"Contentment" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... her room, where the afternoon sun fell slantwise upon the coverlet of her bed, picturing there the small window frame, she had had a wonderful feeling of peace and contentment. It seemed to her that there was not the least need of thinking about serious things or of reading, either. She felt that the simplest and most natural thing to do was merely to busy herself happily, without putting her thoughts ...
— Lisbeth Longfrock • Hans Aanrud
... unrest, social, economical, political. Not contentment, but a lamentation and an ancient tale of wrong! We hear it in the continual cry over what is known as the increased cost of living, and feel its pressure in the higher standard of living. What was ...
— 'Tis Sixty Years Since • Charles Francis Adams
... field, my friend; oh for a field! I ask no more Than one plain field, shut in by hedgerows four, Contentment sweet to yield. For I am not fastidious, And, with a proud demeanour, I Will not affect invidious Distinctions about scenery. I sigh not for the fir trees where they rise Against Italian skies, Swiss lakes, or Scottish heather, Set off with ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith
... the Destroyer of Darkness. To the Darpan the educated natives looked as the means of bringing the oppression of their own countrymen to the knowledge of the public and the authorities. Government found it most useful for contradicting silly rumours and promoting contentment if not loyalty. The paper gave a new development to the Bengali language as well as to the moral and political ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... and Robert Day's assistance, he got the cart before the fireplace. It looked like a narrow, high green box on wheels. The pedler blocked the wheels behind, and propped the handle level. Then he crept with great contentment to the top, and stretched ...
— Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... Dorothy," he declared—"that my thoughts were not pleasant. True, I may have sighed, but did you never hear of such a thing as a sigh of contentment?" ...
— Pretty Madcap Dorothy - How She Won a Lover • Laura Jean Libbey
... in his last moments: He had a conscious Satisfaction (no doubt) in acting right, in feeling himself honest, true, & unpretending to more than was his own. So he dyed, as he lived, with that secret, yet sufficient, Contentment. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... have acted like a true little woman—just as Maggie would have done—and good may come of it, although they'll always be Lumleys. As Webb says, it would require several generations to bring them up. Haven't I given you a good lesson in contentment?" ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... unrecognised superiority. He had the pride, at once resigned and overweening, of a doctrinaire. And yet to say that he was simply a doctrinaire would be a false description; for the pure doctrinaire rejoices always in an internal contentment, and Albert was very far from doing that. There was something that he wanted and that he could never get. What was it? Some absolute, some ineffable sympathy? Some extraordinary, some sublime success? Possibly, it was ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... a lass. But Paul had taken a peculiar pleasure in this. He loved to see her eyes sparkle at some unexpected act of kindness on his part, and as day by day passed away and he marked the improvement in her looks, saw the lines of care wiped out and an expression of contentment come on her face, more genial feelings filled his life. As he repeated to himself often, "I have a home and a mother now," and the fact made even the dirty town in which he lived seem like a paradise. He was glad, too, to take business ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... weight of that world she must bear alone. Hitherto she had felt sure that Victor loved her, in so far as he could be said to love; she had been the slave of pleasures which she did not share; to-day the satisfaction of knowing that she purchased his contentment with her tears was hers no longer. She was alone in the world, nothing was left to her now but a choice of evils. In the calm stillness of the night her despondency drained her of all her strength. ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... one, accustomed to be left to itself for long hours without notice, squatted down on the old sack spread out before the fire, in perfect contentment. Presently the little golden head sank down, and the blue eyes were veiled ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... responded the lady; adding, with a resigned sigh, the conclusive words which indicated contentment with her lot, "but it is ...
— In and Around Berlin • Minerva Brace Norton
... Marxians in speaking, as they do, of "bourgeois ideology," meaning that kind of morality which has been imposed upon the world by the possessors of capital. Contentment with one's lot may be taken as typical of the virtues preached by the rich to the poor. They honestly believe it is a virtue—at any rate they did formerly. The more religious among the poor also ...
— The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism • Bertrand Russell
... have nothing to do with the miscreant hackmen on the streets, but always to order their carriage at the office; on the street the hackmen whispered to them not to trust the exorbitant drivers in league with the landlords; yet their actual experience was great reasonableness and facile contentment with the sum ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... true of this five days' fight. "His Majesty is well," wrote Berthier on the twenty-fourth, "and endures according to his general habit the exertion of mind and body." Once more his enemy was not annihilated, but this contentment and high spirits seem natural to common minds, which recall that in a week he had evolved order from chaos, and had stricken a powerful, united foe, cutting his line in two, and sending one portion to the right-about in utter confusion. To the end of his life Napoleon regarded ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... and Champagne. Suddenly in the midst of a peaceful countryside, after passing a score of undisturbed villages, villages so like one to another, you come to one upon which the storm has burst, and instead of snug houses, smiling faces, the air of contentment and happiness that was France, there is only a heap of ruins, houses with their roofs gone, their walls torn by shell fire, villages abandoned partially or wholly, contemporary Pompeiis, overtaken ...
— They Shall Not Pass • Frank H. Simonds
... see him grown up; Still cheerfulness dwelt in his mind, Contentment yet sweeten'd his cup, For still he was ...
— Phebe, the Blackberry Girl - Uncle Thomas's Stories for Good Children • Anonymous
... were the words of her message, "be carried away captive into Egypt, but you may yet escape some day and rejoin your people, or may meet with some lot in which you may find contentment or even happiness there. At any rate, my last words to you are, bear patiently whatever may befall you, remember always that your father was king of the Rebu, and whatever your station in life may be, try to be worthy of the rank to which you were born. There is no greater ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty
... really wherewithal to make such feasts as we imagine; her guests must be contented sometimes with but slender cates, and with the same cold meats served over and over again, even till they become nauseous. When you have pared away all the vanity, what solid and natural contentment does there remain which may not be had with five hundred pounds a year? not so many servants or horses, but a few good ones, which will do all the business as well; not so many choice dishes at every ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley
... incident had been intensely interesting and amusing. His artistic nature blossomed out in this atmosphere of perfect luxury and comfort, and he was conscious of a sense of repose and of absolute sensual contentment such as he ...
— The Doings Of Raffles Haw • Arthur Conan Doyle
... knew, too, what it was to want something and not to have it, though perhaps she had not known it as cruelly as Beryl had, for Jimmie had always contrived to cover their bleak moments with a makeshift contentment. "Oh, Beryl, honestly I know just how you feel. I wish I could help you. Maybe I can. My allowance seems awfully big and I ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott
... community. With the grant generally went rights in woodland and pasture; and even meadow land, after the hay was got in, was open to the use of the villagers. The early New England town took into consideration the welfare and contentment of the individual, but it rated as of even greater importance the interests of ...
— The Fathers of New England - A Chronicle of the Puritan Commonwealths • Charles M. Andrews
... which was becoming painful to her guest, in spite of the good woman's resolution to say nothing discouraging. Murray, a bearded, rough fellow in whose face shone good nature and contentment with the living he made out of his cows and chickens and few head of stock feeding in the mountain meadows, received a whispered hint, and obediently talked of other things than Haig and the runaway. They ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... The dry brushwood crackled as she lay down, as she settled herself. She was lying surely at full length. He guessed that she had stretched out her arms and put her two hands under her head. She sighed. Below he echoed her sigh with a long breath of contentment. Then they ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... small towns a grievous injustice who deny them restlessness, vice, ostentation, cruelty; as they do cities a grievous injustice who deny them simplicity, homeliness, friendship, and contentment. It is one of those undeniable facts (which everybody denies) that a city is only a lot of small towns put together. Its population is largely made up of people who came from small towns and of people who go back to small ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... that have imprinted them, as the hardened sands show us the tracks of extinct animals. The melancholy of old age has a divine tenderness in it, which only the sad experiences of life can lend a human soul. But there is a lower level,—that of tranquil contentment and easy acquiescence in the conditions in which we find ourselves; a lower level, in which old age trudges patiently when it is not using its wings. I say its wings, for no period of life is so imaginative as that which looks ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... bliss, ecstasy, gratification, rapture, cheer, enjoyment, joy, rejoicing, comfort, felicity, merriment, satisfaction, contentment, gaiety, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... Elder. How few of us possess contentment; how few extract from the present that good with which it is ever supplied! We read the fable of the dog and the shadow, and smile at the folly of the poor animal; while, though instructed by reason, we cast aside the substance of to-day in our efforts to grasp ...
— The Good Time Coming • T. S. Arthur
... he came home with even greater contentment than usual, as to a haven of refuge from the fancied dangers that lurked in his friend's eulogy of the ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Polish • Various
... unfailing coffee, my spirit was livelier than at any time since a certain evening on which Larry and I had escaped from Tangier with our lives and the curses of the police. It is a melancholy commentary on life that contentment comes more easily through the stomach than along any other avenue. In the great library, with its rich store of books and its eternal candles, I sprawled upon a divan before the fire and smoked and indulged in pleasant speculations. ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... is indeed a pleasant sight, and I am sure we may well learn a lesson of contentment with simple pleasures from the hearty enjoyment of these young ones. What a pity that the world and its attractions should ever get a place in the hearts of these or of any of us, since God has made us for ...
— Working in the Shade - Lowly Sowing brings Glorious Reaping • Theodore P Wilson
... op. cit., Bk. III. ch. i. and ii. The relation of pessimism to pathological conditions is familiar enough; less familiar is the relation of unrestrained optimism. Yet Griesinger writes that among the insane "boundless hilarity," with "a feeling of good fortune," and a general contentment with everything, is as frequent as depression and repining (see especially p. 281, ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully
... Contentment. True thankfulness implies contentment with those gifts which God sees fit to bestow upon us. [Heb. 13:5, 1 Tim. 6:6-8] We must not murmur because He does not include in our daily bread some things which we desire to have; nor dare we permit the withholding of those things to prevent us from being truly thankful for the many benefits ...
— An Explanation of Luther's Small Catechism • Joseph Stump
... place morality in the place assigned by their more practical white confreres to economic propositions. We think, as we contemplate the West, that white people do not understand comfort because they have no leisure to enjoy contentment; THEY measure life by accumulation, WE by morality. Family ties are stronger with the so-called colored races than they are among the more irresponsible white races; consequently the social sense is keener among the former and much individual ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang
... stream, she had lost herself, and was so frightened that it was long before we could make out from her sobbing answers to our questions that she was daughter to the turnpike man. Then Roger rescued her shoe, and I set her aloft on my shoulder, to her great contentment, and she was laughing merrily when we reached the turnpike, and gave her into the hands of her distracted mother. Remembering this, I raced on at my best speed, resolved, if only I arrived in time, to turn this little incident ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... continued and increasing prosperity of our country. By the favor of Divine Providence we have been blessed during the past year with health, with abundant harvests, with profitable employment for all our people, and with contentment at home, and with peace and friendship with other nations. The occurrence of the twenty-fourth election of Chief Magistrate has afforded another opportunity to the people of the United States to exhibit to the world ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Rutherford B. Hayes • Rutherford B. Hayes
... would speedily vanish again from their sight. In this, however, they were delightfully disappointed. Kwang-Jui and his wife were once more reunited, and for many a long year their hearts were so full of gladness and contentment, that the sorrows which they had endured gradually became effaced from their memories. They always thought with the deepest gratitude of the God of the River, who for eighteen years had kept the unconscious husband alive and had finally restored ...
— Chinese Folk-Lore Tales • J. Macgowan
... their backs on the ground, disturbed by passers-by, cursed at and cursing. Apart from these fleeting insults and jests, they say nothing, the primary and universal interest being but to swallow, with their mouths and the circumference thereof as greasy as a rifle-breech. Contentment is theirs. ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... which through those cheeks appeare, And that pure whitenesse which triumpheth there, Mixt with those azure Saphire passing vaines, Which are insert like siluer running streames, Watring those golden apples of the brests, Where heauens delight & earths contentment rests, His full-fed eye orecome with such excesse, Sweares and forsweares, denies and doth confesse: Then doth he touch her lips, Natures rich treasure, And musing thinks which is the greatest pleasure To kisse or see; for to resolue which doubt, Againe he kisses, ...
— Seven Minor Epics of the English Renaissance (1596-1624) • Dunstan Gale
... the little house they fill, Ne looke for entertainement, where none was: Rest is their feast, and all things at their will: The noblest mind the best contentment has. 310 With faire discourse the evening so they pas: For that old man of pleasing wordes had store, And well could file his tongue as smooth as glas, He told of Saintes and Popes, and evermore He strowd an Ave-Mary[*] after and ...
— Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I • Edmund Spenser
... similar testimony?—I have seen the sick man, deprived of all the ordinary avocations and amusements of life, and with pain for his constant companion, I have seen him find joy in the thought of his God, and feeding, without satiety, on this bread of contentment. I have seen the face of the blind lighted up by a living faith, and radiant with a light of peace, for him sweeter and brighter than the rays of the sun. But where God is wanting, and all connection is broken with the source of joy, there you shall see the richest ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... came incognito to visit Wagner, and how the house was upset by the descent of Cosima and her children. They had come to stay. At Triebschen, near Lucerne, Wagner lived with the Von Buelow family, and began to know contentment. ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... thing, impossible to confirm and disagreeable to listen to. 21. Here it must be noted, that the pretext with which they invaded and began to destroy all those innocent beings and to depopulate those lands which, on account of their numberless populations should have caused such joy and contentment to true Christians, was, that they came to subject them to the King of Spain; otherwise, they must kill them and make slaves of them. And those, who did not promptly yield obedience to such an unreasonable and stupid commission, and refused to place themselves ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... small formalities do make, I admit, for orderliness and rigidity, and perhaps for contentment; since every man and woman feels that though they are below some one else on the ladder they are above others; and every day and in every company their vanity is lightly tickled by hearing their ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... cushions by the fire, a plump cigar burning fragrantly between his curiously clean-cut and sharply chiselled lips, he sat enthroned, majestically digesting; and his face of a Greek hero, marred by heavy flesh, had become almost somnolent in its expression of well-being and corporeal contentment. ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... will has at its service an apparently opposed impulse of the spirit, a suddenly adopted preference of ignorance, of arbitrary shutting out, a closing of windows, an inner denial of this or that, a prohibition to approach, a sort of defensive attitude against much that is knowable, a contentment with obscurity, with the shutting-in horizon, an acceptance and approval of ignorance: as that which is all necessary according to the degree of its appropriating power, its "digestive power," to speak figuratively (and in fact "the spirit" ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... of the few occasions when Mrs. Dwight, who believed in acceptance and contentment, had been persuaded to discuss the idiosyncrasies of ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... certain proof he knows, 60 That whether real or a magic show, Whate'er it was, it is no longer so; Though heart be lonesome, Hope laid low, Yet, Lady! deem him not unblest: The certainty that struck Hope dead, 65 Hath left Contentment in her stead: And that is ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... the chief, with a sigh of contentment. "If we can only keep them occupied in this direction! By the way, let your men lie down under the fallen tree, as far as it will go. It will ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various
... longest, their rate of travelling was not precisely of the quickest. Daisy was not impatient. The afternoon was splendid, the dust had been laid by late rains, and Daisy looked at her pail and basket with great contentment. Before she had gone a quarter of a mile from home, she met her little friend of the wintergreens. Nora sprang across the road to ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... were pretty well sharpened, we called a halt beneath the shadow of some gum trees, relieved our horses of their saddles, and wet their mouths with water, and after a hearty lunch, leaned back and smoked our pipes with delicious contentment, and without a thought ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... with purple metal— Cut in your naked contentment there shows On the curve of your breast one carven petal From heaven's ...
— Spectra - A Book of Poetic Experiments • Arthur Ficke
... enough; it was only a question of deterioration of character, and the nobility of applying to the need of love the rules of ordinary hunger and thirst, and eating contentedly the crust when one could not get the pie, of drinking the water when one could not get the wine. Contentment may be sometimes a degradation; but she was happier than she had ever been in her life, although she had a little sense of humiliation when she reflected that Tommy Ray, younger than herself, tending store under her brother, was not exactly ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... of great contentment Lawless spread his broad hands before the fire, and seemed to breathe ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the spirits not only submit willingly but they exhibit real contentment if not actual love of the chastisement imposed upon them. The unchaste not only heedfully keep within the flames but gladly endure the fire because they are convinced "with such treatment and with such diet must the last wound be healed" (XXV, ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery
... salary was good, but the duties were too miscellaneous, and what was still worse, there was an end of the delicious liberty of the garret. After a short experience of three weeks Comte returned to neediness and contentment. He was not altogether without the young man's appetite for pleasure; yet when he was only nineteen we find him wondering, amid the gaieties of the carnival of 1817, how a gavotte or a minuet could make people forget that ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 10: Auguste Comte • John Morley
... No permanent rural civilization, however, can be maintained that will attach the population to the soil with satisfaction and contentment without provision being made for enjoying religious services among people of their own kind and class. This necessitates a social and religious center for every rural community. The church can and should be made such social center. For economic and ...
— The Stewardship of the Soil - Baccalaureate Address • John Henry Worst
... me were such fine things as good health, long life, contentment. Contentment, sure. Continued irritation—a sour disposition resulting in excess flow of bile—did not provide just the sort of environment in which they cared to bring up the kiddies. Smoking? No. It wasn't healthy. Alcohol? Well, they were willing ...
— Inside John Barth • William W. Stuart
... like her," said Garth; and leaned back, a look of deep contentment gathering on his face. "Oh, Jane! Jane! She is coming! ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... the charm was which made life so new and sweet, which made her open her eyes on the morning sunshine with such a glad eagerness to greet the beginning of another day, and filled up every hour with such a perfect sense of contentment. ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... merchants give to their country houses, but they seem to me often to be chosen with more thought than those of similar villas in our country. Here are a few specimens: Buiten Gedachten (Beyond Expectation), Ons Genoegen (Our Contentment), Lust en Rust (Pleasure and Rest), Niet Zoo Quaalyk (Not so Bad), Myn Genegenhied is Voldaan (My Desire is Satisfied), Mijn Lust en Leven (My Pleasure and Life), Vriendschap en Gezelschap (Friendship and Sociability), Vreugde bij Vrede (Joy with Peace), Groot Genoeg (Large Enough), Buiten Zorg (Without ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... or successors of Chionides comedy became an important agent in the political warfare of Athens, although it was frequently the subject of prohibitory or restrictive legal enactments. "Only a nation," says a recent writer, "in the plenitude of self-contentment, conscious of vigor, and satisfied with its own energy, could have tolerated the kind of censorship the ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... get work if they will go to the field and work. If you can't work, times is hard two ways. If you are used to work, you hard to get contentment and loss of the money too. Money don't buy much. Awful sight of cotton and you don't get much out of it. Young folks is got ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration
... He sprang to him, and flung an arm round his shoulders. Then he gave a great sigh of utter contentment, and echoed Allenby unconsciously. ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce
... oppressed. Hearing such talk, I rode on half-wondering what England had been doing towards the Irish at home and the Boers abroad, for this was all news to me, and I had never noticed among the Dutch settlers on the veldt anything but a stolid kind of contentment with their prosperous lot; there not being a single case of poverty, as far as I knew, within a hundred ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn
... month is June. It has flowers. It has mild weather. It has a slight haze in the atmosphere. These things seem to flood one's soul with peace and contentment. ...
— Practical Grammar and Composition • Thomas Wood
... smothered by the fears which opposed it, when he reflected upon what might be produced by absence, importunity, and her independent spirit, which might, if not well treated by her relation, reconcile her to a marriage, which, although not in every way eligible, secured her a prospect of contentment and ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... a prolonged accent of contentment; "you see it's easy enough. It will all be going, in ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... became more exciting, Marston facetiously attempting to be humorous at the Elder's expense: "It isn't the pleasure, my dear fellow, it's the contentment. We were all born to an end; and if that end be to labour through life for others, it must be right. Everything is right ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... on the small platform, by the farther window. She is very pale. There is something gentle and pain-touched about her, but her face shows an expression of deep contentment, which is broken only now and then by a momentary gleam of restlessness and suspense. A neat new perambulator stands by her side. In it ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann
... England, shipped themselves off for America, and laid there the foundations of a government which possessed all the liberty, both civil and religious, of which they found themselves bereaved in their native country. But their enemies, unwilling that they should anywhere enjoy ease and contentment, and dreading, perhaps, the dangerous consequences of so disaffected a colony, prevailed on the king to issue a proclamation, debarring those devotees access, even into those inhospitable deserts. Eight ships, lying in the Thames, and ready to sail, were ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... temporary relief of her room. It was hot, the windows were up, and she made no light that might attract mosquitoes or force her to draw the close shades. She stood undressed luxuriating in the sense of freedom of body. She was richly white in the gloom: her full young beauty gave her a feeling of contentment and strength, and, equally, a great loneliness. It wasn't corrupt, a "degenerate plant," she thought with a passionate conviction ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... of happiness and contentment on a big plantation where there were "a heap of us slaves" is told by Jane Mickens Toombs who said she was "five er six years ole when de Wah come on (1860), or ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration
... one set or the other have mistaken the mode. Take all the Baptist ministers from one end of the province to the other—the Hardings, the Dimocks, the Tuppers,—take all that have passed away, from Aline to Burton; men who have suffered every privation, preaching peace and contentment to a poor and scattered population; and the whole together never created as much strife, exhibited so paltry an ambition, or descended to the mean arts of misrepresentation to such an extent, in all their long and laborious lives, as these two arrogant professors of philosophy ...
— The Tribune of Nova Scotia - A Chronicle of Joseph Howe • W. L. (William Lawson) Grant
... beyond the failure of the foreign woman's garden, at the piled, peaked roofs of China looking over the wall. The fragrance of a blossoming plum-tree stole across from a Chinese courtyard, and a peach-branch waved pink in the air. A wonder of contentment filled Dong-Yung. ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... heart is restless until it rests in Thee." That cry of St. Augustine has found its echo in unnumbered souls, and our humanity will never be satisfied while it is offered no more than an impalpable abstraction for the contentment of its craving. ...
— God and the World - A Survey of Thought • Arthur W. Robinson
... the dark and in the intricacies of the forest. Ages passed, and the voice rose on another turn of the evolutionary spiral to be expressive of particular emotions beyond the immediate circle of sex—emotions of joy and of fear, of jealousy and of contentment. Finally, we judge, the animal—perhaps the bird was first—began to give utterance to particular "words," indicative not merely of emotions, but of particular things with an emotional halo, such as "food," "enemy," "home." Long ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... she did! Dis one 's name was Sairey." He folded his hands and waited, the picture of repose and contentment. ...
— Old Jabe's Marital Experiments - 1908 • Thomas Nelson Page
... know, is situated upon a small, crooked and very dirty street, yet none the less, it is an abode of contentment for those who know good living. When Helena and I entered the door I felt as one again at home. Here were the sanded floors, the old water-bottles, the large chandelier with its cut glasses in the middle of the room, the small tables with their coarse clean linen. The same old French ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... were not equal to the physical contest necessary to assert their civil rights, and thenceforward personal outrages in large degree ceased. The peace which followed was the peace of forced submission and not the peace of contentment. Even that form of peace was occasionally broken by startling assassinations for the purpose of monition and ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... Semitic features and a few, oddly enough, have eyes shaped like the Chinese. They are all ready to bring rations for the paddlers and accept payment without comment. Indeed, the native never says "thank you," but as he speedily lets you know when he is dissatisfied, silence obviously means contentment. The Company has a rubber plantation and a well kept farm with cows, pigs and ...
— A Journal of a Tour in the Congo Free State • Marcus Dorman
... shore of Connecticut. Why they came was not clearly understood, neither was it at all to be gathered from their way of life or business. Business properly they had none; and their way of life seemed one of placid contentment and unenterprising domestic pleasure. The head of the family was a retired army officer, now past the prime of his years; tall, thin, grey, and grave; but a gentleman through and through. Everybody ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... mee despise and spight, I feede on sweet contentment of my thought, And please my selfe with mine owne self-delight, 525 In contemplation of things heavenlie wrought: So, loathing earth, I looke up to the sky, And being driven hence, ...
— The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 • Edmund Spenser
... the long summer days passed and the winter approached again; but before that time Cornelia had at least attained to the wisest of all the virtues—that calm, hushed contentment, which is only another name for happiness—that contentment which accepts the fact that there is a chain of causes linked to effects by an invincible necessity; and that whatever is, could not have wisely ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... disarrange all the conditions of society and business and bring untold evils in their train. If the alert and progressive Anglo-Saxon took this initial position, is it surprising that it should be taken with far greater intensity by Orientals who for uncounted centuries have plodded along in perfect contentment, and who now find that the whole order of living to which they and their fathers have become adapted is being shaken to its foundation by the iron horse of the foreigner? Millions of coolies earn a living ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... that the sound of sacred recitation overheard in their cabin was simply Madison Wayne reading the Bible to his younger brother. McGee is said to have stopped on one of these occasions—unaccompanied by his wife—before their cabin, moving away afterwards with more than his usual placid contentment. ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... storm roars round the peasant's cot, And bursting thunders roll their awful din; While shrieks the frighted night bird o'er the spot, Oh! what serenity remains within! For there Contentment, Health, and Peace abide, And pillow'd age, with calm eye fix'd above; Labor's bold son, his blithe and blooming bride, And lisping innocence, and filial love. To such a scene let proud Ambition turn, Whose aching breast conceals it's secret woe; Then shall his fireful spirit melt, ...
— Poetic Sketches • Thomas Gent
... his master now rode with the gentleman in green to his house, where they stopped some days, to the great contentment of Sancho. And of the wedding at which they were present, of the feast where Sancho so greatly enjoyed himself, as well as of other matters, ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... festival. There had been no need to put things into words: she had known that night that Jervis Ferrars cared for her; she had been equally well assured that she cared for him, and the knowledge brought with it a rest and contentment such as she had never known before. But if what her sister said was correct, then it might be that she was wrong, something worse than selfish even, to take this good thing which was offered to her; and the standing-aside idea would have to be very ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... above—by the shade of my murdered mother, who lies beneath—I swear not to know rest, never more seek contentment, till I've punished her murderer! Night and day—through summer and winter— shall I search for him. Yes; search till I've found and chastised this man, this monster, who has brought blight on me, death to my mother, and desolation to our house! Ah! think not you can ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... were senses that the baby gave no sign of owning till much later. The satisfaction of hunger was quite enough to account for the contentment she showed in nursing; and when she was not hungry she would suck the most tasteless object as cheerfully as ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... natural inclinations. Now this leads all mankind to a pursuit after these things. But how base a scent is it? And how vain a pursuit is it? For the faster they move in that way, the further they are from all solid and true contentment. Again, in all godly men, there is something of this rectified, and they suppose religion to be the only true wisdom, and this wisdom the only true happiness. But oftentimes there are even mistakes in that too. As many ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... sustained suspension, of a poet's fame, is often insincere, and but an excuse of indolence. To dogmatise were the height of presumption as well as of folly: but to forego speculation, based upon complete present knowledge, for an idle contentment with narrow horizons, were perhaps foolisher still. But assuredly each must perforce be content with his own prevision. None can answer yet for the generality, whose decisive franchise will elect a ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... heaviest vote was cast for the party, the writer has made a careful study of conditions and finds none that do not exist in most agricultural districts of the United States. The herds of cattle and bursting granaries, years ago, would have been sure indications of competence and contentment. ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 21, August, 1891 • Various
... to this, that the apathy of the early Christians to the intrinsic iniquity of the slave system rose out of "their expectation of an immediate close of this world's affairs. The only reason why Paul sanctioned contentment with his condition in the converted slave, was, that for so short a time it was not worth while for any man to change his state." I agree to this; but it does not alter my fact: on the contrary, it confirms what I say,—that the Biblical morality is not final truth. To account for an error surely ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... will see, justice is after all not an empty sound, and I am getting a great reward for my sufferings. But not daring to reproach fate which was so merciful to me, I nevertheless do not feel that sense of contentment which, it would seem, I ought to feel. True, at first I was positively happy, but soon my habit for strictly logical reasoning, the clearness and honesty of my views, gained by contemplating the world through a mathematically correct grate, have led me ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... "Let us grant that Gregory loves you very greatly, and me just when his leisure serves. You may offer him a cushioned infamy, a colorful and brief delirium, and afterward demolishment of soul and body; I offer him contentment and a level life, made up of small events, it may be, and lacking both in abysses and in skyey heights. Yet is love a flame wherein the lover's soul must be purified; it is a flame which assays high ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... gathered his luggage together, followed in another carriage. He enjoyed the drive along that winding upward track; he admired the festal decorations of the houses, the gardens and vineyards, the many-tinted rock scenery overhead, the smiling sunburnt peasantry. There was an air of contentment and well-being about the place; something ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... at first scarcely believe in her own identity, the feeling of peace and love to God and to all the world was so unlike the turbulent emotions that had long agitated her soul. "From this time my mind went slowly onward, examining the way step by step, trembling and afraid, yet filled with a calm contentment which made all the dealings of God with me appear just right. I know myself to be perfectly helpless. I can not promise to do or to be anything; but I do want to put everything else aside, and to devote myself entirely to ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... Ay, ay! let thy words ever sound in mine ears, and thy graces disperse contentment through all my senses! O, how happy is that lady above other ladies, that enjoys so absolute a gentleman to her servant! "A countess gives him her hand to kiss": ah, foolish countess! he's a man ...
— Every Man Out Of His Humour • Ben Jonson
... least in his own estimation. What a happy faculty it is, in this world, for a man to have a good opinion of himself! It relieves life of much of its bitterness. We thus perceive that, while JACK was tasting the sweets of a Christmas-pie, he was also enjoying the sweets of self-contentment. ...
— Punchinello, Vol.1, No. 4, April 23, 1870 • Various
... complexion which became her; and her eyes were kind, dark, and steady. She sold milk with patriarchal grace. There was not a line in her countenance, not a note in her soft and sleepy voice, but spoke of an entire contentment with her life. It would have been fatuous arrogance to pity such a woman. Yet the place where she lived was to me almost ghastly. Less than a dozen wooden houses, all of a shape and all nearly of a size, stood planted along the railway lines. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... William gave directions that the army should kindle their camp fires for the night, and prepare and eat their suppers. His own supper, or dinner, as perhaps it might be called, was also served, which he partook, with his officers, in his own tent. His mind was in a state of great contentment and satisfaction at the successful accomplishment of the landing, and at finding himself thus safely established, at the head of a vast force, within the ...
— William the Conqueror - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... everything that he could do had been done, and as Houston looked for the last time upon the pale face, where the angel of death was already smoothing out the lines traced by the last few days of suffering, and softening the features into a look of contentment and peace, he was glad that in the last moments of that life, there had come faith, even ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... gourmands would simultaneously bend their eyes upon it; and an energetic sharpening of carving-knives and poising of forks would spring up with a synchronous shuffling of plates. Slashing would sometimes follow, and slices were served round with more or less impartiality and contentment. But the choice cuts remain, and never was the interest or anxiety of the guests more highly strung than at present. The excitement, pleasurable in itself, has become more so from habit. Were the dish ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... grander ones, but the two D's were entirely satisfied, and watched the packing of their small trunks with joyful contentment. ...
— Two Little Women on a Holiday • Carolyn Wells
... father was suffering less, that he was convalescing, and that he appeared to be happy, she experienced a contentment which she did not even perceive, so gently and naturally had it come. Then, it was in the month of March, the days were growing longer, the winter was departing, the winter always bears away with it a portion of our sadness; then came April, ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... the Ambassadour.] All being sayd and done (as appeared) to his contentment, he licenced me and my whole company to depart, who were all in his presence, and were saluted by him with a nod of his head, and sayd vnto me: I dine not this day openly for great affaires I haue, but I will send thee my dinner, and giue leaue to thee and thine to go at liberty, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation v. 4 • Richard Hakluyt
... unhappy, and all that should have made me otherwise is so laid waste, that if I had been bereft of sense to this hour, and instead of being as learned as you think me, had to begin to acquire the simplest truths, I could not want a guide to peace, contentment, honour, all the good of which I am quite devoid, more abjectly than I do. Does not ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... preventing their comrades from getting into trouble as their officers—perhaps more. To this spirit, this esprit de corps, we appeal, and find after several years of experience that the institutes promote temperance, health, discipline and contentment ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... however, misinterpreting the gesture, very innocently put up her lips, thinking that he intended to kiss her. The sweet, child-like trustfulness of the act touched him; hardly knowing what he did, he stooped over her and kissed her. As their eyes again met, a deep, radiant contentment shone from her countenance. It was not a mere momentary brightening of the features, such as he had often noticed in her before, but something inexpressibly tender, soul-felt, and absolute. It was as if that kiss had suddenly transformed the ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen |
