"Childlike" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the daylight and more pure the air. Let Petrarch's heart the human mistress lose, He mourns the Laura but to win the Muse. Could all the charms which Georgian maids combine Delight the soul of the dark Florentine, Like one chaste dream of childlike Beatrice Awaiting Hell's dark pilgrim in the skies, Snatched from below to be the guide above, And clothe Religion in the form ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... knowledge of what might be found and won there for others and herself. So with the very eagerness of love Faith read the Bible to Miss Dilly; and so as she had done before, many a time, early and late, in childlike simpleness prayed at her bedside and by her chair. And as before when she was at Pequot she won Madame Danforth's heart, she intrenched herself there now. She was all over the house, carrying a sunbeam with ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... eschews all attempt to embody the mind's conceptions of the Supreme Being; but Blake was far more closely allied to the ancient than to the modern world. His portraiture and poetry often remind us of the childlike familiarity—not rude in him, but utterly reverent—which was frequently, and sometimes offensively, displayed in the old ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... labours: his Marquesan hymns, grammars, and dictionaries; his scientific papers, lives of saints, and devotional poetry. He cast about for a new interest: pitched on gardening, and was to be seen all day, with spade and water-pot, in his childlike eagerness, actually running between the borders. Another step of decay, and he must leave his garden also. Instantly a new occupation was devised, and he sat in the mission cutting paper flowers and wreaths. His diocese was not great enough for his activity; the churches of the Marquesas ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and stood behind her where she knelt. She looked so little and childlike there that he wanted to pick her up and tell her—oh, such a host of things! But he was a wise House Surgeon, and his experience on the stairs had not counted for nothing; moreover, he was a great believer in the psychological moment, ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... children in the Windsor Castle picture, and this one, which hangs in the Turin Gallery, was probably painted before the birth of the fourth child in 1636. It is celebrated for its colouring as well as for its great artistic merit. The children are surely childlike enough, despite their stately attire, and they little dream of the sad fate awaiting the whole of the Stuart family ...
— Pictures Every Child Should Know • Dolores Bacon
... less fresh in mind and body than he. He was one of those beings who die, as they have lived, children: even the privations of the hardest kind of an existence can not take away from them that purity and childlike trust which seem to be an integral part of themselves, and which, although they may be betrayed, deceived and treated harshly by life, they never wholly lose; very manly and heroic in time of need and ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... subtly into the sentiment of a human tenderness: "I love its fields clothed with tender trefoil" goes on the song; "I love the marches of Merioneth where my head was pillowed on a snow-white arm." In the Celtic love of woman there is little of the Teutonic depth and earnestness, but in its stead a childlike spirit of delicate enjoyment, a faint distant flush of passion like the rose-light of dawn on a snowy mountain peak, a playful delight in beauty. "White is my love as the apple-blossom, as the ocean's spray; her face shines like the pearly dew on Eryri; the glow of her cheeks is like the light ...
— History of the English People, Volume II (of 8) - The Charter, 1216-1307; The Parliament, 1307-1400 • John Richard Green
... fatigued, had become quite calm, and looked up, as she sat, with a humble childlike expression at the thin blond face and slightly sunken grey eyes which now shone with hectic brightness. She might have been taken for an image of passionate strength beaten and worn with conflict; and he for an image of the self-renouncing faith which has soothed that conflict ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... her fair cheeks were of a more exquisite, yet brighter tint, that her eyes were bluer and brighter and softer than ever. There also appeared to be a new maturity in the delicate curves of her graceful figure. But there was no change in the childlike affection of her bearing toward him. She clung round him just as she had always done, and when she turned to leave his side to take a chair, he called her back, unconsciously falling into the tone of fond playfulness that he ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... glances at his companion supplied no clue; P. Sybarite's face remained as uncommunicative as well-to-do relations by marriage; his shadowy, pale and wistful smile denoted, if anything, only an almost childlike pleasure in anticipation of ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... make haste to come upon deck to see America! Oh, how pleasant it is to see the green trees again! How brightly the sun is gilding the land you are seeking,—the land of freedom!" With such childlike exclamations of delight, my sister Anna burst into my cabin to hasten my appearance on deck on the morning of the 22d of May, 1853. The beautiful child of nineteen summers was only conscious of a heart overflowing ...
— A Practical Illustration of Woman's Right to Labor - A Letter from Marie E. Zakrzewska, M.D. Late of Berlin, Prussia • Marie E. Zakrzewska
... the most varied and lovely scenery in nature, by a people of manly vigor and exquisite mental and physical organization—of the keenest susceptibility to beauty of sound as well as of form, of the most vivid and creative imagination, combined with a childlike impulsiveness and simplicity—this Ionian language, so sprung and so nurtured, attained a descriptive force, a copiousness and harmony, which made it the most admirable instrument on which poet ever played. For every mood of mind, every ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... looking on with a feeling of astonishment. These merry, childlike airs had absolutely no place in her conception of Lady Maxwell. Nor could she know that Mrs. Allison was one of the very few people in the world to whom Marcella was ever drawn ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... a girl and she's not a parti," laughed Feather. Her eyes, lifted to Coombe's, held a sort of childlike malice. "After his mother knew she was Miss Gareth-Lawless, he was not allowed to play in the Gardens again. Did she take ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... and seemed satisfied,—at least she never recurred to the subject; and, so far as Lucy knew, it was the last time that any perplexing doubts clouded the sunshine of her happy, childlike faith. ...
— Lucy Raymond - Or, The Children's Watchword • Agnes Maule Machar
... replied Genevieve, her melancholy gaze on George. Yesterday she would have had Emelene's childlike faith. But this stranger, who, for a trivial and tyrannical reason, had sent away ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... which passed to Him through martyrdom. 'To-morrow they lead me forth,' he wrote. 'I have done with this world, but, in the bosom of God, I promise you I will do what I can.' So did this clear and childlike spirit carry its cause from the Austrian Assizes ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... very quiet and pleasant in the bright forenoon. One side of the church was filled with Chinese women and girls. It is very hard to tell which are women, and which are children, they all have such childlike faces. I suppose it is because they are so undeveloped. Their uncovered heads, and smooth, shining black hair, looked to me at first all exactly alike; all the company seemed of one pattern. But, when I had noticed them longer, ...
— Life at Puget Sound: With Sketches of Travel in Washington Territory, British Columbia, Oregon and California • Caroline C. Leighton
... and of her tears. But of course I should wish her to laugh. I should wish the dear little creature to remain as merry and thoughtless as possible. Dear Annie! what surprise and delight will shine in your innocent blue eyes when I tell you my story! Your childlike gratitude will be almost embarrassing. Last, and perhaps most weighty pro of all—when Catherine hears of it she will be filled with regret; yes, she may act indifference as gaily as she pleases, I am convinced that in her heart of ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 4, April, 1891 • Various
... of any studied introduction or thunderous comment; and he carries his readers through stirring adventures of storm and battle with a business-like precision that silences doubt. He breathes the spirit of the sea, himself a genuine sailor, almost as childlike and simple as one of his own creations. His books are real voyages, in which a day of bustle and danger is followed by peace and quiet, yarns on the quarter-deck, and some ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... a woman grown, yet of a strangely vague and childlike look. The figure, never very large, was thin and shrunken unbelievably. The features, waxy-white, were mercifully spared by the flames which had licked at the shielding hands and arms that had borne her hither. Yet they seemed even more thin, more wax-like, more unreal, than had their ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... doctor, whom the old housekeeper had called in, pronounced Antonia's case a somewhat serious but by no means dangerous attack; and she did indeed recover more quickly than her father had dared to hope. She now clung to him with the most confiding childlike affection; she entered into his favorite hobbies—into his mad schemes and whims. She helped him take old violins to pieces and glue new ones together. "I won't sing again any more, but live for you," she often said, sweetly smiling ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various
... all his instincts of gaiety, so long suppressed by his constant anxiety and disappointment, came out and betrayed themselves in roars of laughter, bursts of animal spirits and a picturesque need of childlike exuberance and riot. ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc
... these things were not strange to Tony, because, born among plants, he had grown up with them as if they were brothers and sisters, and the sturdy, brown-faced boy had learned many lessons which no poet or philosopher could have taught him, unless he had become as childlike as himself, and studied from the same ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... daughter than as a servant. Her moccasined feet fell as silently as those of spirits as she glided about their lodge. She never sang at her work, and rarely spoke, but she smiled often with a smile so childlike as to be almost silly in expression. Father Ignatius loved the silent smile, and a word from him was always sure to bring it; but it angered Father Francis Xavier more than many a more repulsive thing would have done. It seemed so utterly imbecile and babyish ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 6 • Various
... was growing very dark, and the turf on the bank was soft and uneven. Lucia put her hand through Maurice's arm with her old childlike familiarity, and said, ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 1 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... love affairs. Bernard at George Boult's little branch shop in the country town of Ingleby, chained body and soul to the heavy drudgery of uncongenial occupation, thought of his father only with rage and resentment. Franky, childlike, ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... the smallest cause for murmuring or complaint. I endeavoured not to be unworthy of his liberality and confidence; and the daughter, who perceived the conflict in his breast, redoubled her attention, and made more evident her unimpaired and childlike love. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... my young mistress," began a voice pitched two notes higher than its actual childlike key. "Thou hast a new farthingale, I see! O Antony, that's not the way to curtsey—do it like this. No no! thou clumsy fellow—back ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to be sure, but with an honest, jolly old heart under all, beating rough and glad and full. That was Adam Craig's fancy: but his head was full of queer fancies under the rusty old brown wig: queer, maybe, yet as pure and childlike as the prophet John's: coming, you know, from the same kinship. Adam had kept his fancies to himself these forty years. A lame old chap, cobbling shoes day by day, fighting the wolf desperately from the door for the sake of orphan brothers ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... hope that our fireside summit in Geneva and Mr. Gorbachev's upcoming visit to America can lead to a more stable relationship. Surely no people on Earth hate war or love peace more than we Americans. But we cannot stroll into the future with childlike faith. Our differences with a system that openly proclaims and practices an alleged right to command people's lives and to export its ideology by force are deep and abiding. Logic and history compel us to accept that our relationship be guided by realism—rock-hard, ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Ronald Reagan • Ronald Reagan
... true. Her childlike nature shed happiness upon me, her gentle innocence stilled me. It is quite true that I felt her influence upon my senses like that ...
— Three Comedies • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... But, to be sure, first asked Freesay if he would like to come with me to the land of the Musk-ox. His answer was short and final, "Yes," but he could not, as his uncle had told him not to go beyond this portage. That settled it. The childlike obedience to their elders is ...
— The Arctic Prairies • Ernest Thompson Seton
... own early remembrance of Darrell's affectionate nature and singular sympathies with the young—and thus suffering Lionel and Sophy to grow familiar with each other's winning characters, and carry on childlike romance into maturer sentiment. She spoke, though briefly, of her visit to Darrell, and its ill success—of the few letters that had passed since then between herself and Lionel, in which it was settled that ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... abiding love of his fellow-man, or because of it, Burns had also a childlike love of nature and all created things. He sings of the mountain daisy turned up by his plough; his heart goes out to the mouse rendered homeless after all its provident care. Listening at home while the storm made the doors and windows rattle, he bethought him on the cattle and sheep ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... while among his associates; but, the moment he was alone with Dr. Johnson, in whose rough but magnanimous nature he reposed unlimited confidence, he threw off all restraint and gave way to an almost childlike burst of grief. Johnson, who had shown no want of sympathy at the proper time, saw nothing in the partial disappointment of overrated expectations to warrant such ungoverned emotions, and rebuked him sternly for what he termed a silly affectation, saying that "No man should be expected to ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... very delicately, touched its fur. Then the other hand followed, and the jacket was felt with wondering fingers, was stroked softly, first downwards, then upwards, while the dark and heavy eyes solemnly noted the thin shine of the shifting skin. The curiosity of Mrs. Armine was met by another but childlike curiosity, and suddenly, out of the cloud of mystery broke a ray of light that ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... "Looks innercent, childlike, and sociable, hey?" inquired the showman, sarcastically. "Well, you just listen to what I've dug up about that. Bat Reeves has bought the strip of ground between the woodpile and the shed door by some kind ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... studying ways of bewitchment, of endearment. She became a bewildering revelation to him, amazing him, delighting him. After he had begun to conclude that he knew her she became not one woman, but a score of women: demure, elfin, pensive, childlike, sedate, aloof, laughing—but always with her delight in him unconcealed: the mask she wore always slipping from its place to reveal her eagerness to draw closer ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge
... The character of this teaching, therefore, was a necessity. There was no other way of preserving the children of the Church from the danger of this infection. If the effect of this teaching made Catholics childlike, less manly and active than others, this was ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... Why, no. They were never merrier; they have their grog at night, and tell the raciest stories; they hear of the death of people about their own age, or even younger, not as if it was a grisly warning, but with a simple childlike pleasure at having outlived some one else; and when a draught might puff them out like a guttering candle, or a bit of a stumble shatter them like so much glass, their old hearts keep sound and unaffrighted, and they go on, bubbling ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... children, and the feeling that she might associate with them on equal terms, perhaps, was the most complete assurance of Edward's restoration. She was glad that companionship should render the little maiden more active and childlike, for Edward's abstraction had made her believe that there might be danger in indulging the dreaminess of ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... mentioned in the pages which follow; was destined to endure deep affliction once more, and to renounce a second home dearer than that first whose wreck she recorded during the war. Yet never did her faith, her courage, her steadfastness fail her, never did the light of an almost childlike trust in God and in mankind fade from her clear blue eyes. The Sarah Morgan who, as a girl, could stifle her sobs as she forced herself to laugh or to sing, was the mother I ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... towards LADY MILFORD, and asks her suddenly.) Are you happy, lady? (LADY MILFORD turns from her hastily, and overpowered. LOUISA follows her, and lays her hand upon her bosom.) Does this heart wear the smile of its station? Could we now exchange breast for breast, and fate for fate—were I, in childlike innocence, to ask you on your conscience—were I to ask you as a mother— would you really counsel me ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... in a minute, papa, dear," was the response, in a sweet, childlike voice, as the speaker ran up the broad staircase with elfin grace ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... wisdom of the wise, We have no deep philosophies; Childlike we take both kiss and rod, For he who ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... times you had looked at that face, and with it wonder of what another year might bring to you two. Would you stand here like this, friends good and true, with hearts tuned to the same feeling, a twelvemonth from to-night? There was felt a quick, childlike impulse for hands all round and such a singing of "Auld Lang Syne" as would have brought the ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... extraordinary eyes revealing a strong soul. They were capable both of melting and of flashing, but especially of flashing; the soul was imperious. As for the rest of her, the dear straight little nose was non-committal, the mouth fresh and childlike, with a slight, appealing droop in the corners. In short, Nature the great experimentalist had in this case endowed a most sweet and kissable little body with the soul ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... my meaning at once, and repeating the words again and again, till I was nearly perfect, when he laughed with childlike pleasure. ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn
... woman can be known only in her own country,—the Japanese woman as prepared and perfected by the old-time education for that strange society in which the charm of her moral being,—her delicacy, her supreme unselfishness, her childlike piety and trust, her exquisite tactful perception of all ways and means to make happiness about her,—can be comprehended and valued.... Even if she cannot be called handsome according to western standards, the Japanese woman must be confessed pretty,—pretty like a comely child; ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... opposition of theories—as if a galantuomo, as HE at least constitutionally conceived galantuomini, could do anything BUT blush to "go about" at such a rate with such a person as Mrs. Verver in a state of childlike innocence, the state of our primitive parents before the Fall. The grotesque theory, as he would have called it, was perhaps an odd one to resent with violence, and he did it—also as a man of the world—all merciful justice; but, assuredly, none the less, there was but one way REALLY to mark, ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... which make our scientific men, as a class, the wholesomest and pleasantest of companions abroad, and at home the most blameless, simple, and cheerful, in all domestic relations; men for the most part of manful heads, and yet of childlike hearts, who have turned to quiet study, in these late piping times of peace, an intellectual health and courage which might have made them, in more fierce and troublous times, capable of doing good service with very different instruments than ...
— Glaucus; or The Wonders of the Shore • Charles Kingsley
... against the old bear and giving him the rifle as defense. The cubs by this time had gotten over their scare and they came back to their mother and smelled around her with little whines and moans that were almost childlike. He left Montagnais leaning against the old bear with a cub on each side of him. They were quite little and ...
— Bob Hunt in Canada • George W. Orton
... dying season, when his receipts had dropped to the miserable figure of about fifty pounds a week, Denry had a great and pleasing surprise. He met Nellie on the Parade. It was a fact that the recognition of that innocent, childlike blushing face gave him joy. Nellie was with her father, Councillor Cotterill, and her mother. The Councillor was a speculative builder, who was erecting several streets of British homes in the new quarter above the new municipal park at Bursley. Denry had already encountered ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... foot tapping the mossy turf, Madeline presented a picture of youth and loveliness such as is rarely seen even in a beauty-abounding land. A form of medium height which would, in later years, develop much of stately grace; a complexion of lily-like fairness; and eyes as deep and brown, as tender and childlike, as if their owner were gazing, ever and always, as infants gaze who see only great, grand wonders, and never a ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... between the baker and the fruit store. Martin was not yet rich enough to afford meat, and he was on slim allowance when the White Mouse check arrived. He was divided on the cashing of it. He had never been in a bank in his life, much less been in one on business, and he had a naive and childlike desire to walk into one of the big banks down in Oakland and fling down his indorsed check for forty dollars. On the other hand, practical common sense ruled that he should cash it with his grocer and thereby make an impression that would later result ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... obscure. He rapidly asked himself, would he like this man to be the real Wilding? No. Argue down his mistrust as he might, he was unwilling to put such a substitute in the place of his late guileless, outspoken childlike partner. He rapidly asked himself, would he like this man to be rich? No. He had more power than enough over Marguerite as it was, and wealth might invest him with more. Would he like this man to be Marguerite's Guardian, and yet proved to stand in no degree ...
— No Thoroughfare • Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins
... know-er and with a kindly sympathy begotten of that knowledge. For To Know—to Understand—means to give to each its rights! And, in this matter, have we to concede so much to our higher animals? The simplest form of thought contents them; the childlike adapting itself to animal uses; and, from such "small beginnings" has not our own primeval soul—the best that is within us—risen to higher glory, to become a moulder and organizer of thought—even of ...
— Lola - The Thought and Speech of Animals • Henny Kindermann
... into his beard. Meeting his childlike gaze of admiration, she turned away and put her arm round Barbara's waist. The ladies went indoors to take off their things, accompanied by Adrian, who wanted a lover's word with Doria on the way. Jaffery followed her with his eyes until she had disappeared ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... been sinful. He wishes me, eight or nine weeks hence, to accompany him on foot to Quebec, and then to Niagara and New York. I should like it well, if my circumstances and other considerations would permit. What pleases much in Mons. S—— is the simple and childlike enjoyment he finds in trifles, and the joy with which he speaks of going back to his own country, away from the dull Yankees, who here misunderstand and despise him. Yet I have never heard him speak harshly of them. I rather think that B—— and I will be remembered by him with ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... we learn from him later life, would have Christian children brought up in the happy assurance that God is a loving Father, Christ a faithful Saviour, and that it is their privilege and duty to approach their Father with frank and childlike confidence, and, if aroused to a consciousness of sin or wrong, to entreat at once His forgiveness. Such however, he tells us, was not what he was taught. On the contrary, he was instructed, and trained up from ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... his daughter—had lots and lots of chances to run away, but she didn't do it. She just stood there like the poor, timid, scared thing she was, with every quiver of her graceful body, every look of her big, brown, childlike eyes saying, "Please, why did you kill my father, who was my only protector? And please, please ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart
... like to lean a little on one side: they cannot bear to have their channels deepest in the middle, but will always, if they can, have one bank to sun themselves upon, and another to get cool under; one shingly shore to play over, where they may be shallow, and foolish, and childlike, and another steep shore, under which they can pause, and purify themselves, and get their strength of waves fully together for due occasion. Rivers in this way are just like wise men, who keep one side of their life for play, and ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin
... son and Cora Waters tried to soothe the fears of the poor young maid, who, in her hour of affliction, childlike, had flown to her friends with her ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick
... and eager to help each other. They will watch by the bedsides of their sick neighbours, divide the loaf of bread, look after the children and trudge weary miles to the town for medicine. On the other hand, they are almost childlike in imbibing jealousies and hatreds, and unsparing in abuse and imputation towards a supposed enemy. They are bolder in speech than their husbands to those who occupy higher places in the social scale. It cannot be said ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... with stately simplicity, was a sight indeed to remember. If Clive Newcome had not such a fine sense of humour, he would have blushed for his father's simplicity.—As it was, the elder's guileless goodness and childlike trustfulness endeared him immensely to his son. "Look at the old boy, Pendennis," he would say, "look at him leading up that old Miss Tidswell to the piano. Doesn't he do it like an old duke? I lay a wager she thinks she is going to be my mother-in-law; all the women are in love with him, ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... characterize briefly, sparingly, justly, a personage, a situation, an event. He could be pathetic, ironic, playful, mordant, musing, at will. He was sure in his tone, was low-German in "Till Eulenspiegel," courtly and brilliant in "Don Juan," noble and bitterly sarcastic in "Don Quixote," childlike in "Tod und Verklaerung." His orchestra was able to accommodate itself to all the folds and curves of his elaborate programs, to find equivalents for individual traits. It is not simply "a man," or even "an amatory hero" that is portrayed in "Don Juan." It is no vague ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... that the almost childlike spirit of the Milanese painters felt the antique; how differently from their Roman brethren! It was thus that they interpreted the lines ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... long and tedious. Before reaching our destination my hopes of Evelyn's recovery had vanished. Her demeanor was so gentle, childlike and affectionate, my heart was wrung with anguish. I could not break her sweet serenity by disclosing the fate which was impending. She seemed to have reached a period of the most holy and perfect satisfaction. All the suppressed bitterness of former years—all the earnest ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... works of man and God which glows in all its serious effusions,—the good nature of its satire,—the geniality of its criticism,—the everlasting April of the style, so soft and vivid,—the purity and healthiness of the moral tone,—and the childlike religion which breathes in the Saturday papers—one or two of which, such as the "Vision of Mirza," are almost scriptural in spirit and beautiful simplicity,—combine to throw a charm around the Spectator which works of far loftier pretensions, if they need not, certainly do not possess. Macaulay ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... There was a childlike appeal in Grace's voice that grated so on Miriam's nerves, at that moment that she deliberately turned and walked away, ...
— Grace Harlowe's Sophomore Year at High School • Jessie Graham Flower
... childlike superstitions and lively imagination of his country. He loves the fairies, the dreams of eternal youth, the symbolizing of things of the spirit by lovely things of earth. His plays are poetical, ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... that the youth spoke better than might have been expected of a country smith. She was one of the elect few that meet every one on the common human ground, that never fear and never hurt. Her childish size and look harmonized with the childlike in her style, but she affected nothing. She would have spoken in the same way to prince or poet-laureate, and would have pleased either as much as the blacksmith. At the same time she did have pleasure in knowing that her frankness pleased. She could not help ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... of children, who, after an agony of tears, are soon found laughing or asleep. But the chagrin and vexation of grown-up people are grown-up too; and, however childish in their origin, are not to be laughed or danced or slept away in childlike simple-heartedness. ...
— Friends in Council (First Series) • Sir Arthur Helps
... foolish giant's eye, and the cap of darkness, and the shoes of swiftness, that were worn later by Jack the Giant-Killer. These fairy tales are the oldest stories in the world, and as they were first made by men who were childlike for their own amusement, so they amuse children still, and also grown-up people who have not forgotten how they once ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... old, as we are told, When men more childlike at the feet Of Jesus sat than now, A chivalry was known, more bold Than ours, and yet of stricter ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... this, Not like to like, but like in difference. Yet in the long years liker must they grow; The man be more of woman, she of man; He gain in sweetness and in moral height, Nor lose the wrestling thews that throw the world; She mental breadth, nor fail in childward care, Nor lose the childlike in the larger mind; Till at the last she set herself to man, Like perfect music unto noble words; And so these twain, upon the skirts of Time, Sit side by side, full-summed in all their powers, Dispensing harvest, sowing the To-be, Self-reverent ...
— The Princess • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... not known for a long time, childlike, devout, quite artless feelings crowded in upon her; everything the years and her worldly life had brought with them fell from her. To-day she was young again, as young as those kneeling at the altar, full ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... observer, Johanna only made the impression of a dark, morose figure, which hovered round two childlike beings, intercepting the sunshine of their lives, yet Maurice had soon come often enough into contact with her to appreciate her unselfishness; and, for the care she took of Ephie, he could almost have ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... we were up, and found Bertie's Nellie behind the black boys' humpy shyly peeping round a corner. With childlike impetuosity she had scampered along the four miles from the Warlochs, only to be overcome ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... For childlike loves and laughters thence prolong Notes that bid enter, fearless as the breeze, Even to the shrine of holiest-hearted ...
— A Century of Roundels • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... The nobler the woman the greater this power of hers; and there was much that was noble in poor Nell. And as she danced, those who looked at her were full of admiration or envy. She was so young; her loveliness was so untainted by the world; the delicate droop of the pure lips was so childlike, while it hinted of the deeper nature of the woman, that many who regarded her and then glanced at the professional beauty, mentally ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... me, I sat down to sketch in a little terraced garden, shaded by fig-trees and vines. My sketch was nearly finished, and I was thinking how I should overtake you, when a bright-eyed young maiden came up, and, with the childlike wonder of a race of people living far out of the track of sketching tourists, asked me ‘what ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... completely taken aback. Here was primitive passion with a vengeance!—passion which admitted its own craving without subterfuge. Manella's eyes were still uplifted in a kind of childlike confidence. ...
— The Secret Power • Marie Corelli
... How is childlike wonder expressed in the first two stanzas? How is the difference between the speaker and his friend indicated? Why does the name of Shelley mean so much more to one than to the other? In the figure that follows, what ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... with the accompaniment, had hardly finished the first line when a pure, ringing, almost childlike voice joined the vocal duet. The sound of her own voice seemed to make her forget her fears, and she warbled as naturally and freely as any young bird of a May morning. Number Five came in while she was singing, and when she got through caught her ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... manifest in a reappearance of the obvious, —in a love of the sea and of the beauty of clouds, in the adventure of death and the yet more amazing adventure of living, in a vital love of colour, whether of the Orient or the drug-shop, in childlike love of melody, and the cool cleansing of rain, in strange faces and old memories. This, in the past, has been poetry, and this will be poetry again. The singer who, out of a full heart, can offer to the world his vision of its beauty, and out of a noble mind, his conception of its destiny, will ...
— Young Adventure - A Book of Poems • Stephen Vincent Benet
... he entered the little chamber where the old lady lay asleep in her tester bed. Her fine white hair was brushed over the pillow, and her drawn and yellowed face wore a placid and childlike look. As he paused beside her a faint smile flickered about her mouth and her delicate hand trembled slightly upon the counterpane. Her dreams had evidently brought her happiness, and as he stood looking down upon her the wish entered his heart that he might ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... bring its serious joy to the true New England heart—a ragged gaiety, which comes of summer in the blood, and not in the pocket or the conscience, and which affects the countenance and the whole demeanor, setting the feet to some inward music, and at times bursting into a line of song or a childlike and irresponsible laugh— gives tone to the visible life and wakens a very friendly spirit in the passer, who somehow thinks there of a milder climate, and is half persuaded that the orange-peel on the sidewalks ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)
... is by the modern spirit, none in which the desire to teach a lesson, to refer knowingly to topics of the day, or worst of all, to be incontinently funny, interferes less with the tender magic of Oriental fancy, or with the childlike, earnest faith in what is utterly outside the limits of experience. It belongs to that infancy of the world, when the happy guileless human being still holds that somewhere there is a flower to be plucked, a lamp to be rubbed, or a form of words to be spoken which will reverse the humdrum ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse
... could be called bad blood. Horace perhaps had a little, but it was sweet and childlike compared to the "acrid-quack" fluid of Edmond de Goncourt's veins and heart. Probably several people have seen in M. de Goncourt the suggestion of an ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... of the integrity from foreign invasion of the rights of Chinkie's Flat nodded "Good evening" to Ah San, and walked back across the road to the "Digger's Best," and the Chinamen, with silent, childlike patience, resumed their loads and trotted along after their leader. They disappeared over the hill, and ere darkness descended the glare of their camp fires was casting steady gleams of light upon the dark waters of the still pool ...
— Chinkie's Flat and Other Stories - 1904 • Louis Becke
... crept that peculiar yearning which seems, on analysis, half pity for what has past and half fear for what may come. It is bestowed on little children, and on those whose natures, in spite of their years, are essentially childlike. For this girl's face was so pathetically young. Its sensitive lips pouted with a child's pout, its pointed chin was delicate with the delicacy that is lost when the teeth have had often to be clenched in resolve; its cheek was curved so softly, its long ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... minute the old man's frame shook with silent childlike laughter behind Paul's chair. "Well, Marse Hathaway, yo's an ole frien' o' my massa, and a gemman yo'self, sah, and a senetah, and I do'an mind tellin' yo'—dat's jess what I bin gone done! It makes a little ready money for de ole woman and de chilleren. But de Kernel don' no'. ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... However, they may come back to you after a while, as if they relished your company. The goldfinches are also long-distance flyers, not flitters. Usually they give some signal of their presence, either by their vivacious "pe-chick-o-pe" or their childlike and semi-musical calls; but there are times when a good-sized flock of them will suddenly appear in the tree-tops above you, and you cannot tell when they arrived, for you did not see them there at all a ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... vermin, thought of him as I had often watched thus his dying agonies, when a cruel urchin of eight or ten. Boys are horribly cruel, sir; boys, women, and savages. All childlike things are cruel; cruel from a want of thought and from perverse ingenuity, although by instinct each of these is so tender. You may not have observed it, but a savage is as tender to his own young as a boy is to a favorite ...
— The Man In The Reservoir • Charles Fenno Hoffman
... at last from his reverie, and drawing that light, childlike form nearer to him, "you enjoy this hour as much as ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... was Ralph any less disturbed. In his undemonstrative way he watched Nick, and suffered the acutest pangs of jealousy at what he believed was Aim-sa's marked preference. But the woman continued to stir the fire she had kindled with a childlike naivete which was less of the wild than ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... character, lovely, poor, with unusual mental powers and of irreproachable conduct. Her life was devoted to the care of some dependent relation, who from sickness was incapable of self-support. Mrs. Inchbald had a singular uprightness and unworldliness, and a childlike directness and simplicity of manner, which, combined with her personal loveliness and halting, broken utterance, gave to her conversation, which was both humorous and witty, a most peculiar and comical charm. Once, after traveling all day in a pouring rain, on alighting ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... indeed, much attached to each other; and, peculiarly constituted as Elsie was, one may imagine what kind of heavenly messenger a companion stronger than herself must have been to her. In fact, if she could have framed the undefinable need of her childlike nature into an articulate prayer, it would have been—"Give me some one to love me stronger than I." Any love was helpful, yes, in its degree, saving to her poor troubled soul; but the hope, as they grew older together, that the powerful, yet tender-hearted youth, ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... times; it is a chubby, healthy face, deep-set, brooding eyes, as eager to tell what is going on within as to gather in all the glories from without; quick with the wonder and the pride of life; they are eyes that would not be soon satisfied with seeing; eyes that would devour their object, and yet childlike and fearless. And that is a mouth that will not be soon satisfied with love; it has a curious likeness to Scott's own, which has always appeared to us his sweetest, most mobile ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... to that," I said to myself; but this time she was not looking even at the brim of my cap. Her eyes, luminous with childlike happiness, searched and photographed each new feature of river-life that skimmed swiftly ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... profit by it. The atmosphere was charged with electricity, as before an earthquake; and we felt that the affair of the hasheesh den might be but a preface to some chapter yet unwritten. Still, it was impossible not to forgive Monny her indiscretion. Indeed, she became so honey-sweet and childlike in her desire to "make up" for what we had suffered, that the difficulty was not to like ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... from Nature, as human composers do. The process in any case has not to do with intellect and reason, but with sensitiveness and spirit. One does not need to acquire intellect and reasoning, to have inspiration, sensitiveness, and spirit. It is the childlike and spontaneous, the sinless and pure-of-heart that ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... fingers into her bodice, and pulling out a bouquet of violets she threw them with childlike contempt into the face of my friend. Alexander gave her the price of the ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac
... futile or unnecessary, but as a reason for praying. For prayer is an expression of the filial spirit towards our Father, and the more simply and naturally we approach GOD as children, making our petitions before Him with childlike hearts, the more truly will our prayers be in accordance with that spirit of sonship which is the mind of Christ. At the same time, the knowledge that our Father is wiser as well as greater than we will forbid ...
— Religious Reality • A.E.J. Rawlinson
... obtain entrance. Finding no one outside at the cottage, they entered the central hall with the soft, quiet tread of the panther. As no one chanced to be there, they continued their explorations with childlike simplicity, and thus most unexpectedly found themselves in the bedroom of Dan Davidson, where Little Bill had just read himself and his brother-invalid into a sound sleep. Both wakened up at once, and the boy sat bolt upright in blazing astonishment, but Dan, who had heard ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... "Simple, guileless, childlike man, Content to live where life began; Strong only on his native grounds, The little world of sights ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... last material darkness began to gather round him, and he awoke with a start to realization that he had been sitting there most of the day. With a sigh he replaced his book in the hole, which he cunningly masked with a lump of hard clay, and, feeling stiff and cold, ran, childlike, homeward. In the silence of the night he took out his cornelian heart and fondled it. The day had been curiously like, yet utterly unlike, the day on which she had taken it from her neck. In a dim fashion he ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... directly compelling enough to rouse the beast of jealousy, the beast of mastery, in the hearts of men. She did not seem to him an Aphrodite, bearing in her hand the cup of love. There was something childlike about her, something as virginal as in Nan. He could believe she would be endlessly pleased with simple things, that she could be made to laugh delightedly over the trivialities of daily life. But the hand ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... rings; her complexion was healthily pale, with the slightest tinge of delicate pink in it; she had a round but decided chin, and her grey eyes were large and innocently severe, except on the rare occasions when she laughed, and then their expression was almost childlike in its gaiety. ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey
... acquired something wonderfully attractive in its expression—such a seriousness would come over it sometimes, although she continued as childlike as ever; and such eyes as hers were, at all events in Salve's experience, not common. At any rate, after this, he invariably accompanied his father ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie
... stage-coach, after a visit to a mission school for poor children, this hymn came to the mind of Mrs. Jemima Thompson Luke, of Islington, England. It speaks its own purpose plainly enough, to awaken religious feeling in young hearts, and guide and sanctify the natural childlike interest in the sweetest incident ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... simple in manner, not giving the idea of remarkable intellectual gifts, but with a kind of spiritual aspect, fair, clear complexion, gentle eyes, still somewhat clouded and obscured by the syncope into which a blow on the head had thrown him. He looked middle-aged, and yet there was a kind of childlike, simple expression, which, unless you looked at him with the very purpose of seeing the traces of time in his face, would make you suppose him ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... as far distant as though he were in another country. She became in this way, as time went on, more silent, graver, and more what her cousins called "old-fashioned"; and though at heart she was far more childlike than they, she went about her work with serious application like one of twice her years. Mrs Greenways did not disapprove of this, and though she lost no occasion of impressing upon Lilac her smallness ...
— White Lilac; or the Queen of the May • Amy Walton
... Zoellner was, said Professor Scheibner, a man of keen mind, but in his investigations apt to see "by preference" what lay in the path of his theory. He could "less easily" see what was against his theory. He was childlike and trustful in character, and might easily have been deceived by an impostor. He expected everyone to be honest and frank as he was. He started with the assumption that Slade meant to be honest with him. He would have thought it wrong to doubt Slade's honesty. Professor Zoellner, ...
— Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University • The Seybert Commission
... voice; and as we approached, we saw, sitting upon the fence in front of the cottage, a little boy, about four years old, his face flushed with excitement, his flaxen hair flying in the wind, as he was waving his little hat, and with childlike indistinctness shouting in his shrill tones, "Hurrah for 'e ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... like Nineveh and Babylon, with walls fifty yards high, and the appendages of palace, garden, and park that were appropriate to sultanism. In other respects, too, the new great-king proved faithful to his part. As amidst the perpetual childhood of the east the childlike conceptions of kings with real crowns on their heads have never disappeared, Tigranes, when he showed himselfin public, appeared in the state and the costume of a successor of Darius and Xerxes, with the purple caftan, the half-white half-purple ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... bodies, at supper, the doctor's gestures were made with knife and fork in hand, and it was spoken in a rich brogue and tones sometimes of thrilling pathos, anon of sharp and vehement indignation, and again of childlike endearment, amidst pounding and jingling of glasses, and screams of laughter from the company. Indeed the lord mayor, a fat slob of a fellow, though not much given to undue merriment, laughed his ribs into such a state of breathless torture, that he implored of Toole, ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... at the tall clock, and was beginning to put on her cloak when the door opened and Patty entered the kitchen by way of the shed; the usual Patty, rosy, buoyant, alert, with a kind of childlike innocence that could hardly be associated with the ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... cup thereof—supper was a mixed meal at Strides Cottage—then continued:—"That brings to mind to ask you, whether little Davy is in the right of it when he writes your name 'Picture'?... Is he not, mayhap, calling you out of your name, childlike?" ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... suffer. With the childlike faith, with the good humour of the masses who believe in their leaders, they think that "yonder," in the House, in the Town Hall, in the Committee of Public Safety, their welfare is being considered. But "yonder" they are discussing everything under the sun except ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin
... said the Knight to himself, on hearing this extraordinary proposition. "He doth, ever in his childlike simplicity, say something to confound me. His untutored mind is yet incapable of receiving the mysteries of our holy religion, but, in lieu thereof, perpetually runs after the practical and immediate advantages of powder and guns. Direct ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... her head. Her eyes met his freely. There was something of the childlike adoration of an instinctive and triumphant purity in the smile which parted her lips. Maraton understood at once that the danger was past. The thunder had ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... character was as childlike as his face, and because—if stupid and slothful by nature—he was also of so submissive, susceptible, and willing a temper that he disarmed the justest wrath; or because he was, as he said, not such a fool as he looked, and had in his own lubberly way taken ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... book admits of such variety of topics, style, and treatment as the novel. As diverse in talent and quality as the story-teller himself,—now harlequin, now gossip, now threnodist,—with weird ghostliness, moping melancholy, uncouth laughter, or gentle serious smile,—now relating the story, with childlike interest in it, now with a good heart and now with a bad heart ridiculing mankind, now allegorical with rich meanings, now freighting the little story-cricket that creeps along from page to page with immense ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... attenuation had a charm of its own, and gave a touching interest to her figure, which was wanting before. If her check was thinner and paler, her eyes looked larger and brighter, and more akin to the stars in splendour; and if she appeared less childlike, less joyous, less free from care, the want of these qualities was more than counterbalanced by increased gentleness, resignation, ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... me, and I am only intent upon keeping to myself. I force myself to solitude, and to achieve this is my greatest care. When I was on the point of taking flight, at the end of May, Tichatschek suddenly called on me. This good man, with his splendid, childlike heart, and his amiable little head, was very agreeable to me, and his enthusiastic attachment to me did me good. I was specially pleased with his voice, and tried to persuade myself that I still had ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 2 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... had lunched (so said the brown family) on that spot a few weeks ago. Out came the chairs which the King and his friends had sat in, plates and glasses from which the King and his friends had drunk; and the simple people derived a childlike pleasure from ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... have thus a work which is productive of effect; but an alarmingly painful effect, equally repugnant to humanity, philosophy, and religious feeling. The Mahomet of Voltaire makes two innocent young persons, a brother and sister, who, with a childlike reverence, adore him as a messenger from God, unconsciously murder their own father, and this from the motives of an incestuous love in which, by his allowance, they had also become unknowingly entangled; the brother, after he has blindly executed his horrible ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... was a spell of silence, and at last, when Mademoiselle spoke, I was amazed at the calm voice in which she addressed him, marvelling at the strength and courage of one so frail and childlike to behold. ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... of our aristocracy, the scandalous exemption of the peers from all ignominious punishments short of death, and the insolent practice of allowing peers to vote in criminal trials on their honour, while other men vote on their oath." But generally the claims of rank and birth were admitted with a childlike cheerfulness. The high function of government was the birthright of the few. The people, according to episcopal showing, had nothing to do with the laws but to obey them. The ingenious author of Russell's Modern Europe states in his preface to that immortal work that his object in adopting ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... the lieutenant again began to bellow profanely. Regardless of the vindictive threats of the bullets, he went about coaxing, berating, and bedamning. His lips, that were habitually in a soft and childlike curve, were now writhed into unholy contortions. He swore by ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... knew not how. The whole peace of the world was pent up painfully in his heart. The new and childlike world which he had seen so suddenly, men had not seen at all. Here they were still at their old bewildering, pardonable, useless quarrels, with so much to be said on both sides, and so little that need be said at all. A fierce inspiration ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... method. How ever appropriate and seemingly unavoidable when I touch upon anything appertaining to the lady, it is most unsuitable to the origin, character, and history of the dog; for the dog was the gift to the child from a man for whom words had anything but an Ollendorffian value, a man almost childlike in the impulsive movements of his untutored genius, the most single-minded of verbal impressionists, using his great gifts of straight feeling and right expression with a fine sincerity and a strong if, perhaps, not fully conscious conviction. ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... words of thanks when next he called. Here with a rough chalk sketch he had awakened an amount of gratitude that almost surprised him in the most beautiful and tender soul in the world; and had not this princess among women taken his hand for a moment as a childlike way of expressing her thanks, while her eyes spoke more than her lips? And the more he looked at those eyes, the more he grew to despair of ever being able to put down the magic of them ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... disfigured by any mode of sympathy with human caprice or infirmity. And, if a frown too awful still rested upon his face, making the approach to him too fearful for harmonizing with that perfect freedom and that childlike love which God seeks in his worshippers, it was yet made evident that no step for conciliating his favor did or could lie through any ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... violent death appalled her. If her impulsive nature were excited, like that of a soldier in battle, she could forget danger. If in her bed at home she were wasting with disease, she would soon submit to the Divine will with childlike trust. But her whole being shrunk inexpressibly from violent and unnatural death. Never before did life seem so sweet. Never before was there so much to live for. She could have been a martyr in any age and in any horrible form for conscience' sake, but she would have ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... his Uncle's room, and sat down by the side of the bed. He opened the book and began to read of Willie Reilly and his Colleen Bawn. Now and then he glanced at his Uncle and wondered at the childlike and innocent look on his face. There was a strange simplicity in his eyes ... not the simplicity of those who have not got understanding, but of those who have a deep and unchangeable knowledge that is very different from the knowledge ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... life away. Any tender-hearted girl might have stood thus surrounded by helpless things that pity had endeared, but few would have regarded them with an expression like that which Sylvia wore. Figure, posture, and employment were so childlike in their innocent unconsciousness, that the contrast was all the more strongly marked between them and the sweet thoughtfulness that made her face singularly attractive with the charm of dawning womanhood. Moor spoke before Mark could dispose ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... perfectly well that he, too, was fully as incompetent: had he not proved to be so with poor Father Francis, and scores of others who had clutched at him in their agony during the last ten years? Even the Archbishop, holy man as he was, with all his childlike faith—was that the man to lead English Catholics and confound their enemies? There seemed no giants on the earth in these days. What in the world was to be done? He buried his face ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson
... former times, but demands still specific mildness from the land-owner, or loaner of capital, his former master. It is inevitable that there should be complaints on both sides.(439) But in the higher stages of economic culture, the relation of paternal protection and childlike obedience between the different classes of the people, which, even in medieval times, never obtained in all its purity, is certainly unrecallable. Hence it is, that all hope of a better condition of things is based only on this, that ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... reading the words of the Lord: "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me"; and with her heart full of them, she lifted her eyes and saw Gibbie. For one moment, with the quick flashing response of the childlike imagination of the Celt, she fancied she saw the Lord himself. Another woman might have made a more serious mistake, and seen there only a child. Often had Janet pondered, as she sat alone on the great mountain, while Robert was with the sheep, or she lay awake by his side ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... led astray by the nateral desire 'at a man has to think weel o' his ain forbears—for 'at he was a forbear o' my ain, I canna weel doot, the name bein' by no means a common ane, in Scotland ony way—I'm sayin', it seems to me, that it's jist a darin' way, maybe a childlike way, o' judgin', as Job micht ha' dune, 'the Lord by himsel';' an' sayin', 'at gin he, Martin Elginbrod, wad hae mercy, surely the Lord was not less mercifu' than he was. The offspring o' the Most High was, as it were, aware o' the same spirit i' the father o' him, as muved in himsel'. He felt 'at ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... voice, in this being, obey; And though ever he slip on the stony ground, Yet, ever again to the godlike way, To the science of Good though the Wise may be blind, Yet the practice is plain to the childlike mind. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... common sense detracts nothing from the world's debt to Ruskin. The simple truth is that he was a reformer as well as a great writer, and the very fervor of his religious and social beliefs, his contempt of mere money getting, his hatred of falsehood, his boundless generosity and his childlike simplicity of mind—all these traits at which the world laughed lifted Ruskin above the other men of genius of his time and placed him among the ...
— Modern English Books of Power • George Hamlin Fitch
... her temples with cold water, and brought her back to consciousness. In a childlike voice she whimpered that every joint in her body was broken. Feeling a burning sensation in the hollow of her hand, she looked, and saw that the palm was ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... lone, but no responsive sound Of joy or mirth awake, nay, oft oppress, While gifts of which we scarce the moment guess In never-failing joys abound. No nation can be truly great That hath not something childlike in its life Of every day; it should its youth renew With simple joys that sweetly recreate The jaded mind, conjoined in friendly strife The pleasures of its childhood ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... Winchester in which Osborne had installed her when she first came to England as his wife, and in the dainty furnishing of which he had run himself so deeply into debt. For Osborne consulted his own fastidious taste in his purchases rather than her simple childlike wishes and wants, and looked upon the little Frenchwoman rather as the future mistress of Hamley Hall than as the wife of a man who was wholly dependent on others at present. He had chosen a southern county as being far removed from those midland shires where the name of Hamley ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... be so disappointed if you did not come," said Mrs. Ukridge, lifting her childlike eyes ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... the glare was relieved by the dark rock and sand around us. When all the stores had been discharged from the ship she lightened up considerably, and Campbell then set to work to ballast her for Pennell. Meares amused the naval members of our party by asking, with a childlike innocence, "Had they got all the cargo out of the steamer?" There was nothing wrong in what he said, but the "Terra Nova," Royal Yacht Squadron—and "cargo" and "steamer"—how our naval pride ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans
... These ideas are best expressed in the songs of Rama Prasada Sen (1718-1775) which "still reign supreme in the villages" of Bengal and show that this strange worship has really a hold on millions of Indian rustics.[732] The directness and childlike simplicity of his poems have caused an Indian critic to compare him to Blake. "Though the mother beat the child," he sings, "the child cries mother, mother, and clings still tighter to her garment. True, I cannot ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... dependence of this change on the general sexual development is shown not merely by its occurrence at puberty, but by the fact that in eunuchs in whom the testicles have been removed before puberty the voice retains its childlike qualities.[116] ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... his arms around her neck, leaned his face close against hers, flashed his burning glance deep into her eyes, and in doing so smiled a blissful, childlike smile. ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... their auspices, differed from that of the morning, not merely in name and form, but in its subtle character. In the one instance it had been an innocent pastime, occasioned by childlike and joyous impulses. The people's manner might have reminded one of a bit of darkened landscape that had been rapidly filled with light, and almost ecstatic life by the ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... father's house; but after that disruption what did anything matter? And she had gone through five years of gradual training of which no one knew. The tears and terror, the plea, "I am a poor girl; I cannot even ride," of her first childlike alarm had given place to a profound acquaintance with the voices and their meaning. They were now her familiar friends guiding her at every step; and what was the commonplace burly Seigneur, with his roar of laughter, to Jeanne? She went to her audience ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... mind as meaningless arabesques. She could not see how all the complications concerning the elementary canons of faith and conduct could arise. She appreciated Randall's intellectual gifts; his power of weaving magical words into rhyme fascinated her; she was childlike in her wonder at his command of the printed page; when he revealed to her the beauty of things, as the rogue had a pretty knack of doing, her nature thrilled responsive. He gave her a thousand glimpses into a new world, and she loved him for it. But when he talked ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... a slender, pretty creature, almost as childlike in her way of speaking as if she had been no older than Dorothea or Alfred. The children listened with pleased excitement commingled with a certain awe. Gaffer Bartram had seemed as much a part of their lives as ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... presented a pleasing picture of elephantine geniality. He was so large that his presence seemed to fill half the room. His great face was one tremendous smile. His eyes, though capable of a disconcertingly direct gaze, were clear and even childlike. His English was perfect, his evening-dress faultless, and, though obviously a bon-viveur, he was also unmistakably a man with ...
— The Crooked House • Brandon Fleming
... Poor, lonely, childlike little man! He tried to tell me how glad he had been to entertain me. "Why," he said, "I was plumb glad to see you and right sorry to have you go. Why, I would jist as soon talk to you as to a nigger. Yes'm, I would. It has been almost as good as talking to old Aunt Dilsey." ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... me!" she murmured, stretching her little hands out to him in a pathetic and childlike appeal. "I have never deceived anyone in my life before.... How could I live a lie? ... married to you, yet seemingly a ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... these fortunate ones. The household of these two women was a curious one. Both were childlike, placing side by side in a common domain, inexperience and ambition, the tranquility of an accomplished destiny and the fever of a life plunged in struggle, all the different qualities manifest even in the serene style of dress affected by this blonde ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet |
