The town is open to the river on the north, but on the ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... Said the modest flowers, "Though the sun we scarcely know, Happiness is ours. Moon we have, and sparkling stars (Each a heavenly gem), And their light so gentle is, We ...
— Harper's Young People, August 3, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... blessing, gentle Skeptic!" he asked in a soft tone that thrilled tenderly through the silence of the dimly-lit chapel,—then, receiving no reply, he laid one hand gently on the young man's dark, clustering curls, and with the ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... letters of Murray remind one strongly of Thomas Davidson's, as published in that admirable and touching biography, A Scottish Probationer. It was my own chance to be almost in touch with both these gentle, tuneful, and kindly humorists. Davidson was a Borderer, born on the skirts of 'stormy Ruberslaw,' in the country of James Thomson, of Leyden, of the old Ballad minstrels. The son of a Scottish peasant line of the old sort, honourable, refined, devout, he was educated ...
— Robert F. Murray - his poems with a memoir by Andrew Lang • Robert F. Murray
... go on holding conferences and congresses in defiance of the police authorities, delivering eloquent speeches, discussing thorny political questions, drafting elaborate constitutions, and making gentle efforts to clog the wheels of the Administration,* while the Social Democrats will continue to organise strikes and semi-pacific demonstrations,** and the Socialist-Revolutionaries will seek to accelerate the march of events by agrarian disturbances ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... be bowed With woes far heavier than the ponderous tomb That weighed upon her gentle dust, a cloud Might gather o'er her beauty, and a gloom In her dark eye, prophetic of the doom, Heaven gives its ...
— The Poetry of Wales • John Jenkins
... wheeler, and when they have quieted down perfectly, I'll lead old Blanco through them and across the bridge, and possibly they'll follow. There's no use crowding them, for that only excites them, and if you ever start them milling, the jig's up. They're nice, gentle cattle, but they've been balked once and they ...
— The Log of a Cowboy - A Narrative of the Old Trail Days • Andy Adams
... example of humility in the lamb which will submit to any animal; and when they are given for food to imprisoned lions they are as gentle to them as to their own mother, so that very often it has been seen that the lions ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... upon a scene of dim beauty, gentle airs, and faint bright light. "Now that you say it," he replied, "it is. But depend on it, I should never have admitted it quarter ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... soon as the arms clashed at the first encounter, the enemy, from stratagem, not from fear, retreated. There was a gentle acclivity in their rear, between the army and their camp; and because they had sufficient numbers, they had left in the camp several strong cohorts, armed and ready for action, which were to rush forth, when the battle was now commenced, and when the ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... afraid. Also we their blood-brothers now, because we bring them first-class dinner and save chief from lion's fury. No blame them too much, Major, good fellows really with gentle heart, but grub like that from generation to generation. Every mother's son of them have many men inside, that why they so big and strong. Ogula people cover great multitude like Charity in Book. No doubt sent ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... had been passed at Adelsberg, and the morning had been agreeably occupied in exploring the wonders of its celebrated cavern. The entrance is through an opening in the side of a hill. In a few moments, after walking down a gentle descent, a sound of flowing water is heard, and the light of the torches borne by the guides gleams faintly upon a river which runs through these sunless chasms, and revisits the glimpses of day at Planina, ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume VI • Various
... little body began to dawn in the heart of Douglas Bruce. Understanding of Mickey came in rivers swift and strong, so while he wondered and while he watched entranced, over and over in his head went the line: "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread." With every gentle act of Mickey for the child Douglas' liking for him grew. When he went over the supper and with the judgment of a nurse selected the most delicate and suitable food for her, in the heart of the Scotsman swelled the marvel and the miracle ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... song begs for your pity, And gifts from out your store, And as I play my gentle lay I linger near ...
— The Violet Fairy Book • Various
... was washed by the clear waters of the great river; its body stretched itself rearward up a gentle incline; its most rearward border fringed itself out and scattered its houses about its base line of the hills; the hills rose high, enclosing the town in a half-moon curve, clothed with forests ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... lights with red glasses and blue were so placed as to produce the appearance of a fiery brazier, while on the floor of the stage, in the far background, long lines of gaslight had been laid down in order to throw a wall of dark rocks into sharp relief. Hard by on a gentle, "practicable" incline, amid little points of light resembling the illumination lamps scattered about in the grass on the night of a public holiday, old Mme Drouard, who played Juno, was sitting dazed and sleepy, waiting ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... will, more than I would. I trust to God and her teeth were well graft, to have her grace after another fashion than she is yet: so as I trust the king's grace shall have great comfort in her grace. For she is as toward a child, and as gentle of conditions, as ever I knew any in my life. Jesu preserve her grace! As for a day or two at a hey time, or whensomever it shall please the king's grace to have her set abroad, I trust so to endeavour me, that she shall so do, as shall be to the king's ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... true Penitence. The Lives of the Saints fed at once his imagination and his heart, and over the story of Saint Francis, now first made known to him, he trembled with delicious sympathy. The longing to found a hermitage like the Portiuncula among the savage rocks of Donnaz, and live there in gentle communion with plants and animals, alternated in him with the martial ambition to ride forth against the Church's enemies, as his ancestors had ridden against the bloody and pestilent Waldenses; but whether his piety took the passive or the aggressive form, it always ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... extensive plan, or co-operate with other men of mental power in the execution of such. He was crotchetty and impracticable, a man of rash judgment and hasty action-as brave and as tenacious as a bulldog. In private life he was gentle and loving; it was easy, as a friend or companion, to argue with John Mitchell, but impossible to co-operate with him as a compatriot. He had not the mind of a statesman, nor had he the prudence and policy ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... harmony with the gusto of his age, and records what a gentle spirit thought about the Moses then: "Worthy of all admiration is the statue of Moses, duke and captain of the Hebrews. He sits posed in the attitude of a thinker and a sage, holding beneath his right arm the tables of the law, and with ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... ground and faces the four Mid[-e]/ priests. The preceptor takes his position behind and a little to one side of the candidate, another assistant being called upon by the preceptor to occupy a corresponding position upon the other side. During this procedure there is gentle drumming which ceases after all have been properly stationed, when the preceptor steps to a point to the side and front of the candidate and nearer the officiating ...
— The Mide'wiwin or "Grand Medicine Society" of the Ojibwa • Walter James Hoffman
... committee advanced, Sir Matthew's opinion of his own importance increased, and Tarleton's dislike of him grew into hatred. Gentle, unassuming, and sensitive, he had never so far encountered an individual like Sir Matthew Bale, who outraged all his finer feelings and susceptibilities a dozen times a day. And the secretary swore between his teeth that if he ever got the chance of tripping ...
— War-time Silhouettes • Stephen Hudson
... ghostly, too, with echoes of long-past footsteps and memories of soft motherly words. Pattie Batch, however, a practical little person, knew in her own mind, you must be informed, exactly how to still the haunting echoes and transform the memories into blessed companions of her busy, gentle solitude; but she had not as yet managed ...
— Christmas Eve at Swamp's End • Norman Duncan
... his wife, as she took his bill-book from him, and hung up his hat, "here's an old soldier come to sup with us, my dear." And as she spoke, she gave her husband a gentle push toward the old man, and made a sign that he should speak ...
— Wonder-Box Tales • Jean Ingelow
... not to see this soul extend 240 The bounds, and seek some other self, a friend: As swelling seas to gentle rivers glide, To seek repose, and empty out the tide; So this full soul, in narrow limits pent, Unable to contain her, sought a vent To issue out, and in some friendly breast Discharge her treasures, and securely rest: To unbosom all the secrets of her heart, Take good ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... mother's bosom the babe learns his first lessons; from her smile he catches the glow of affection; and by her frown, or her gentle sighs he persuaded to give up what his ignorance or selfishness prompt him with pertinacity to retain. Happy where this sweet, this powerful influence is well directed,—where the mother's judgment guides her ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... the problem before the assembly. There is much humour in the readiness of the goose to rush in with a ready-made resolution, and in the smart reproof administered by the sparrow-hawk amidst the uproar of "the gentle fowls all." At last Nature silences the tumult, and the lady-eagle delivers her answer, to the effect that she cannot make up her mind for a year to come; but inasmuch as Nature has advised her ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward
... higher ground between Baiae and Cumae, lay the little town of Pompeii, under the sleeping Vesuvius. Here, probably just outside the town, Cicero had a villa of which he seems to have been really fond, and the society of a quiet and gentle friend, M. Marius. Whether we can find the remains of this villa among the excavations of Pompeii is very doubtful: but our excellent guide Schmidt assures us that he has good reason for believing that one particular house, just outside the city on the left side ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler
... aged negresses past active work. She had therefore begged Mrs. Wingfield to be allowed to take her place by the bedside of her young master, and, after giving her a trial, Mrs. Wingfield found her so quiet, gentle, and patient that she installed her there, and was able to obtain the rest she needed, with a feeling of confidence that Vincent would be well attended ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... gentle trot like that. Those you hear are the best portion of our horsemen who have been pursuing and scattering the enemy far and wide. Rather exciting ...
— Marcus: the Young Centurion • George Manville Fenn
... mechanical apparatus, railway and highway transport and power, reenforced concrete, excavations and mud, more particularly mud, concealment and ambush, and unlimited deceit and ferocity. It is not precisely that persons of pedigree and gentle breeding have ceased to enter or seek entrance to employment as officers, still less that measures have been taken to restrain their doing so or to eliminate from the service those who have come into it—though there may present itself a doubt on this ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... saw Sylvia she was always quiet and gentle; perhaps more silent than she had been a year ago, and she did not attend so briskly to what was passing around her. She was rather thinner and paler; but whatever change there was in her was always an improvement in Philip's eyes, so long as she spoke graciously to him. ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... Dona Perfecta uncovered her face and looked at her nephew with a martyr-like expression. Pepe was perplexed. The tears as well as the gentle voice of his father's sister could not be insignificant phenomena for the mathematician's soul. Words crowded to his lips to ask her pardon. A man of great firmness generally, any appeal to his emotions, any thing which touched ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... of civility by a string which is pulled by a man who modestly shrinks from publicity under the mercy-seat. And now the crowd, surging excitedly round the car, gives vent to its feelings in wild cries of joy, gentle and simple being mixed up together and all dancing furiously the Saltarello. A special feature of the festival is that every one must carry in his hand what is called a radica ( "root"), by which is meant a huge leaf of ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... people of substance in a way—did well with a mercer's shop in the Main Street, and were much looked up to by their neighbours. My mother always would have it that I came through my father of gentle lineage. Indeed, the name I bore, the name of Crowninshield, was not the kind of name that one associates usually with a mercer's business and with the path in life along which my father and mother walked with content. There certainly ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... all, dear. How could one so gentle as yourself offend any one?" exclaimed Lyon Berners, rising, and taking both her unresisting hands in his own; and feeling for the first time a sentiment of tenderness, as well as of ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... discovery that had been made, and left Carrie, Alan, and Malcom in an intense state of excitement, at the idea of regaining the long-lost cousin. The three then drove immediately to Mrs. Norton's little cottage, where the gentle and womanly child was busily engaged at ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... poor poet fell upon the hard rocks beneath his chamber window and was injured fatally. Frischlin was considered one of the best Latin poets of post- classical times; but his genius was marred by his immoderate and bitter temper, which caused him to imagine that the gentle banter and jocular remarks of his acquaintances were insults to be repaid by angry invective and bitter sarcasm, with which his ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield
... unfayned hart consider, (gentle Reader,) the uncharitable maner of the Accusation of Maister George Wischart, made by the bloudye enemies of Christes fayth. Note also the Articles whereof he was accused, by order digested, and his meeke answeares, so farre as he had leave and leysure to speake. Finally, ponder ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox
... a most extraordinary thing,' interposed the gentle Minor Canon, laying down his knife and fork to rub his ear in a vexed manner, 'that these Philanthropists are always denouncing somebody. And it is another most extraordinary thing that they are always ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... in a ring Before his palace gates do make The waters with their echoes quake, Like the great thunder sounding: The sea-nymphs chant their accents shrill, And the sirens, taught to kill With their sweet voice, Make every echoing rock reply Unto their gentle murmuring noise ...
— A Handbook for Latin Clubs • Various
... these cottage women. But it rarely worked out so. The women shared the men's carelessness and roughness. That tenderness which an emergency discovered in them was hidden in everyday life under manners indicative of an unfeigned contempt for what was gentle, ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... ruin of the churches; but he ventured to protect the Christians themselves from the fury of the populace, and from the rigor of the laws. The provinces of Gaul (under which we may probably include those of Britain) were indebted for the singular tranquillity which they enjoyed, to the gentle interposition of their sovereign. But Datianus, the president or governor of Spain, actuated either by zeal or policy, chose rather to execute the public edicts of the emperors, than to understand the secret intentions ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... irreverence. As compared with the gracious type of chivalric manners exhibited in the best specimens of three or four centuries ago, it must be confessed that sweetness of dignity, abundance of courtesy, gentleness, magnanimity, have suffered badly. No gentle and lofty mind can turn from the reading of Digby's "Broad Stone of Honor" to that of Thackeray's "Book of Snobs," without deep pain. Here is a field of influence superlatively fitted for the activity of ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... call it there,—Wanless Hall, Felsboro', as it is politically,—stands squarely and deeply in the hills of a northern county, plentifully embowered in trees, with a river washing its southern side. To reach house from river you ascend a gentle slope of lawns and groves for some hundreds of feet, then find a broad stepway. That takes you to a terraced, parapeted garden very well tended, as one should be which has four men at its disposition. There stands the house of Wanless, stone-built in the ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... environed, And MIGHTY WOODS which did the valley shade, And like a stately theatre it made, Spreading itself into a spacious plaine; And in the midst a little river plaide Emongst the puny stones which seem'd to 'plaine With gentle murmure that his course they ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... the latter as he drew nearer. It was a wondrous scene. The building in which they were imprisoned stood on a gentle hill clad in luxuriant, smoothly-cut grass and ornamented with beautiful flowers and plants; and below lay a splendid city—a city built on undulating ground with innumerable grand structures of white marble, with turrets, domes and pinnacles of gold. Wide streets paved in polished ...
— The Land of the Changing Sun • William N. Harben
... another, always came to her to be smoothed down and put right. He was conscious of her pleasant influence over him, and became at peace with himself when in her presence; just as a child is at ease when with some one who is both firm and gentle. But the keystone of the family arch was gone, and the stones of which it was composed began to fall apart. It is always sad when a sorrow of this kind seems to injure the character of the mourning survivors. Yet, perhaps, this injury may be only temporary or superficial; the judgments so constantly ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... the guilt which he had been so eager to revenge on others, then his sense of honour acts in a right noble style, prompting him to avenge sternly on himself the wrong and the injury he has done to the gentle Hero ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... caught glimpses of the face of Wilbur. She hardly knew him. She had seen him always big, gentle, handsome, good-natured; now he was grown harder, with a stern set of the jaw, and a certain square outline of face. It had seemed impossible. Now she began to guess how the law could have placed a price upon his head. ...
— Riders of the Silences • Max Brand
... intense pleasure I enjoyed for so long a period, I maintain that it is wiser to refrain, and, although I admit in the same breath that, by gentle treatment, such pleasure may be harmless to the general health, it does lead to a desire for solitude, which is not conducive to a happy frame of mind. There is an accompanying reticence of speech ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... were in a state of lamentable irritability. "I dare not even mention your name to him, dear Amelius; it seems, I cannot think why, to make him—oh, so unreasonably angry. I can only submit, and pray that he may soon be himself again." Amelius wrote back, always in the same considerate and gentle tone; always laying the blame of his dull letters on the studious uniformity of his life. He preserved, with a perfectly easy conscience, the most absolute silence on the subject of Sally. While he was faithful to Regina, what reason had he ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... live his days if not in dreaming of his well-spent past? In that, at all events, there is no agitating warmth, only pale winter sunshine. The shell can withstand the gentle beating of the dynamos of memory. The present he should distrust; the future shun. From beneath thick shade he should watch the sunlight creeping at his toes. If there be sun of summer, let him not go out into it, mistaking it for the Indian-summer sun! Thus peradventure ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... instincts and energies at the call of the morning, and the shrinking of the vices when the darkness of night gives place to the light of day. The relief-frieze of the "Fountain of the Setting Sun" is entitled "The Gentle Powers of Night." It represents Descending Night bringing with her the Stars, the Moon-goddess, Dreams, and similar beautiful things. The lower basins of both fountains contain figures of centaurs (a new sea-variety, with fins) ...
— An Art-Lovers guide to the Exposition • Shelden Cheney
... if Plato travelled into Italy, Greece, and Egypt, Aquinas went to Cologne, Naples, Bologna, and Rome; if Plato was famous for his erudition, Aquinas was no less noted for his universal knowledge. Both were naturally meek and gentle; both led lives of retirement and contemplation; both loved solitude; both were celebrated for self-control; both were brave; both held their pupils spell-bound by their brilliant mental gifts; both passed their time in lecturing to the schools (what the Pythagoreans were to Plato, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume V • John Lord
... Wegg rejoined, as he sat down on his stool, with an air of gentle resignation, combined with melancholy candour; it is not a name as I could wish any one that I had a respect for, to call ME by; but there may be persons that would not view it with the same objections.—I don't know why,' Mr ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... was a fine estate of five thousand acres which had been handed down for several generations. The old home sat in a grove of hickory, oak and elm trees, on a gentle slope. Ancient sentinels, and they were there when the first Travis came from North Carolina to the Tennessee Valley and built his first double-log cabin under ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... The boats were moored to strong trunks and huge sinewy roots; and the larger number of them turned out "to grass," that is, leased as shops and dwelling houses. Signboards and figure-heads from the boats were set up along the shore, facing the levee; and back of them, up the gentle slopes of the hills lying between the Sacramento and the American Rivers, for the town was built at the junction of these two rivers, ran the streets of this novel city, lined with their odd-looking canvas houses and tents. Great forest-trees, some of them ...
— The Cave of Gold - A Tale of California in '49 • Everett McNeil
... remained bowed over her work. She had heard all this so many times. But now and then she would rise, lay down her sewing, and come slowly to the fence. There was a charm in these gentle ravings. He was determined that his son should not go away again for the want of a home all ready for him. He had been filling the other cottage with all sorts of furniture. She imagined it all new, fresh with varnish, piled up as in a warehouse. There would be tables wrapped ...
— To-morrow • Joseph Conrad
... field officer, and a bird to be brought down if feminine witchery could do it. He was truthful, generous, high-minded, brave—a man who preferred to be of and with his subordinates rather than above them—to rule through affection and regard rather than the stern standard of command. He was gentle and courteous alike to officers and the rank and file, though he feared no man on the face of the globe. He was awkward, bungling and overwhelmingly, lavishly, kind and thoughtful in his dealings with the womenfolk of the garrison, for he stood in awe of ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... not able to do it, and how I have pitied her as she tried to eat the bread and dripping we had for supper. Failing in the attempt, I would notice the tears gather in her eyes. Oh, how often I longed to be able to obtain some little delicacy for her! but dared not ask for it. Her gentle, patient, suffering face will never fade from ...
— Thirty Years In Hell - Or, From Darkness to Light • Bernard Fresenborg
... to do it, chillun," replied Mammy Delphy, giving them a gentle push with her elbow, for they were leaning coaxingly against her shoulders, "I ain't a gwine to do it. Yer ma's got comp'ny for dinner and dat sassy Marthy-Ann done tuk herself to 'Mancipation-Day, an' Jin, she totin of Mis' May's baby to ...
— Connor Magan's Luck and Other Stories • M. T. W.
... wide, and twice as long, presenting a scene of surpassing beauty. There were large fields of grain already yellow and nearly ripe for the harvest, green meadows lay in the beautiful valleys, the gentle breeze dallied with the tassels of the long rows of corn, which gave rich promise of an abundant harvest; fine groves upon the hillside, in the valleys and on the plain, gave a charming diversity to the scene, and the old mansions, embosomed in vines and ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... expressed a living sadness. There was somthing in those dark deep orbs so liquid, and intense that even in happiness I could never meet their full gaze that mine did not overflow. Yet it was with sweet tears; now there was a depth of affliction in their gentle appeal that rent my heart with sympathy; they seemed to desire peace for me; for himself a heart patient to suffer; a craving for sympathy, yet a perpetual self denial. It was only when he was absent from me that his passion subdued him,—that he clinched his hands—knit his brows—and ...
— Mathilda • Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
... a glorious afternoon when I set out, and the prairie was fresh and green after a gentle rain that promised an early sprouting of the seed, but as I neared the Manor the faces of those I met were anxious and somber. They looked like men who after mature consideration had undertaken an unpleasant duty, and I could not help ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... enthusiasm. His tall figure, with its gleaming eyes, long curved nose, and flowing beard, help him to present himself to the audience, with lively gestures illuminating his thoughts, as at once accuser of our times and gentle judge. He is especially a gentle judge of fallen women and girls, 55,000 of whom, from ten years of age upwards, he tells us, ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... are not to the point. It has been known, as far back as our records go, that man running wild in the woods is different to man kennelled in a city slum; that a dog seems to understand a shepherd better than a hewer of wood and drawer of water can understand an astronomer; and that breeding, gentle nurture and luxurious food and shelter will produce a kind of man with whom the common laborer is socially incompatible. The same thing is true of horses and dogs. Now there is clearly room for great changes in the world by increasing ...
— Caesar and Cleopatra • George Bernard Shaw
... a King be gentle in his heart. For kind and gentle to you all was your King, Odysseus. And now his son asks you for help and you do not hurry to give it him. It is not so much an affliction to me that these wooers waste his goods as that you do not rise up to forbid it. But let them persist in doing it on the hazard ...
— The Adventures of Odysseus and The Tales of Troy • Padriac Colum |
