"Benignity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... learned Stillingfleet observes, in his Irenicum,—'The unity and peace that was then among Christians, made religion amiable in the judgment of impartial heathens. Christians were then known by the benignity and sweetness of their dispositions, by the candour and ingenuity of their spirits, by their mutual love, forbearance, and condescension to one another: but either this is not the practice of Christianity,' ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... resembled him in the minute traits of his person. His features, however, were so marked by prominent characteristics, which appear in all likenesses of him, that a stranger could not be mistaken in the man; he was remarkably dignified in his manners, and had an air of benignity over his features which his visitant did not expect, being rather prepared for sternness of countenance.... his smile was extraordinarily attractive. It was observed to me that there was an expression in ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... and going, I never heard him speak harshly or express the least displeasure. An extreme, rather heavy, benignity—the benignity of one sure to be obeyed—marked his demeanour; so that I was at times reminded of Samuel Richardson in his circle of admiring women. The wives spoke up and seemed to volunteer opinions, like our wives ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... words to do justice to his benignity, I wonder if Master Mahasaya, and others among the deep-visioned saints whose paths crossed mine, knew that years later, in a Western land, I would be writing about their lives as divine devotees. Their foreknowledge would not surprise me nor, I hope, my readers, who ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... such generosity that any man becomes capable of so governing others as to take true part in any system of national economy. Nor is there any other eternal distinction between the upper and lower classes than this form of liberty, Eleutheria, or benignity, in the one, and its opposite of slavery, Douleia, or malignity, in the other; the separation of these two orders of men, and the firm government of the lower by the higher, being the first conditions of possible wealth ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... thin, old and young, red-faced and pale, gentle and simple. At the end farthest from the street one figure stood erect—a short, round, rubicund little man, wearing a gown of rusty black, one thumb stuck into his vest, and a rosy benignity in the glance with which he scanned the table. He threw back his head, cleared his tight throat sonorously, and began, in tones perhaps best described as treacly, to address the seated company, with an intention also towards ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... the twelve fruits of the Holy Ghost? A. The twelve fruits of the Holy Ghost are Charity, Joy, Peace, Patience, Benignity, Goodness, Long-suffering, Mildness, Faith, ...
— Baltimore Catechism No. 2 (of 4) • Anonymous
... sweetly-budding life that came as a vision of deliverance from the monotony of distaste: it was an image of another sort. In the irritable, fluctuating stages of despair, gleams of hope came in the form of some possible accident. To dwell on the benignity of accident was a ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... system of divine revelation, as would impress on it a new and completely different character. Christianity, in its unadulterated simplicity, is distinguished by the consolatory views it imparts of the benignity and grace of God, and by the direct and cogent motives it suggests for holiness and righteousness of life. But the first article of the Calvinistic creed throws a veil of awful and suspicious mystery over the divine goodness, and represents ...
— On Calvinism • William Hull
... Phemy with such a face of loving benignity that the poor miserable girl threw her arms round her neck, and laid her head on her bosom. Instinctively the mother began to hush and soothe her, and in a moment more was singing a lullaby to her. Phemy fell fast asleep. Then ...
— Heather and Snow • George MacDonald
... that as it may, the result was obtained very easily by the professor; and when Hermione left him, before lunch, it is probable that in the solitude of the conservatory the man of science rubbed his gigantic hands together, and beamed upon the orchids with unusual benignity. ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... whose Puritanism was in fact inclined to ferocity—how Jackson's "remarkable eyes lit up for the moment with a look of real enthusiasm as he recalled the architectural beauty of the seven lancet windows in York Minster," how "intense" was the "benignity" of his expression, and how in him it seemed that "great strength of character and obstinate determination were united with extreme gentleness of disposition and with absolute tenderness towards all about him." Men such as these brought to the Southern cause something besides their ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... Elspa Ruet rode along together, they partook of the universal benignity with which all things seemed that morning so graciously adorned, and their hearts were filled with the hope that their united endeavours to save her fallen sister would be blessed with success. But when they came in sight of the papal towers and ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... most legal, that governments oppose their true end and object; for there is such a thing as tyranny as well as usurpation. You can hardly state to me a case, to which legislature is the most confessedly competent, in which, if the rules of benignity and prudence are not observed, the most mischievous and oppressive things may not be done. So that after all, it is a moral and virtuous discretion, and not any abstract theory of right, which keeps governments faithful ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... would cover me with shame, strive rather to gain the affections of those who govern me. The Baron esteems you. My Aunt, to others ever harsh proud and contemptuous, remembers that you rescued her from the hands of Murderers, and wears with you alone the appearance of kindness and benignity. Try then your influence over my Guardians. If they consent to our union my hand is yours: From your account of my Brother, I cannot doubt your obtaining his approbation: And when they find the impossibility ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... faintest trace of self-seeking in His motives; sensuality shrinks abashed from His celestial purity; falsehood can leave no stain on Him who is incarnate truth; injustice is forgotten beside His errorless equity; the very possibility of avarice is swallowed up in His benignity and love; the very idea of ambition is lost in His ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... but in an action which is the end. Hence nothing pertaining to practical knowledge is numbered among the fruits, but only such things as pertain to action, in which practical knowledge is the guide. Among these we find "goodness" and "benignity" which correspond ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... civil virtue; and Marcellus seems first to have shown to the Greeks, that his countrymen were most illustrious for their justice. For such was his moderation to all with whom he had anything to do, and such his benignity also to many cities and private men, that, if anything hard or severe was decreed concerning the people of Enna, Megara, or Syracuse, the blame was thought to belong rather to those upon whom the storm fell, than to those who brought it upon them. One example of many I will commemorate. In Sicily ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... did not die, they could never have any other life than the present. The foregoing considerations, fathomed and appreciated, transform the institution of death from caprice and punishment into necessity and benignity. In the timid sentimentalist's view, death is horrible. Nature unrolls the chart of organic existence, a convulsed and lurid list of murderers, from the spider in the window to the tiger in the jungle, from the shark at the bottom of the sea to the eagle against the ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... countenance of Christ when passive to the gaze of others: regard is the same countenance in active contemplation of those others whom he loves or pities. The placid aspect expresses, therefore, the divine rest; the meek regard expresses the divine benignity: the one is the self-absorption of the total Godhead, the other the eternal emanation ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... more youthful for this belated adventure with the babbling widow he had been treated by a hair specialist. The result was, as usual, farcically pathetic. His nice white hair which had given him a charming benignity and cleanness had been turned into a dead and musty black which made him look unearthly and unreal. His smart and carefully cherished moustache which once had laid upon his upper lip like cotton wool had been treated with the same ink-colored mixture. His clothes, once so perfectly suitable, ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... the Queen's majesty let us pray Unto God to keep her in health and wealth night and day, And that, of his mere mercy and great benignity, He will defend and maintain her estate and dignity; That she, being grieved with any outward hostility, May against her ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Robert Dodsley
... employed as a specific against the ravages of the moth and bookworm, seemed to the young man redolent of midnight learning; and the superb front of the presiding god, calm in the grandeur of its ineffable benignity, who appeared to his excited fancy to smile serene protection on the pursuits of the blameless consul, inspired him with a sense of awful veneration, that did not ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... being ready, in came the empress of my heart, irradiating all around her, as with a glory—a benignity and graciousness in her aspect, that, though natural to it, had been ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... it holy work to offer sacrifices of whatever is most precious; and never once seem to suspect—so cunning has the Devil been with them—that this false deity, in whose iron features, immitigable to all the rest of mankind, they see only benignity and love, is but a spectrum of the very priest himself, projected upon the surrounding darkness. And the higher and purer the original object, and the more unselfishly it may have been taken up, the slighter is the probability that they can be led to recognize the process ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... blessings on your benignity," cried the captain, as they led him away, "I congratulate myself that insignificant as I am the king yet deigns to notice my existence even to recompense ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... that their agency might be engaged for our prisoners at Algiers. I have had interviews with them, and the last night a long one with the General of the order. They offer their services with all the benignity and cordiality possible. The General told me, he could not expect to redeem our prisoners as cheap as their own, but that he would use all the means in his power to do it on the best terms possible, which will be the better, as there shall be the less suspicion that he acts for our public. ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... which two seemed as if anxious to meet in order to protect it. The wrinkles that surrounded that mouth were innumerable, and each wrinkle was a distinct and separate smile; so that, whether pursing or expanding, it was at all times rippling with an expression of tender benignity. ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... and pay her an insincere respect. Excluded from all participation in the control of affairs, she fawned upon power where her ambitious nature would have sought to rule. Concealing her chagrin beneath an exterior of contentment, she exhibited, if we may believe the Venetian Soranzo, such benignity of disposition, especially to her own countrymen, that it would be impossible to convey an idea of the love entertained for her both by the court ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... bridge; it is open by day," said the young lady, with great benignity, for reverence was not the sentiment her fourteen years often inspired, and she was the more pleased therewith. "But, since you are in the garden," continued she, "will you not look around? We shall be very glad if it give ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... the historian then, with dry humour, remarks, "neither was wrong":—"Mox, quasi rixantes stupra et flagitia invicem objectavere: neuter falso." (Hist. I. 74.) This witty and ridiculing vein does not prevent him from being always kindly. The benignity of his nature is seen in all his portraitures (which look, by the way, like the portraitures of real men); it is observable in his character of Licinius Mucianus (I. 10), Cornelius Fuscus (II. 86), Helvidius Priscus (IV. 5), and others;—lovely portraits where defects ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... to a vast extent. The splendour, power, and intolerance of national hierarchies is mistaken for the humble benignity of the Bible system of Christianity or personal religion. Antichrist, tricked out in robes and gewgaws, is, by perverted minds, received ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... She held by the hand a curly-haired little girl of singularly calm and innocent expression. The woman's dark hair waved gracefully on her high forehead, and caught his attention. Her eyes were subtly sweet, her mouth full of pathos. She pressed forward to speak to him; the Dean, all benignity, ...
— The Woman Who Did • Grant Allen
... on yer," said Sam, waving his palm-leaf with benignity, "I give yer my blessin'; go to bed now, ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... white wool clothed men and women alike, fashioned something like togas, but cut short at the knee, leaving the lower part of the leg bare and disclosing the sandaled feet. The hair was long and flowed about the shoulders. But what struck Jim most forcibly was the look of utter gentleness and benignity upon these faces. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various
... sprinkled, and had soles of solid gold. His only head ornament was a bunch of feathers of the royal green color. A man about forty; tall and rather thin; black hair, cut rather short for a person of rank; dignified in his movements; his features wearing an expression of benignity not to be expected ...
— The Story of Extinct Civilizations of the West • Robert E. Anderson
... soliloquy of a blackbird hidden in the flame-flowered chestnut. Hazel felt that she would like to go on picking currants for ever, growing more and more like Mrs. Marston every day, and at least becoming (possibly through sheer benignity) a grandmother. There seemed no place in her life for Reddin, no time for Hunter's Spinney. She thought, 'I wunna go. I'll stay along of Ed'ard, and no harm'll come to me.' But a peremptory voice said that she ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... visages of the Trinity fell benignity that was—awesome; the tiny flames in the jet orbs vanished, leaving them wells in which brimmed serenity, hope—an extraordinary joyfulness. The woman sat upright, tender gaze fixed upon the man and girl. Her great shoulders raised as though ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt
... the commencement of the famous 1260 years, let the following instance serve for a sample. Addressing the monster Phocas, Pope Gregory, as the mouth of the clergy and laity,[4] uses this language: "We rejoice that the benignity of your piety(!) has reached the pinnacle of imperial power. Let the heavens he glad and the earth rejoice."—Now let us hear the character of Phocas from the pen of an infidel:—"Ignorant of letters, of laws, and even of arms, he indulged ...
— Notes On The Apocalypse • David Steele
... to another crime, if I may be pardoned for taking part in it; for consider, O Rajah! In your benignity, that I am but a slave, and my master compelled me to act the part I did," answered ...
— The Young Rajah • W.H.G. Kingston
... often enough described, and I will only say of them here that, when he took me for a walk in the garden, I subconsciously felt them—I cannot tell why—to be formidable. He inquired as to my tastes and interests with a species of curt benignity; but to my interest in poetry he exhibited a most disconcerting indifference, and I felt during the whole of our interview that I was walking with a mild east wind. In this he was a marked contrast to Ruskin, Robert Browning, ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... gray-bearded figure of the other watcher was one I could never forget; its benignity was associated with the most horrible hours of my life, with deeds so dreadful that recollection to this day sometimes breaks my sleep, arousing me in the still watches, bathed in a cold sweat ...
— The Quest of the Sacred Slipper • Sax Rohmer
... into full effect the principle of representation or of delegated power; and the world was to see whether society could, by the strength of this principle, maintain its own peace and good government, carry forward its own great interests, and conduct itself to political renown and glory. By the benignity of Providence, this experiment, so full of interest to us and to our posterity forever, so full of interest, indeed, to the world in its present generation and in all its generations to come, was suffered to commence under the guidance of Washington. Destined for this high ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various
... to the house of Ori-a-Ori, the chief of the district. The chief, an excessively tall man, quite six and a half feet and big all over, but not fat, like many natives, was very dark and slightly grizzled. He had a singular solemnity of address, a benignity and detachment which were the externals of a thoughtful, simple, generous nature, no longer interested deeply in trifles. His house was toward the farther end of the main street, and set upon a spacious lawn a hundred ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... statues were designed to excite the devotion of a cultivated people; to embody their conceptions of divine perfection; to realise the expression of that character of mind which they imputed to the deities whose temples they were to adorn: It was grace, or strength, or majesty, or the benignity of divine power, which they were to represent by the figures of Venus, of Hercules, of Jupiter, or of Apollo. Their artists accordingly were led to aim at the expression of general character; to exclude passion, or emotion, or suffering, from their design, and represent ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... it still in things merely indifferent, to take pleasure in the good of another, and a disposition contrariwise to take distaste at the good of another, which is that properly which we call good-nature, or ill-nature, benignity or malignity.' Is not this a field for science, then, with such differences as these lying on the surface of it,—does not it begin to open up with a somewhat inviting aspect? This so remarkable product of nature, with such extraordinary ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... Henchard, in rough benignity. "This is only a cottage—it costs me next to nothing. And as to taking up my time"—here his red and black visage kindled with satisfaction—"I've a splendid fellow to superintend my business now—a man whose like I've never been able to lay hands on before. I shall soon be able to ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... best seem consonant with the purpose of his royal majesty, you may control the fleet and troops of the Spanish army. Especially too that the most brilliant light of faith may beam upon the populous races that dwell in that region of the world. Through the benignity of God most holy and supreme, and your preaching, there is hope that those benighted barbarians may cast aside the errors and more than Cimmerian darkness of idolatry for the splendor of the gospel; and that they who, so long unacquainted with ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803, Volume II, 1521-1569 • Emma Helen Blair
... feeling I shall pray For thee when I am far away: For never saw I mien, or face, In which more plainly I could trace Benignity and home-bred sense Ripening in perfect innocence. Here scattered, like a random seed, Remote from men, Thou dost not need The embarrassed look of shy distress, And maidenly shamefacedness: Thou wear'st upon thy forehead clear The freedom of a Mountaineer: A face with gladness overspread! ...
— The Hundred Best English Poems • Various
... of the setting sun gave a hint that Dolores might be even now entering into a place of eternal rest, where her sins of ignorance and untutored instincts would not count too heavily against her. The sea is very benign to its elect; a calm sea in the setting sun received Dolores in arms of infinite benignity. ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... one day made her appearance at the Castle of Orthez, with her little girl of three years old in her hand, and demanded protection of Gaston Phoebus. She was received with great honour and respect, and Gaston listened with great benignity to her complaint. ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... the Incarnation in the highest heavens. It will bring 'glory to God' there; for by it new aspects of His nature are revealed to those clear-eyed and immortal spirits who for unnumbered ages have known His power, His holiness, His benignity to unfallen creatures, but now experience the wonder which more properly belongs to more limited intelligences, when they behold that depth of condescending Love stooping to be born. Even they think more loftily of God, and more of man's possibilities ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... the most gracious benignity on the one side, and reverence on the other, Horatio quitted the presence, and went to sir Thomas Higgons, who at that time was privy purse, and one of the finest gentlemen that ever England bred, and acquainted him with the chevalier St. George's goodness to him, and the change that was ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... necessarily both numerous and magnificent. He is usually represented as a man of noble and imposing mien, his countenance expressing all the lofty majesty of the omnipotent ruler of the universe, combined with the gracious, yet serious, benignity of the father and friend of mankind. He may be recognized by his rich flowing beard, and the thick masses of hair, which rise straight from the high and intellectual forehead and fall to his shoulders in clustering locks. The nose is large and finely formed, and the slightly-opened lips ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... relating to worldly matters, he united the deepest learning to the most elevated piety, while the thoroughly practical character of his religion, carried, as it was, into all the minor details of everyday life, imparted a gentleness and benignity to his manner which seemed to elevate him above the level of ordinary mortals. If he had a fault (I suppose, merely for the sake of proving him human, I must allow him one), it was a want of moral courage, which made it so disagreeable to him to find fault with any of us, that he would now and then ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... painfully extorted smile the agonies he endures on the few occasions when Mr. Gladstone deems it worth his while to scornfully refer to his apostasy. But, speaking generally, Mr. Gladstone uses his giant powers with extraordinary benignity and mercifulness, and is almost tender with even his bitterest opponents. When, therefore, Mr. Gladstone was being baited by beef-headed Lowther, he for the most part looked simply pained; and took refuge in that far-off self-absorption which enabled him to forget the odious reality in ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... was attended by Manto, who shared his confidence, and who, some said, was his daughter, and others his niece. Venerable seer! Who could behold that flowing beard, and the thin grey hairs of that lofty and wrinkled brow, without being filled with sensations of awe and affection? A smile of bland benignity played upon his passionless and reverend countenance. Fortunate the monarch who is blessed with such a counsellor! Who could have supposed that all this time Tiresias was concocting an epigram ...
— The Infernal Marriage • Benjamin Disraeli
... point to colleagues 'affecting his personal honour'—to such degrees of heat can the quicksilver mount even in a cabinet thermometer. If such quarrels of the great are painful, there is some compensation in the firmness, patience, and benignity with which a man like Lord Aberdeen strove to appease them. Some of his colleagues actually thought that Lord John would make this paltry affair a plea for resigning, while others suspected that he might find a better excuse ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... such respect; even me!—Did I tell thee it was she who petitioned Sir Arthur to lay his commands on me to attend them to London, knowing I wished it; and that this was in return for the trifling favour I had done her, in galloping after her with her favourite bird? Oh! She is all benignity! All ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... is the conclusion which is particularly forced upon us by a consideration of the play which is in many ways most typical of Shakespeare's later work, and the one which critics most consistently point to as containing the very essence of his final benignity—The Tempest. There can be no doubt that the peculiar characteristics which distinguish Cymbeline and The Winter's Tale from the dramas of Shakespeare's prime, are present here in a still greater degree. ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... down at him with wild, staring but lack-luster eyes and open mouth. He rose from the floor, and casting a look of great benignity on the sullen brute, he was about to go, when he observed that Robinson was trembling in ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... sense of duty and of stoical reflection; in my constant intercourse with this man—an extraordinary man to those who knew him well—I felt vast depths beneath his toil, beneath his acts of politeness, his mask of benignity, his assumption of resignation, which so closely resembled calmness that it is easy to mistake it. Just as when walking through forest-lands certain soils give forth under our feet a sound which enables us to guess whether they ...
— Honorine • Honore de Balzac
... disgrace, the character of the saint. The successor of the apostles might have inculcated with decent firmness the guilt of blood, and the necessity of repentance; he is content to celebrate the deliverance of the people and the fall of the oppressor; to rejoice that the piety and benignity of Phocas have been raised by Providence to the Imperial throne; to pray that his hands may be strengthened against all his enemies; and to express a wish, perhaps a prophecy, that, after a long and triumphant reign, he may be transferred from a temporal ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... I had dressed myself plainly, and drawn over my eyes—and the puffs which I still think it becoming in a woman of my age to wear—a dotted veil, thick enough to conceal my features, without robbing me of that aspect of benignity necessary to the success of my mission. Lena wore her usual neat gray dress, and looked the picture ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... smiled again, with a more intolerable benignity than before. "There is no such thing as dying," he said; "the 'transition state' is a creation of your fancy and an evidence of imperfect reason. One is at any time either alive or dead. The one condition ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... State;" to "disconnect the authority to command service from the power of animating it by reward;" and to impose on the Regent "all the invidious duties of the kingly station, without the means of softening them to the public by any one act of grace, favour, or benignity." ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... around; her impulse was to seize a poker and rush at the cat. But she stood where she was and infused more benignity into ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... when he was shooting on the moors. After a long day's journey he sat down in the coffee room of the hotel, and wrote thirty-two letters before he went to bed. He never allowed a letter, even a begging letter, to remain unanswered; and, says his son, "the same benignity and courtesy which marked his conduct in every relation of life, pervaded his whole correspondence." "In the many volumes of his letters which are preserved, I venture to affirm that there is not the faintest indication ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... lifted. The form of the sleeper expanded with power. Her face took on benignity and lofty serenity. She rose slowly, impressively, and with her hand upraised in a peculiar gesture, laid a blessing upon the head of her hostess. There was so much of sweetness and tolerance in her face, so much of dignity and power in every movement that I was moved to applaud the actress. ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... who is conscious of having done his duty to the uttermost. He drove down the Lungh' Arno, and through the Piazza, and past the Duomo. There was no further need to keep the blinds closed, and as he drove on he looked out upon the inhabitants of Florence with a grand benignity of expression to which no language can do justice. Many things conspired to fill his breast with the serenest satisfaction and self-complacency. First, he had saved himself from being humbugged. Secondly, he had been the victor in two very respectable trials of muscle, ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... youthful persons of both sexes. And if everything around Mrs. Downey was on a liberal scale, so was Mrs. Downey herself. She was expansive in her person, prodigal in sympathy, exuberant in dress. If she had one eye to the main chance, the other smiled at you in pure benignity. On her round face was a festal flush, flooding and effacing the little care-worn lines and wrinkles which appeared on it by day. It wore the colour of the hour which, evening after evening, renewed for her the great drama and spectacle of ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... half closed, with the musician's look of mingled voluptuous rapture and cold, grave, listening intellect, he had a certain majesty. The mother, too, all devout concentration, was an artist of the right sort; the girls had the gentle benignity that comes of sincere self-dedication. They pleased Mrs. Forrester greatly and, as she listened, her severity towards Gregory shaped itself anew and more forcibly. Narrow, blind, bigoted young man. And it ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... N. benevolence, Christian charity; God's love, God's grace; good will; philanthropy &c. 910; unselfishness &c. 942. good nature, good feeling, good wishes; kindness, kindliness &c. adj.; loving-kindness, benignity, brotherly love, charity, humanity, fellow- feeling, sympathy: goodness of heart, warmth of heart; bonhomie; kind- heartedness; amiability, milk of human kindness, tenderness; love &c. 897; friendship &c. 888. toleration, consideration, generosity; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... one of the most prominent and efficient of the philanthropists of modern days. An air of benignity and easy good nature veils and conceals in him the most unflinching perseverance and energy of purpose. He has for many years been a zealous advocate of the antislavery cause in England, taking up efficiently ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... most industrious artists," says Vasari, "were labouring by the light of Giotto and his followers to give the world examples of such power as the benignity of their stars and the varied character of their fantasies enabled them to command, and while desirous of imitating the perfection of Nature by the excellence of Art, they were struggling to attain that high comprehension which ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies
... freemen into slaves, much less to wage war for any such purpose, we may dismiss his gross perversion of the text in question. He may apply the condemnation of the apostle to us now, if it so please the benignity of his Christian charity, but it will not, we assure him, enter into our consciences, until we shall not only become "slave-traders," but also, with a view to the gain of such odious traffic, make ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... five, I think, on Wednesday morning, he expired. I felt almost the last flutter of his pulse, and looked, for the last time, upon the face, that, for fifteen years before, had never been turned upon me but with respect and benignity. Farewell: may God, that delighteth in mercy, have had mercy on thee! I had constantly prayed for him before his death. The decease of him, from whose friendship I had obtained many opportunities of amusement, and to whom I turned my thoughts, as ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... spoken for some time, and they climbed a hill, then another hill piled on the summit of the first. An additional mile of plateau followed, from which could be discerned two light-houses on the coast they were nearing, reposing on the horizon with a calm lustre of benignity. Another oasis was reached; a little dell lay like a nest at their feet, towards which the driver pulled the horse at a sharp angle, and descended a steep slope which dived under the trees like a rabbit's burrow. They ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... was that he was about to give us his blessing, and he wished that it might be diffused to all our families and friends, and be not for the present moment only, but extend through our whole lives and abide with us in the hour of death; "But remember," said he with a kind of paternal benignity, "that the gates of paradise open rarely to any who are without the communion of the Holy Catholic Church. Sometimes perhaps—sometimes—but with great difficulty." He extended his hands. We dropped on our knees ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... Domenichino without being thrilled with emotion, and touched with awe. The story is told with the most admirable skill, and with the most exquisite truth and simplicity: the interest is one and the same; it all centres in the person of the expiring saint; and the calm benignity of the officiating priest is finely contrasted with the countenances of the group who support the dying form of St. Jerome: anxious tenderness, grief, hope, and fear, are expressed with such deep pathos and reality, that the spectator ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... illumination at first revealed the lawyer in his familiar aspect, the broad shoulders, the big, reddish beard, the dome-like head, —the generous person that seemed to radiate scholarly benignity, peace, and good-will. But almost instantly the rector became aware of a new and troubled, puzzled glance from behind ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... have perceived enough of the amiable benignity of your mind, to be sure that you will like to hear the praises of your friend. Indeed, there is but one opinion about Mr. Robertson's history.(1010) I don't remember any other work that ever met universal ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... have heard much of, the fury of the blood which the benignity of the law allows for upon sudden provocation, is supposd to be of short duration—the shooting a man dead upon the spot, must have stoppd the current in the breast of him who shot him, if he had not been bent upon killing—an ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... indescribable, but they said in effect, "Rather than have any misunderstanding come between me and my close personal friends I would give you free anything in my possession." The blood rushed to his face and a smile of heavenly benignity came over it as he handed us the things at the price we had ...
— Letters from China and Japan • John Dewey
... he spoke the provincial vernacular, but his manners were polished and pleasing. He was somewhat under the middle height, but was well formed and slightly athletic, and his fresh-coloured complexion beamed a generous benignity. ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... and milk, pease, or the like, to be called the King's mess, and that without the ordinary service of their table being either disturbed in quantity or quality. But this was not the only mark of the benignity of good King Robert towards the monks of Melrose, since, by a charter of the dale 29th May, 1326, he conferred on the Abbot of Melrose the sum of two thousand pounds sterling, for rebuilding: the church of St. Mary's, ruined ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... beauty only worth adorning and transmitting which was unmarred by outward manifestations of hard and haughty feeling. According to their ideal, beauty must be the expression of attractive qualities within—such as cheerfulness, benignity, ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... madame, I do not come to trespass so far upon your benignity," he answered, as he bent before her. "I come to express, rather, my regret that you should ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... be seen without being praised by the Greeks and feared and adored by the barbarians. And therefore if a poor man of this earth so commanded by edict concerning his image, how much more reason have the ecclesiastical or secular princes to take care to order that no one shall paint the benignity and meekness of our Redeemer or the purity of Our Lady and the Saints but the most illustrious painters to be found in their domains and provinces? And this would be a very famous and much praised work in any lord. And even in the Old Testament God the Father ...
— Michael Angelo Buonarroti • Charles Holroyd
... made me peculiarly susceptible to external influences, and fixed minute circumstances more intensely on my memory; so that I now vividly recall the thought which then occurred to me—that I had never before seen so much gentleness and calm quiet benignity in a man. The impression then rapidly formed has lasted ever since, for in all the long years from that day until his death I never had cause to abate one jot of the reverential feeling with which he then inspired ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards
... lordship's countenance (I am a very free speaker) has that benignity in it, that complacency, which I have had the pleasure to see ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson
... soul to whom age and experience had brought, not a sour cynicism, but the mellowing influence of a ripened philosophy. He was such an old man as may fondly be imagined walking through the streets of Paranaque in stately benignity amid the fear and respect of the brown people over whom ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... Charles Lamb praises the Plays of Shakespeare as "enrichers of the fancy, strengtheners of virtue, a withdrawing from all selfish and mercenary thoughts, a lesson of all sweet and honourable thoughts and actions, to teach courtesy, benignity, generosity, humanity: for," say he, "of examples, teaching those ...
— Poetry • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... animated, full of earnest and cordial talk, pleasing and being pleased, the life of the company, was apt to think how delightful he must always be,—and so he was; but these times of bright talk were like angels' visits; and he smiled with peculiar benignity on his retiring guest, as if blessing him not the less for leaving him to himself. I question if there ever lived a man so much in the midst of men, and in the midst of his own children,[20] in whom the silences, ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... knelt down in prayer together for the last time. On arising, Boardman passed round the room, and gave to each his hand for the last time. His countenance was serene, his mild blue eye beamed with benignity, and though there was in his manner a tenderness which showed he had a heart to feel, yet there was no visible emotion till he came to his room-mate. As he took him by the hand, his whole frame became convulsed, ...
— Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons • Arabella W. Stuart
... man, calls him "the oracle of the Law"; protests that the whole world celebrates and admires him; and finally, at the end of his arguments, conjures him in verse to "Let fall upon me the dew of thy divine word." Augustin, with modesty and benignity, returns his compliments, but not without slipping into his reply a touch of banter: "Allow me to point out to you that your fifth line has seven feet. Has your ear betrayed you, or did you want to find out if I was still ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... happiness, the world's law may yet, in some cases, have, to the eye of reason, an unequal operation, just as, in the same imperfect view, some inequalities may appear in the operations of heaven's law; nevertheless, to one who has a right confidence, final benignity is, in every instance, as sure with the one law as the other. I expound the point at some length, because these are the considerations, my poor fellow, which, weighed as they merit, will enable you to sustain with unimpaired trust ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... Christ when passive to the gaze of others; REGARD is the same countenance in active contemplation of those others whom he loves or pities. The PLACID ASPECT expresses, therefore, the divine rest; the MEEK REGARD expresses the divine benignity; the one is the self-absorption of the total Godhead, the other the external emanation of the ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... mouth, a straight nose, a forehead which has thrust back the hair from the top of his commanding head, although it is thick at the sides over the ears, and repeats in its soft gray the color of his kindly eyes. Before taking in these physical facts one receives an impression of benignity and amenity not often conveyed, even by the most distinguished. And, taking advantage of this amiability, I asked if certain words just used should be followed by a dash, and even boldly added: "Are you not famous, Mr. James, for the ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... I thought I discerned in the stranger a mild benignity of countenance, which I had somewhere seen before—I gazed ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... remembrances, like a refreshing breeze that comes without warning, or the taste of the waters of an unexpected fountain. These, and similar suggestions, must have given, formerly, to the language of the senseless stone a voice enforced and endeared by the benignity of that Nature with which it was in unison.—We, in modern times, have lost much of these advantages; and they are but in a small degree counterbalanced to the inhabitants of large towns and cities, by the custom of depositing the dead within, or contiguous to, their places of worship; however ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... Postlethwaite, who could scarcely conceal her very natural surprise at the extraordinary appearance of Mr. Sagittarius. As to Mrs. Merillia, although she was, in reality, near fainting with wonder at her grandson's escapade, she preserved an expression of gracious benignity, and did not allow a motion of her eyelids or a flutter of her fan to betray her emotion at finding herself the unprepared hostess of such unusual guests. The Prophet broke the silence by saying, in a voice that cracked ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... downstairs That suggested penance. On the other hand, they had more variety and amusement, for there were five hundred different kinds of toys to sell to five hundred different types of people. That suggested benignity. ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... continued Ivan Vassilievitsch, "in what country can you find such a strongly-marked and instinctive notion of his duties, such readiness to assist his fellow-creatures, such cheerfulness, such benignity, so much gentleness ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various
... words the benevolent Mr. Wilkinson fell flat on his face in the road, but continued to laugh softly, and turned towards his flying companion a face of peculiar peace and benignity. Evan's mind went through a crisis of instantaneous casuistry, in which it may be that he decided wrongly; but about how he decided his biographer can profess no doubt. Two minutes afterwards he had overtaken Turnbull and told the tale; ten ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... writer has not accurately distinguished the deficiencies and demands of the different conditions of human life, which, from a degree of savageness and independence, in which all laws are vain, passes or may pass, by innumerable gradations, to a state of reciprocal benignity, in which laws shall be no longer necessary. Men are first wild and unsocial, living each man to himself, taking from the weak, and losing to the strong. In their first coalitions of society, much of this original savageness is retained. Of ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... fairly he had been tried, etc., broke in upon the court by exclaiming that 'he did'nt care if the court had convicted him, he wasn't guilty any how.' 'That will be a consolation to you,' rejoined the judge, with unusual benignity, and with a voice full of sympathy and compassion, 'That will be a consolation to you, in the hour of your confinement, for we read in the good Book that it is better to suffer wrong, than do wrong.' In the irrepressible burst of laughter which followed this unexpected response, all ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin |
