"Benign" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Mr. Morgan ceased making some pencil notes with which he was occupied, and looked up. He met the stranger's benign glance and, while still looking at him, deliberately turned over all the proof-sheets before him, leaving no printed matter exposed to ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... benign. The essential difference between the two classes is that while benign tumors depend for their ill effects entirely upon their situation, malignant neoplasms wherever located inevitably destroy life. The clinical features of each group ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... in our case—and altogether, no doubt, in the case of others less fortunate —all this good might be swept away for ever. We had seen the rich fruit-trees waving in the soft air, the tender herbs shooting upwards under the benign influence of the bright sun; and the next day we had seen these good and beautiful trees and plants uprooted by the hurricane, crushed and hurled to the ground in destructive devastation. We had lived for many months in a clime for the most part so beautiful that we had often wondered ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... you," and their lips met in their first lover's kiss.... Oh, the wonderful, glorious world!... The grand, beautiful old world! Place of delight, joy, wonder, beauty, gratitude. How the kind little stars sang to them and the benign old moon looked down and said: "Never despair, never despond, never fear, God has given you Love. What matters else?" How the man swore to himself that he would be worthy of her, strive for her, live for her; if need be—die for her. How the woman vowed ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... its best, in its direct economic bearing, it is a conversion of the economic substance of the collectivity to a growth alien to the collective life process—very much after the analogy of what in medicine would be called a benign tumor, with some tendency to transgress the uncertain line that divides the benign from the malign growths. The two barbarian traits, ferocity and astuteness, go to make up the predaceous temper ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... unlike those of every other. Then said he to the Merman, "O my brother, are there yet other cities in the main?"; whereto said the other, "And what hast thou seen of the cities of the sea and its wondrous spectacles? By the virtue of the noble Prophet, the benign, the compassionate, were I to show thee every day a thousand cities for a thousand years, and in each city a thousand marvels, I should not have shown thee one carat of the four-and- twenty carats of the cities of the sea and ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... about little things was altogether at variance with his tastes,—and it would be futile. He must summon courage to tell her that he no longer wished for the match; but he could not do it on this morning. Then,—for that morning,—some benign god preserved him. ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... be rightly based upon the sole desire to spread any particular religion, more especially when we treat of Christianity, the benign radiance of which was overshadowed by that debasing institution the Inquisition, which sought out the brightest intellects only to destroy them. But whether conversion by coercion be justifiable or not, one is bound to acknowledge ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... depth of thousand years, And marks the revel shine; Her dusky face is lit with sober light, Sibylline, yet benign. ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville
... gentleman nodded again, crossed to Isaac and his ponderous volumes, and began to talk to him with that benign lack of haste which usually means a very competent personality. Phyllis hurried somewhat with Robin Hood among his little fishes, and felt happier. It was always, in her eventless life, something of a pleasant adventure to have Mr. De Guenther or his wife drop ...
— The Rose Garden Husband • Margaret Widdemer
... moss-covered monarch of the wood, and from their ashes, amid their charred roots, bidding the green sward and the waving harvest to unspring, and the spirit of the fathers of New England is not seen, hovering and shedding around the benign influences of sound, social, moral, and religious institutions, stronger and more enduring than knotted oak or tempered steel? The swelling tide of their descendants has spread upon our coasts, ascended our rivers, taken possession of our plains. Already it encircles our lakes. ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... standard of morality, and checked the rampant tyranny which had previously prevailed. Founded on a principle of sincere though mistaken piety, the Crusaders recognized all who took the cross as brethren; hence the meanest serf became, in some measure, free; and the same benign sentiment extended its effect to all classes. The attraction of a common cause in foreign lands further contributed to wean the Crusaders from the class quarrels and domestic feuds which occupied them at home. During their absence the crown was enabled to acquire a strength which had previously ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... Wanderer looked up and a benign look came to take the place of the pain and horror which had contorted his features. "It is well, O Man-Called-Bert. I shall do as you request, for I now see that my mission has been well accomplished. We go to your friends, ...
— Wanderer of Infinity • Harl Vincent
... hindred our sympathy in that Unhappiness. But if matters go Well in the Three Kingdoms; as long as God shall bless the English Nation, with Rulers that shall encourage Piety, Honesty, Industry, in their Subjects, and that shall cast a Benign Aspect upon the Interests of our Glorious Gospel, Abroad as well as at Home; so long, New-England will at least keep its head above water: and so much the more, for our comfortable Settlement in such ...
— The Wonders of the Invisible World • Cotton Mather
... carve this passion on the bark Of yonder tree, which stands the sacred mark Of noble Sydney's birth; when such benign, Such more than mortal-making stars did shine, That there they cannot but for ever prove The monument and pledge of humble love; His humble love, whose hope shall ne'er rise higher, Than for a pardon ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... power of him who comes from thence; For that, so near approaching its desire Our intellect is to such depth absorb'd, That memory cannot follow. Nathless all, That in my thoughts I of that sacred realm Could store, shall now be matter of my song. Benign Apollo! this last labour aid, And make me such a vessel of thy worth, As thy own laurel claims of me belov'd. Thus far hath one of steep Parnassus' brows Suffic'd me; henceforth there is need of both ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... as this power to see whether it be the beautiful or the foul that is disclosed? Need I, indeed, tell you of the way this flame spreads its feelers, and delicately darts and hovers in the darkness, conjuring things from nothing? This mechanical summoning, Sirs, of visions out of blackness is benign, by no means of malevolent intent; no more than if a man, passing two donkeys in the road, one lean and the other fat, could justly be arraigned for malignancy because they were not both fat. This, reverend Judges, is the essence of the matter concerning the rich burgess, Pranzo, who, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... characteristics, and no one can stand in his presence without feeling the ascendancy of his mind, and associating with his countenance the idea of wisdom, philanthropy, magnanimity and patriotism. There is a fine symmetry in the features of his face, indicative of a benign and dignified spirit. His nose is straight, and his eye inclined to blue. He wears his hair in a becoming cue, and from his forehead it is turned back and powdered in a manner which adds to the military air of his appearance. He displays a native gravity, but ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... The contests of the world rest largely upon feeling, often degenerating into mere passion. Those who are to take part in such contests should learn at an early period of life to control their feelings and passions. Such benign results can be reached only by experience. Let the debates of the Lyceum deal with questions of living interest, and those who take part in such contests will learn to control their feelings and thus prepare themselves for ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 • George Boutwell
... he observed in the French colony. But such intellectual culture, as Kalm and Charlevoix mentioned, never showed itself beyond the walls of Quebec or Montreal. The province, as a whole, was in a state of mental sluggishness at the time of the conquest by England, under whose benign influence the French Canadian people were now to enter on a new career ...
— Canada under British Rule 1760-1900 • John G. Bourinot
... Polo's book he had learned of Mangi and Far Cathay, with their thousands of gorgeous cities, the meanest finer than any then in Europe; of their abounding mines pouring forth infinite wealth, their noble rivers, happy populations, curious arts, and benign government. Polo had told him of Cambalu (Peking), winter residence of the Great Khan, Kublai—Cambalu with its palaces of marble, golden-roofed, its guard of ten thousand soldiers, its imperial stables containing ...
— History of the United States, Vol. I (of VI) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... sailors, then, trained from the early age of eight, was the first object of Germany's peaceful and benign penetration. As from the Pisgah height of the Pan-Turkish ideal she saw the promised land, but she had no idea of seeing it only, like Moses, and expiring without entering it, and her faith that she would enter ...
— Crescent and Iron Cross • E. F. Benson
... also for mineral substances, which, on account of their colour and their natural form, are believed to bear some relation to the organic functions, and even to the propensities of the soul. This ancient worship of stones, these benign virtues attributed to jade and haematite, belong to the savages of America as well as to the inhabitants of the forests of Thrace. The human race, when in an uncultivated state, believes itself to have sprung from the ground; and feels as if it were enchained ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... naturans, never a naturata. Lessing seems to have done what he could to be a dutiful failure. But there was something in him stronger and more sacred than even filial piety; and the good old pastor is remembered now only as the father of a son who would have shared the benign oblivion of his own theological works, if he could only have had his wise way with him. Even after never so many biographies and review articles, genius continues to be a marvellous and inspiring thing. At the same time, considering the then condition of what ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... some wonderful portions of a frieze from the Ara Pacis, erected in Rome, B.C. 139, with wonderful figures of men, women, and children on it. Among the heads is a colossal Alexander, very fine indeed, a beautiful Antoninus, a benign and silly Roman lady in whose existence one can quite believe, and a melancholy Seneca. Look also at Nos. 330 and 332, on the wall: 330, a charming genius, carrying one of Jove's thunderbolts; and 332, a boy who is sheer Luca della Robbia ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... matter of course, Nazinred looked round with an air of benign satisfaction on his ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... comes over him a strange warming of the heart toward all his fellow workers; and especially toward the young, to whom we must soon entrust all that we hold sacred. All through these pages the wish has been to make the young Mason feel in what a great and benign tradition he stands, that he may the more earnestly strive to be a Mason not merely in form, but in faith, in spirit, and still more, in character; and so help to realize somewhat of the beauty we all have dreamed—lifting into the light the latent powers and unguessed possibilities ...
— The Builders - A Story and Study of Masonry • Joseph Fort Newton
... English;" in 1575 he had published with Tallis "Cantiones Sacrae." From the title one would gather that Byrd's first English collection was mainly of a sacred character, but in an epistle to the reader he hastens to set us right on that point:—"Benign reader, here is offered unto thy courteous acceptance music of sundry sorts, and to content divers humours. If thou be disposed to pray, here are psalms; if to be merry, here are sonnets." There is, indeed, fare for all ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various
... children, and walk in love," Eph. v. 1, 2. This is the great virtue and property which we should imitate our Father in. As God hath a general love to all the creatures, from whence the river of his goodness flows out through the earth, and in that, is like the sun conveying his light and benign influence, without partiality or restraint, to the whole world, but his special favour runs in a more narrow channel towards these whom he hath chosen in Christ; so in this a Christian should be like his Father, and there ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... white room with its dainty bibelots, the Bible, the Madonnas, watching, benign. Poor little nun, waiting for the love that never ...
— Frances Waldeaux • Rebecca Harding Davis
... Vaudrey, what is the news?" said Warcolier, bearing his head high and smiling with a silly, but an aggressively benign expression, with the superior ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... Socialism. Widened Scope of Governmental Action. Restriction of Immigration. Catholics. Their Attitude to Public Schools. Peril to Family. Mormonism. Divorce. Danger from a Secular Spirit. New Sense of Nationality. Benign Results. Greely Expedition to Polar Regions. Lesson of our National Success to Other Nations. Our Nation's ...
— History of the United States, Volume 4 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... forgotten; and as the family interest was only enough for one, it was decided that I should be put in what is called a 'learned profession,' and let push my fortune. 'Take your choice, Dick,' said my father, with a most benign smile,—'take your choice, boy: will you be a lawyer, a ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... a benign hour. At ten o'clock Mr. Tate decided that they'd better be starting. He donned his clown's costume; Perry replaced the camel's head, arid side by side they traversed on foot the single block between the Tate house ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... liberated by a single verdict, the fate of one relative deciding the fate of many. And often ancestors, after passing a long life in illegal slavery, sprung at last, like the chrysalis in autumn, into new existence, beneath the genial rays of the sun of liberty, which shed at the same time its benign influence upon their children, and ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge
... Franklins and Rumfords of the succeeding century. The son of a Polish exile of German extraction, Hartlib had settled in England about 1627. He found the country behindhand both economically and socially, and with benign fervour applied himself to its regeneration. Agriculture was his principal hobby, and he effected much towards its improvement in England, rather however by editing the unpublished treatises of Weston and Child than by any ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett
... the dim chronicle of memory or the sibyl page of anticipation. From her young eyes fell on each volume a glorious light to read by; round her lips at moments played a smile which revealed glimpses of the tale or prophecy. It was not sad, not dark. Fate had been benign to the blissful dreamer, and promised to favour her yet again. In her past were sweet passages, in her future ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... village in high spirits, through a warm, fragrant, star-lighted evening, with no settled plan of action in mind save to do about as they liked for the succeeding three hours. Clint Thayer had a strip of plaster across the saddle of his nose, which gave him a strangely benign expression. Tom walked a bit stiffly and confessed to "a peach of a shin," which probably meant something quite different from what it suggested. Only Tim, of the three first team fellows, had emerged unscathed, and he referred to the fact ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... did not fail making an impression on my landlady, who had no little relish for this kind of beauty. She had, indeed, a real compassion for the young man; and hearing from the surgeon that affairs were like to go ill with the volunteer, she suspected they might hereafter wear no benign aspect with the ensign. Having obtained, therefore, leave to make him a visit, and finding him in a very melancholy mood, which she considerably heightened by telling him there were scarce any ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... and more brilliant bloom; but he had but to speak, to smile, in order to throw a whole cohort of dandies into the shade. It was the expression of his countenance that was so bewitching; there was something so kindly in its easy candor, its benign good-nature. And he understood women so well! He flattered their foibles so insensibly; he commanded their affection with so gracious a dignity. Above all, what with his accomplishments, his peculiar reputation, his long celibacy, and the soft melancholy of his sentiments, he always ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... was cold, filthy, and swarmed with rats—an animal for which I have always had an especial aversion. Towards midnight a Persian gentleman arrived from Kashan—a mild, benign-looking individual, with a grey moustache and large blue spectacles. The new-comer, who spoke a little French, begged to be allowed to join us on the morrow, as he was in a hurry to get to Ispahan. Notwithstanding ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt
... elect. Perhaps, though, she was premature in this case. Was there not the Octopus? But then she remembered with pleasure that Conrad had represented his mother as phenomenally genial in her attitude towards the new arrangement; as having, in fact, a claim to be considered not only a bestower of benign consent, but an accomplice before the fact. Still, Rosalind felt her own reserves on the subject, although she had always taken the part of the Octopus on principle when she thought Sally had become too disrespectful towards her. Anyhow, no use to beg and borrow troubles! ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... benign art which he calls, with his own natural modesty and simplicity, the Art of Tradition, this art which grows so truly noble and worthy, so distinctively human, in his clear, scientific treatment of it,—in his scientific clearance of it from the ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... "this glorious liberty, these benign institutions, the dear purchase of our fathers, are ours; ours to enjoy, ours to preserve, ours to transmit. Generations past and generations to come hold us responsible for ...
— Four Great Americans: Washington, Franklin, Webster, Lincoln - A Book for Young Americans • James Baldwin
... leaves out of any composition—and this is ill-nature. A good-natured man may indeed (provided he is a fool) be proud, but arrogant and insolent he cannot be, unless we will allow to such a still greater degree of folly and ignorance of human nature; which may indeed entitle them to forgiveness in the benign language of scripture, because they know not what ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... crocheting without spectacles. All her skin, especially round about the eyes, was yellowish brown and very deeply wrinkled indeed; a decrepit, senile skin, which seemed to contradict the youth of her pose and her glance. The cast of her features was benign. She had passed through desolating and violent experiences, and then through a long, long period of withdrawn tranquillity; and from end to end of her life she had consistently thought the best of all men, refusing to recognize evil and assuming the existence of ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... brutalities have fled before the benign enlightening influence of the gospel. To suffocate a man, in order to drive out an imaginary evil spirit, was like the popular trial for witchcraft. The poor woman, if cross, and old, and ugly, her hands and legs being tied together, was thrown into deep water; if she floated, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... And each Pippet pipes[FN217] and each Curlew cries * And Blackbird and Turtle with voice of pine; Ring-dove and Culver, and eke Hazar, * And Kata calling on Quail vicine; So fill with the mere and the cups make bright * With bestest liquor, that boon benign;— This site and sources and scents I espy * With ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... moment after this impulsive entrance, and the governess turned toward Mrs. Foss a face that, benign and enlightened though it was, called up the memory of faces seen in good-humored German comic papers. The expression of her smile said to the company that she was guiltless in the matter of this invasion. ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... way of Remuneration and Reward did they make this so Clement and Benign Monarch, can you imagine, no other but this? They put the greatest Indignity upon him imaginable in the person of his Consort who was violated by a Spanish Captain altogether unworthy of the Name of Christian. ...
— A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies • Bartolome de las Casas
... benign, that goest through the lurid air visiting us who stained the world blood-red,—if the King of the universe were a friend we would pray Him for thy peace, since thou hast pity on our perverse ill. Of what it pleaseth thee to hear, and what to speak, we will hear and we will speak to you, ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... of his precepts. Indeed, it is the fashion of modern unbelievers, after doing what lies in their power to make the gospel a mass of "cunningly-devised fables" of human origin, to expatiate on the majesty and beauty of the Saviour's character, the excellence of his moral precepts, and the benign influence of his religion. But the transcendent glory of our Lord's character is inseparable from his being what he claimed to be—the Son of God, coming from God to men with supreme authority; and all the power of his ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... upon her a benign and almost paternal glance. "You're tremendously sweet to put that flea in my ear, Kay. It's a wonderful prescription, but it lacks one small ingredient—the wealthy, courageous and self-sacrificing friend who will consent to run the sandy on your astute ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... of religion, and refusing to longer support it, demand that moral training shall be the grand essential of education. If this course were adopted and persistently followed, it would be but a question of time when mankind would come into being with such a benign heredity that ...
— Astral Worship • J. H. Hill
... the stern Minerva's power; Who arm the hand of Liberty for war, And give to the renown'd Britannic name To awe contending monarchs: yet benign, Yet mild of nature, to the works of peace More prone, and lenient of the many ills 170 Which wait on human life. Your gentle aid Hygeia well can witness; she who saves, From poisonous dates and cups of pleasing bane, The wretch, devoted to the entangling snares Of Bacchus and of Comus. ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... to separate adjectives in opposition, but closely connected. "Though deep, yet clear; though gentle, yet not dull." "Liberal, not lavish, is kind Nature's hand." "Though black, yet comely; and though rash, benign." ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)
... we found him dead. I have often, very often, seen him sleeping, and always peacefully, but I never saw him look so calm and tranquil. His face wore a serene, benign expression, which had impressed me very strongly when we last shook hands; not that he had ever had any other look, God knows; but there was something in this so very spiritual, so strangely and indefinably allied to youth, although his head was gray and venerable, ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens
... he never did say a word on the subject in any of his public papers, except in his valedictory letter to the Governors of the States when he resigned his commission in the army, wherein he speaks of 'the benign influence ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... this in common with that of the female mind, that evidently nothing sticks deeply, but is quickly wiped out by what any other lecturer, or writer, or politician has to tell you. I was prepared for indifference—I was not prepared for receptivity and that benign lady's smile, behind which ladies, like all people who are only clever, usually hide their inward contempt for the foolishness of mere men! I was prepared for abuse, and even a good fight—I was not prepared for an extremely faint-hearted criticism; ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... scorn not thy state; There is worse weariness than thine, In merely being rich and great; Toil only gives the soul to shine And makes rest fragrant and benign; A heritage, it seems to me, Worth being poor ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... work. So refreshing its calm, benign atmosphere, after the pestilence-bringing gales of the day. It comes like a breath borne over some solemn sea which separates us from an island of righteousness. How valuable is it to have among us a man who, standing apart from the conflicts of ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... said the vicar. "I must not longer intrude on you, but I am bound to tell you, Captain Maynard, that I consider your soul in imminent danger, and I earnestly pray that another day, ere it be too late, a benign influence may induce you more willingly to receive my ministrations. Farewell." And Mr Lerew, rising with a frowning brow, walked to the door, while the captain, sinking back on his pillow, rang his bell. Soon after Mr ...
— Clara Maynard - The True and the False - A Tale of the Times • W.H.G. Kingston
... sea. The ship in which we sailed tossed like a cork, while the waves, foam-crested, hurled themselves furiously on our bark. A great panic seized the ship's crew, and they gave themselves up for lost. But for myself I had no fear. A great benign influence was around me, and I felt as safe as a babe rocked on its mother's breast, while the wild winds that roared seemed as sweet as the lullaby of a mother to ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... watching for little breaks in the ranks and dodging swiftly through them. His crutch was under his arm, he was not using it. His hat-brim had been lowered over his face, his coat collar pulled high about his ears and securely buttoned. There was none of that benign appearance about him now which had so won Dorothy's sympathetic heart and if he were lame ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond
... resounded to their tread as they walked beneath them in silence. Jean Merle suffered himself to be led without a question, like one in a dream. There seemed some faint reminiscence from the past of this man, with his harsh features, and kindly, genial expression, the deep-set eyes, beaming with a benign light from under the rugged eyebrows, and the firm yet friendly pressure of his guiding arm; and his mind was groping about the dark labyrinth of memory to seize his former knowledge of him, if there had ever been any. There was a vague ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... The common thought is that representatives of this Lodge, or their disciples, often appear; are not so far away from the world of men; may be teaching, quite obscurely, or dropping casual seeds of the Secret Wisdom, in the next village. Well; I imagine pralayic conditions may allow benign spiritual influences to be at work, sometimes, nearer the surface of life than in manvantara. The brain-mind is less universally dominant; there is not the same dense atmosphere of materialism. You get on the one hand a franker play ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... her human faults. Seeds of sound good feeling were scattered away in the remoter corners of her nature, and only waited for the fertilizing occasion that was to help them to spring up. The occasion exerted that benign influence when the cab brought Mr. Crum's client back to the hotel. The face of the weary, heart-sick woman, as she slowly crossed the hall, roused all that was heartiest and best in Mrs. Karnegie's nature, and said to her, as if ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... through his breakfast, but father came out and demanded that the boys should come in, and he set me right under the wing of that awful giant. But when John Brown saw us coming in so timidly, he turned to us with a smile so benign and beautiful and so greatly in contrast to what we had pictured him, that it was a transition. He became to us boys one of the loveliest men we ever knew. He would go to the barn with us and milk the cows, pitch the hay ...
— Russell H. Conwell • Agnes Rush Burr
... spirit of the dawn, the watchful Mithra, "who, first of the celestial Yazatas, soars above Mount Hara,* before the immortal sun with his swift steeds, who, first in golden splendour, passes over the beautiful mountains and casts his glance benign on the dwellings ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... returned to the Hemlock Farm at stated periods during the summer. He had, to be plain, sat down before Jane's heart to besiege it with the same ponderous benign calm with which he ate an egg or talked of death. There was a bronze image of Buddha in the hall at the Farm, the gaze of the god fixed with ineffable content, as it had been for ages, on his ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... close upon sunset when he reached the first fringes of the northward slope of the mountain. Here his reception was benign. On the banks of a tiny brook, rosy-gold in the flooding afternoon light, he found a bed of wild catnip. Here for a few minutes he rolled in ecstasy, chewing and clawing at the aromatic leaves, all four paws in air, and hoarsely purring his delight. When, at last, he ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... Graces is the serene dignity of the Adonis. I have seen my old friend in many trying positions, but I never realised till now all the simpering absurdity, the flattered silliness, the senile coquettishness, of which his benign countenance ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... and led me through a dark passage that fronted the gate. When we came to a little door at the end, he tapped. A boy, still younger than himself, opened it to receive us. Mountford entered with a look in which was pictured the benign assurance of a superior being. I followed in ...
— The Man of Feeling • Henry Mackenzie
... rare apprehensions, exquisite memories, mysterious invitations, once again obtained possession, coming forth, passing lightly to and fro, filling all the place. In aspect and sentiment they were benign, all fearfulness having gone from out them—they telling of fair things only, of human relations unbroken by treachery or self-seeking, unsullied by lust; telling, too, of godly endeavour faithfully to travel the road which leads to the far horizon touched by the illimitable glory ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... than books he had opportunities to learn little. The sense of honorable duty, either he had not been taught or its principles had been inculcated in ways too meaningless to make enduring impression upon his being. Under influences more benign he might have made a career, if not more brilliant, more felicitous. At the age of ten years he wrote some verses entitled "On the Last Epiphany," which, printed in Farley's Journal, showed that he had, if not high poetic genius, at least extraordinary sensibility of rhythm. Unfortunately ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... began to show symptoms of innovation—'the good wine did its good office.' [Footnote: Southey's Madoc.] The frost of etiquette and pride of birth began to give way before the genial blessings of this benign constellation, and the formal appellatives with which the three dignitaries had hitherto addressed each other were now familiarly abbreviated into Tully, Bally, and Killie. When a few rounds had passed, the two latter, after whispering together, craved ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... K'ang Hsi, whose name is inseparably connected with one of the most valuable lexicons that have ever been compiled, forbade bambooing across the upper part of the back and shoulders. "Near the surface," said this benign father of his people, "lie the liver and the lungs. For some trivial offence a man might be so punished that these organs would never recover from the effects of the blows." The ruling system of bribery has taken away ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... hie you that ye ready were, There is no emperor, king, duke, ne baron, That of God hath commission, As hath the least priest in the world being; For of the blessed sacraments pure and benign, He beareth the keys and thereof hath the cure For man's redemption, it is ever sure; Which God for our soul's medicine Gave us out of his heart with great pine; Here in this transitory life, for thee and me The blessed sacraments seven there be, Baptism, confirmation, with priesthood good, ...
— Everyman and Other Old Religious Plays, with an Introduction • Anonymous
... since he began his tale he looked the professor full in the face. He started with amazement as he did so: for now he saw not a benign, smiling old scientist, beaming good nature and affability through his spectacles, but a stern-faced, iron-mouthed man, whose jaw was set with grim inflexibility, and whose eyes seemed actually to blaze with fury. The big veins stood out upon his ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... appreciatively benign. As usual, he kept his thoughts to himself, but he had the air of adding Hugo to the vast collection of human curiosities which he had made ...
— Hugo - A Fantasia on Modern Themes • Arnold Bennett
... sister-in-law. Lady Anstruthers, in her new bloom, had not lacked partners, who discovered that she was a childishly light creature who danced extremely well. Everyone was kind to her, and the very grand old ladies, who admired Betty, were absolutely benign in their manner. Betty's partners paid ingenuous court to her, and Sir Nigel found he had not been mistaken in his estimate of the dignity his position of escort and male relation ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... immediately commenced to grin after his usual custom. Somehow Hugh no longer saw anything to condemn in that broad smile that covered the face of the ex-hobo; just then, in the light of the new revelation, it seemed most kindly and benign; for circumstances alter cases, and a great deal depends upon one's view-point as to whether an expression can be classed as merry ...
— The Chums of Scranton High Out for the Pennant • Donald Ferguson
... was confined to two days, than it would be to take away the same period from the bodily existence of one who immediately thereupon passes into a more exalted and eternal life. To the sufferer, the former would seem an immitigable calamity, the latter a benign furtherance; while, in the agent, the overt act is the same. This general moral problem has been more accurately answered by Isaac Taylor, whose lucid statement is as follows: "The creatures of a summer's day might ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... and went; and now returned again To Sicily the old Saturnian reign; Under the Angel's governance benign The happy island danced with corn and wine, And deep within the mountain's burning breast Enceladus, ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... Such a man may be called civilized, but he is only an accomplished barbarian. His head and hands are instructed, his heart, and low passions and appetites, unbridled and untamed. Such a man can never be made to understand the beautiful and benign principles of our republican form of government. Like all brutes, he relies on force, and tries and judges every issue by success. What he calls "the final arbitrament of arms" is to such a one a righteous decision, provided ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... great placidity on a rocking-chair in the centre of the room, between the bed and the marble-topped table: a man to whom, evidently, a rich abundance of thought was sufficient company, for he had neither newspaper nor book. He rose in a leisurely fashion, and seemed the very essence of the benign as he ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... if you'll try!"—and she took over the job, as she had called it, on the spot. "Trust me!" she exclaimed, and the action of this, as they retraced their steps, was presently to make him pass his hand into her arm in the manner of a benign dependent paternal old person who wishes to be "nice" to a younger one. If he drew it out again indeed as they approached the inn this may have been because, after more talk had passed between them, the relation of age, or at least of experience—which, for that ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... George Tucker!" exclaimed the benign spinster, "you dew beat all for sass out o' season! Kep ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... feeling and sensation fine, By mild reserve from common eyes conceal'd, The ray of genius and the heart benign, In artless gaiety so ...
— Poems • Matilda Betham
... branch of her house—a house to which the tutelage and protection of the miraculous Image, and the enmity and evil influence of the revengeful Vanda, had been peculiarly attached for ages. It seemed to her as if she were the prize, for the disposal of which the benign saint and vindictive fiend were now to play their last and ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... looked as though she desired to continue the conversation. But there was that in Cap'n Amazon's businesslike manner and speech that impressed Mrs. Baker—as it had Lawford Tapp—that here was a very different person from the easy-going, benign Cap'n Abe. Mandy sniffed, jerked her sunbonnet forward, and departed with ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... most Dear Brothers now serving the Benign King-Emperor oversea, the chief Khalsa Dewan tenders hearty and sincere greetings on the auspicious Gurpurb of First Guru. You are upholding the name and fame of Gurupurb. Our hearts are with you ...
— War in the Garden of Eden • Kermit Roosevelt
... he began, "by congratulating you on your improved appearance"—another benign bow. "You were so burned and blackened by exposure, and so—in short, so very wild-looking when I last saw you, that I began to fear for the result; but perfect rest and retirement, and good nursing, have effected wonders. I have never seen you so fair, so refined-looking, and ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... boots not to repine." Quoth thou, "The goodliest of things is patience and its use: Its practice still mankind doth guide to all that's fair and fine." Wherefore fair patience look thou use, for sure 'tis praiseworthy; Yea, and its issues evermore are blessed and benign; And hope thou not for aught from me, who reck not with a folk To mix, who may with abjectness infect my royal line. This is my saying; apprehend its purport, then, and know I may in no wise yield consent to that thou ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... demonstrated that they subserve a much higher purpose, that the rivers of a country are its great arteries and highways of trade, and that they fulfill functions as numerous and benign in the political economy as in the physical geography of the regions they furrow. In the Old World, the advancing streams of culture, science and commerce, and even the migrations of nations, have ebbed and flowed along the classic valleys of the Rhine, the Rhone and the Danube; ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... not haltingly, tortuously, with pusillanimous mien, as being ashamed of our high calling. Then shall we be rid of the rank and pestilent truth that is rotting the land; then shall we be great and good and beautiful, and worthy dwellers in a world where even benign Nature habitually lies, except when she promises execrable weather. Then—but I am but a new and feeble student in this gracious art; I can ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... on this first evening, an unwonted cloud hung over the brow of the host, which yielded not to the benign influence of four cups of tea, and eatables in proportion; withstood the sedative consolations of a meerschaum of the best "Navy," and scarcely gave way when, with the two eldest of the party, he sat down to a steaming ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... see no advantage in further mentioning the diabolical cruelties practised by these savages of which Piomingo told us. Far removed from the benign influences of Christianity, these red men only acted according to the impulses of their barbarous nature. The thought came upon me with great force, Is it not the duty of white men who are Christians to send the blessed light of the gospel, ...
— In the Rocky Mountains - A Tale of Adventure • W. H. G. Kingston
... the most satisfying sort of a host to observe at an art exhibition is that of the description of this admirable dealer before us. Benign, frock-coated, hands clasped behind him, he stands, symbol of gentlemanly, merchantly dignity. Occasionally he rises upon his toes, and then sinks again to his heels obviously with satisfaction. But that which proclaims the perfect equity of his mind is this: his nice recognition of the nuances ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday
... the area involved, bacterial or viral infections, asthma. When excess toxemia is deposited instead of eliminated, the results can be arthritis if toxins are stored in joints, rheumatism if in muscle tissues, cysts and benign tumors. And if toxins weaken the ...
— How and When to Be Your Own Doctor • Dr. Isabelle A. Moser with Steve Solomon
... efforts, however arduous, of all the missionaries in Africa. We should first begin by reforming the manners of those Christians who are established in Muhamedan countries, holding responsible situations, so as to show the Muhamedans, by their harmony and good will, the advantages of the benign influence of the great Christian principle, "Love thy neighbour as thyself." Until the disgraceful 130 animosity lamentably prevalent between the Catholic and Protestant, the Lutheran, Calvinist, and other sects of Christians be annihilated, it ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny
... was moved to tears. Columbus had borne up firmly against the rude conflicts of the world,-he had endured with lofty scorn the injuries and insults of ignoble men; but he possessed strong and quick sensibility. When he found himself thus kindly received by his sovereigns, and beheld tears in the benign eyes of Isabella, his long-suppressed feelings burst forth: he threw himself on his knees, and for some time could not utter a word for the violence of his ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... frames, inured to every hardship, threw themselves down, intending to profit by the advice of Athos, who sat at the helm, pensively wakeful, guiding the little bark the way it was to go, his eyes fixed on the heavens, as if he sought to verify not only the road to France, but the benign aspect of protecting Providence. After some hours of repose the sleepers were aroused ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... in the pillow of the sick and the heavenly 365:3 homesick looking away from earth, - Oh, did they know! - this knowledge would do much more towards healing the sick and preparing their helpers 365:6 for the "midnight call," than all cries of "Lord, Lord!" The benign thought of Jesus, finding utterance in such words as "Take no thought for your life," would heal 365:9 the sick, and so enable them to rise above the supposed necessity for physical thought-taking and doctoring; but if the unselfish affections ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... spirit o'er this earth presides, And in the heart of man; invisibly It comes to works of unreproved delight, And tendency benign; directing those Who care not, know not, think not, what ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry
... one to see her, waiting upon her themselves. It seemed as if she were made of light, for the house was filled with a soft shining, so that even in the dark of night it was like daytime. Her presence seemed to have a benign influence on those there. Whenever the old man felt sad, he had only to look upon his foster-daughter and his sorrow vanished, and he became as happy as when ...
— Japanese Fairy Tales • Yei Theodora Ozaki
... many precepts sage may hold, His well fraught head may find no trifling prize. Should crafty lawyer trespass on our ground, Caitiffs avaunt! disturbing tribe away! Unless (white crow) an honest one be found; He'll better, wiser go for what we say. Should some ripe scholar, gentle and benign, With candour, care, and judgment thee peruse: Thy faults to kind oblivion he'll consign; Nor to thy merit will his praise refuse. Thou may'st be searched for polish'd words and verse By flippant spouter, emptiest of praters: Tell him to seek them in ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... Madden, reticent by nature, had never been known to speak in the domestic circle about his pecuniary affairs. He seemed to be the kind of man who would inspire his children with affection: grave but benign, amiably diffident, with a hint of lurking mirthfulness about his eyes and lips. And to-day he was in the best of humours; professional prospects, as he had just explained to Alice, were more encouraging than hitherto; for twenty years he had practised medicine at Clevedon, ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... people will be overcome by restraining the ambition and annulling the ordinances of those who have encouraged faction, and adopting in their stead only such principles as are conformable to true civil liberty. And be assured, that these desirable ends will be more certainly attained by the benign influence of the laws, than by a delay which will compel the people to effect them ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... hailed you Admiral: your eagle sight Foresaw Her Majesty's benign intentions; A uniform was ready of the ...
— The Battle of the Bays • Owen Seaman
... hills. Wind, rain, heat, cold, thunder and lightning, as each became objects of desire or aversion, were invested with the attributes of deities. The various parts of the house—door, kitchen-stove, courtyard, &c.—were also conceived of as sheltering some spirit whose influence might be benign or the reverse. The spirits of the land and of grain came to mean one's country, the commonwealth, the state; and the sacrifices of these spirits by the emperor formed a public announcement of his accession, or of his continued right to the throne. Side by side ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... large was advancing and the average of conditions improving. Today the leader assumes that as he grows richer the people are prospering and "the revelations of God" being vindicated in practice. He speaks with pride of "our" growth and wealth under "the benign authority of the Almighty" and His "temporal revelations"—because he himself has been enriched by the perversion of these same laws—very much as the "captain of industry" elsewhere boasts of the "prosperity" of the country, because the few are ...
— Under the Prophet in Utah - The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft • Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins
... up the pistol and sword, spoils of victory, and rose at his leisure. He contemplated the hapless highwayman with benign interest for a moment, and turned to the coach. "You are still there, ladies? Benjamin is flattered and so am I. But the play is over. He will not be amusing for some time, and at any moment he may be profane. I see him bursting with it. Pray drive on and remove your ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... The grateful Indian, in time to come, pointing to the herds grazing his fertile plains, will relate to his children how the first stock of them was introduced into the country; and the name of Cook will be remembered among those benign spirits, whom they worship as the source of every good, and the ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... vain. The king will give him four for the sum he offers, but no more. He would not dare thus to displease the shade of his father, and the white chief may choose whom he will. The victims gaze anxiously at his countenance. It is merciful and benign they think—unlike any they have before seen. Which ...
— Tales of the Sea - And of our Jack Tars • W.H.G. Kingston
... gratefully in many joints, I had plunged into the hammock's Lethe, swooning shamelessly to a benign oblivion. Dreamless it must long have been, for the shadows of ranch house, stable, hay barn, corral, and bunk house were long to the east when next I observed them. But I fought to this wakefulness through one of those dreams of a monstrous ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... all their hearts as they flung artificial roses and lilies at the feet of the great men, who bowed with benign grace. Jack, who did Lafayette with a limp, covered himself with glory by picking up one of the bouquets and pressing it to his heart with all the gallantry of a Frenchman; and when Washington lifted the smallest of the maids and kissed her, the audience ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... will degrade this spiritual friend and father to the level of the beasts, and will make him the hero of comic or repulsive adventures. This is the mythical or irrational element. Religion, in its moral aspect, always traces back to the belief in a power that is benign and works for righteousness. Myth, even in Homer or the Rig-Veda, perpetually falls back on the old stock of absurd ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... him safely through what must otherwise have been an ordeal. He accepted what had befallen thankfully, and sought to learn what he best might from the novel environment. His interest was conspicuously in others, not in himself. He was greedy of information, lavish in liking. By a benign miracle, there were no snobs in the yachting party, which included also two young men, and two of the owner's age, besides Josephine's aunt. This chaperon was a motherly soul, and, in sheer kindliness of heart did much ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... work might ever usurp the place in his heart that belonged to her and the children would have been utterly incomprehensible to her had she ever thought of it. Jealousy was an alien weed, which could not take root in the benign soil ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... is there in tormenting and killing an enemy, and what good is won by not releasing an enemy in our power? Therefore, O thou of benign countenance, why should we not forgive this serpent and try to ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... wish to prove that the implement held by the benign Assyrian in Fig. 2, is either of the last named articles, but merely to draw attention to the fact that friction-tone is producible without the aid of ...
— The Bow, Its History, Manufacture and Use - 'The Strad' Library, No. III. • Henry Saint-George
... persecuted you. I ask you, then, father, to show them mercy. Do not have regard to the ignorance and pride of your sons; but with the food of love and of your benignity, inflicting such sweet discipline and benign reproof as shall please your Holiness, restore peace to us miserable children who have done wrong. I tell you, sweet Christ on earth, on behalf of Christ in Heaven, that if you do thus, without any strife or tempest, they will ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa
... purple of the moor and the dull colour of Ben Bhreac—the mount away to the southeast—the heavens were uncommonly blue, paling gradual to their dip. In another hour than this distressed and perplexed one, our wanderers would have felt some jocund influence in a forenoon so benign and handsome. ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... became aware of a gentle breeze fanning my sun-scorched features, and the slight but distinct responsive heel of the schooner to it; and in another minute we were skimming merrily away at a speed of quite five knots under the benign influence of one of those partial breezes which, on a calm day at sea, seem to spring up from nowhere in particular, last for half an hour or so, and then die away again. In the present case, however, ...
— A Middy in Command - A Tale of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... to bear. When they were not more, she used to talk to me every day of them as of beloved friends, who were still living near her. She survived them however, but one month. Far from reproaching her aunt for the afflictions she had caused, her benign spirit prayed to God to pardon her, and to appease that remorse which we heard began to torment her, as soon as she had sent Virginia ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre
... one can stand in his presence without feeling the ascendancy of his mind, and associating with his countenance the idea of wisdom, philanthropy, magnanimity, and patriotism. There is a fine symmetry in the features of his face indicative of a benign and dignified spirit. His nose is straight, and his eyes inclined to blue. He wears his hair in a becoming cue, and from his forehead it is turned back, and powdered in a manner which adds to the military ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... Opiates stop the fit, so as that I can sit and sometimes lie easy, but they do not now procure me the power of motion; and I am afraid that my general strength of body does not encrease. The weather indeed is not benign; but how low is he sunk whose strength depends upon the weather[1093]! I am now looking into Floyer[1094] who lived with his asthma to almost his ninetieth year. His book by want of order is obscure, and his asthma, I think, not of the same kind with ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... them with her nose in the air. Now, however, she looked to the left and the right, as she walked onward, hoping almost against hope that her secret prayers would be answered, and that, even in this hasty progress, she might see some work ready for her hand. Providence, always kind, was in a benign mood, and her desire ...
— Teddy: Her Book - A Story of Sweet Sixteen • Anna Chapin Ray
... intimations of their being likely to be acceptable or not—of which practice poor Tennyson knows too much for his peace. If, indeed, a letter of introduction to Beranger were vouchsafed to us from any benign quarter, we should both be delighted, but we must wait patiently for the influence of the stars. Meanwhile, we have at last sent our letter [Mazzini's] to George Sand, accompanied with a little note signed by both of us, though written by me, as seemed right, being the woman. We half-despaired ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... adaptations of old laws. The mistakes of to-day will be found to be mistakes, and will be rectified. Whenever and wherever freedom holds her sway, evil must work out its own destruction, and good enthrone itself in the hearts of those benefitted by its benign influence. In this spirit, and with such views, let us look at the progress of Medical Science that we may learn from the experience of the past to correctly estimate the developments of the present and aid wisely in the working for ...
— Allopathy and Homoeopathy Before the Judgement of Common Sense! • Frederick Hiller
... I've often noticed that when a man wants to dogmatise to his heart's content without fear of contradiction, he invariably calls himself a political economist. Then if people differ from him, he smiles at them the benign smile of superior wisdom, and says superciliously, "Ah, I see you don't understand political economy!" Now, your Herr Schurz is a dissenter among economists, I believe—a sort of embryo Luther come to tilt with a German toy lance against their economical infallibilities; and I'm told he knows more ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... king released him: Rome grudged not the price; No Persian bribe could tempt him from his home. When Decius cried—'Fight once again for Rome!' Again he fights—he leads—all others hope resign; But from despair's deep breast he plucks a star benign, This—hope's fair fruit, contentment, plenty, ease, Brings joy from grief, to crown a lasting peace. The Emperor holds him as his dearest friend, And doth Severus to Armenia send— To offer up to Mars, and mighty Jove, 'Mid feast and sacrifice, ...
— Polyuecte • Pierre Corneille
... "peace-time warfare." An unpleasant and quite unnecessary little bulge in the trench-line, known as the Toadstool, was manned by the platoon of which he found himself second-in-command. It is rumoured that a Hun patrol, crawling to the edge of our parapet, saw in the ghastly glare of a Verey light the benign and spectacled countenance of Second-Lieut. St. John staring amiably across No Man's Land, and came to the hasty conclusion that they had made a mistake as to direction, since here was obviously one of their own officers of the Herr Professor type. Rumour adds that they retired to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov 21, 1917 • Various
... vulgar and shallow minds mark out their sense of another's social inferiority. And therefore it was that she held her head so high, and exhibited the constraint of manner to which I have alluded. But all her pride and shyness quickly melted before the benign presence and true heart-politeness of Mrs. Beauchamp. Dignified the latter certainly was; but her dignity was tempered with the utmost benevolence of expression, and the most winning sweetness of manner; and when she took the ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... dressed—as he tells us—entirely in black, and with his gold chain of office—an ominous sign could they have read it—upon his broad chest, stood in the doorway, silhouetted sharply against the flood of morning sunlight at his back. His benign face would, no doubt, be extremely grave to match the suit he had put on, but its expression will have lightened somewhat when his glance fell upon Rosamund standing ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... gathered early to hear Ahmed make his choice of one thing—and one only—from his father's possessions. Ahmed looked less troubled than they expected, the rabbi wore his most benign expression, and Pedro stationed himself in his usual place at the door, statuesque, obedient, and expressionless ...
— Jewish Fairy Tales and Legends • Gertrude Landa
... form benign, O goddess, wear, Thy milder influence impart; Thy philosophic train be there To soften, not to wound, my heart; The generous spark extinct revive, Teach me to love and to forgive, Exact nay ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... hard to penetrate; The mirror you describe so small, so great, So priceless, so benign, "the eye" must be, A heaven 'twill show if thine ...
— Turandot: The Chinese Sphinx • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
... degree. Merely by rising he could bring absolute stillness upon a cheering throng of students or alumni, and with a few words, quiet but distinct, he could rouse to a remarkable pitch that sentiment known as college spirit. His whole figure was expressive of a benign goodness, illuminated most humanly by the worldly wisdom of an old diplomat. His ability to deal with those who came to him on various errands was remarkable. This is amusingly illustrated by the ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw
... instant bidding. The excitement reached its climax when an aged bishop descended the stairway, which was under some circumstances as perilous as a ladder. The bishop's quaint hat and gown and hood of various colors made him seem like a benign figure in comic opera; and perhaps because of his dignity or his multiplicity of luggage, all the boats ardently desired him as a passenger. Two green boxes, carrying much information painted in white on the sides, gave us all details of his ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... of the two, who is usually distinguished by the title of Pius, is thus described by one of his biographers:—"He was externally of remarkable beauty; eminent for his moral character, full of benign dispositions, noble, with a countenance of a most gentle expression, intellectually of singular endowments, possessing an elegant style of eloquence, distinguished for his literature, generally temperate, an earnest lover of agricultural pursuits, mild in his deportment, bountiful ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... describe how you Babies who dwell in households should behave at meals, and be ready with lovely and benign words when ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... verger—an elderly man of grave, benign manner, clad in black and talking of the cathedral and the monuments as if he loved them—led us again into the nave of the cathedral, and thence within the screen of the choir. The screen is as poor as possible,—mere ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... rhyme, occasionally of the Bedlam sort. Emerson's disciples were never accused of falling into the more perilous snares of antinomianism, but he himself distinctly recognizes the danger of it, and the counterbalancing effect of household life, with its curtain lectures and other benign influences. Extravagances of opinion cure themselves. Time wore off the effects of the harmless debauch, and restored the giddy revellers to the regimen of sober thought, ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... Many problems in the abdominal area are caused by a toxic colon, including chronic back pain, ovarian cysts, infertility, birth abnormalities, bladder infections and bladder cancer, painful menstruation, fibroids and other benign growths as well as malignant ones, and prostatitis or prostate cancer. Detoxing the body and cleaning out the colon should be a part of the healing of all ...
— How and When to Be Your Own Doctor • Dr. Isabelle A. Moser with Steve Solomon
... their own prey, they lose sight of the shark that is waiting to devour them. It is still the "fittest" that survives. It were wiser to remember that the shark is always well armed, and if you would survive him you must be fitter than he. If the benign law of civilization could be relied upon always to govern, then all would be well. But as long as sharks still live, the cruel law of nature cannot be ignored. The highest principles and the highest wisdom, combined, ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... only a few years before his death, showed a determination to concede to the Irish some small share of their undoubted rights, the King dismissed him from office; and the King's friends, as they were called, exprest their indignation at the presumption of a minister who could oppose the wishes of so benign and gracious a master. And when, unhappily for his own fame, this great man determined to return to power, he could only recover office by conceding that very point for which he had relinquished it; thus setting ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... age when men lived in one faith, used one ritual, professed one creed, accepted a common doctrine and moral standard and breathed a common religious atmosphere. Heresy was not wholly absent but it was the exception. Religion regarded then not as an accident or an incident of life but as a benign influence permeating the whole social fabric, not only cared for the widow and orphan and provided for the poor, but it shaped men's thoughts, quickened their sentiments, inspired their work and directed their wills. These men believed in a world beyond the grave as an ever present reality. ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery
... 1741 [second day after our arrival there]. My dear Monsieur Jordan, my sweet Monsieur Jordan, my quiet Monsieur Jordan, my good, my benign, my pacific, my humanest Monsieur Jordan,—I announce to Thy Serenity the conquest of Silesia; I warn thee of the bombardment of Neisse [just getting ready], and I prepare thee for still more important projects; and instruct ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... what a poor and paltry tone did these benign fabricators of legal artifices denounce the cruel iniquity which they had themselves perpetrated in due form! Among them was the Usher, Jean Massieu, a dissolute priest,[2725] of scandalous morals, but a kindly fellow for all that, albeit somewhat crafty ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... blue were the myriads of delicate campanula that peeped from their rocky ledges; silvery blue was the smoke that curled from the forest's green from a dozen camp fires; and out of that mysterious all-pervading blue lifted the benign countenance of ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand |
