"Contentment" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Pendean ever lose her sad heart to this stranger from Italy. The idea was out of the question, for surely a woman of such fine mould, so suddenly and tragically bereaved, would never find in this handsome chatterbox, throbbing with egotism, any solace for sorrow, or promise for future contentment. In theory his view seemed sound. Yet he knew, even while he reflected, that love in its season may shatter all theories and upset even the ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... an appalling and hopeless ennui. She was moved by a kind of commiseration for Madame Ratignolle,—a pity for that colorless existence which never uplifted its possessor beyond the region of blind contentment, in which no moment of anguish ever visited her soul, in which she would never have the taste of life's delirium. Edna vaguely wondered what she meant by "life's delirium." It had crossed her thought like some unsought, ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... days in contentment and in peace," said Ancyrus, the elder, dryly, "in a villa on the island of Capraea. No harm shall come to him. We here present do pledge thee ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... and quiet contentment of this good woman were very striking. She had beautiful white teeth, and was not prematurely aged, only very sun-burnt and shabby, her black stuff dress blue with age and mended in many places, her partially bare feet thrust in sabots. The women here wear toeless or footless ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... he never overflows with the rollicksomeness of bobolink and oriole, but takes his abundance in quiet contentment. I suspect it is because he works harder winters, and his enjoyment is more deep than theirs. In winter when the snow lies deep, he is the life of the forest. He calls to you from the edges of the bleak caribou barrens, ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... you who relieve us, the Lord will you bless, For relieving poor sailors in time of distress, May the Lord put an end to all cruel wars, And send peace and contentment to all British tars. ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... industries, whose wife must apply cold cloths to his head at night to induce sleep. I know another man not so well off in this world's goods, whose wife must apply the cold water to get him awake. Care is often pillowed in a palace, while contentment ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain
... world, but in his world of art he was content; in the outer world he might have an hour of felicity and months of misery, but given a chance of settling down for a while to his operas he at once became and remained cheerful. Fate did not will that in the case of the Mastersingers his contentment should endure any length of time. No sooner was his text written than he had to set out on his travels again, hunting his daily food from land to land. It was not until 1862 that he began the music; not until 1867 did he get it finished, and in the interval ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... ourselves or those akin to us. Jules Levice had been thrown on the world when a boy of twelve. He resolved to become happy. Many of us do likewise; but we overlook the fact that we are provided with feet, not wings, and cannot fly to the goal. His dream of happiness was ambitious; it soared beyond contentment. Not being a lily of the field, he knew that he must toil; any honest work was acceptable to him. He was possessed of a fine mind; he cultivated it. He had a keen observation; he became a student of his fellow-men; and being strong and untiring, he became rich. This was ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf
... That Lois was happy he could see. Happiness was apparent in every look and line of her features and every movement of her person. She was like another woman. All that used to seem wistful in her and unfulfilled had resolved itself into radiant contentment. According to Claude, you could see it with half an eye. She had gained in authority and looks, while she had developed a power of holding her own against her husband that ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... from health contentment springs. Contentment opes the source of every joy. He envied not, he never thought of kings; Nor from those appetites sustained annoy, Which chance may frustrate, or indulgence cloy: Nor fate his calm and humble hopes beguiled; ...
— The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius - with some other poems • James Beattie
... aloud about me and drew forth gleaming swords And clashed them on their bucklers; but nought I knew of the words Of their shouting and rejoicing. So thereafter was I laid And borne forth on the warrior's warshield, and our way through the wood we made 'Midst the mirth and great contentment of those fair-clad ...
— The House of the Wolfings - A Tale of the House of the Wolfings and All the Kindreds of the Mark Written in Prose and in Verse • William Morris
... took one from his case and gave it to him. Then, striking a match, held it for him, till the wisp of paper and tobacco was well alight; while he lay back, drawing in the fragrant smoke, with a sigh in which contentment and despair were ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... cobwebs of nervous anticipation and sensitiveness. Every one was kind to me, partly, I think, because I interfered with no one. I was glad of the kindness, and, with my unsuspected dreaming and my happy childishness, I had gone through life with almost perfect contentment, until this pain of my first real loneliness came into ...
— An Arrow in a Sunbeam - and Other Tales • Various
... be off to don Ramon's like a greyhound; and arriving at the patio panting, out of breath, he would heave a sigh of relief and contentment at sight of "the chief" there, pacing up and down as usual, ready to get his friends out of their difficulties as if the limitless resources of Providence were at his command. "So-and-So said this-and-that!" Don Ramon would stop in his tracks, think a moment, and finally say, in an enigmatic oracular ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... victim of ancient sacrifice, he was exalted and sustained to give importance and majesty to some impending martyrdom. Then he began to dread that his innocent deceit—if deceit it was—should be discovered; at last, partly from meekness and partly from the animal contentment of present security, he accepted the situation. Fortunately for him it was purely passive. The Great Chief of the Minyo tribe was simply an expressionless idol of flesh and blood. The previous incumbent of that office had been an old man, impotent ...
— A Drift from Redwood Camp • Bret Harte
... temperance: for he says that "temperance results in modesty, shamefacedness, abstinence, chastity, honesty, moderation, lowliness, sobriety, purity." Andronicus also says [*De Affectibus] that "the companions of temperance are gravity, continence, humility, simplicity, refinement, method, contentment." [*Per-se-sufficientiam which could be rendered "self-sufficiency," but for the fact that this is taken in a bad sense. See Q. 169, A. 1.] Therefore it seems that Tully insufficiently reckoned the parts ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... When mild contentment rules the breast Unchecked the pleasure, sweet the rest, The passing hours that close; No fruitless wish disturbs the maid, No blasted hopes her peace invade Who courts ...
— The Flower Basket - A Fairy Tale • Unknown
... Ladyes, you will find In that sweet life more sollid joyes, More true contentment to the minde, Then ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... know we had any plans to lay," said Matilda. She looked as if the present was good enough. The firelight shone on a little figure and face of most utter contentment, there down on the rug; a soft little head, a very gentle face, but alive ...
— The House in Town • Susan Warner
... much at rest or so contented with her as with Alice. But then he loved her. And what have rest and contentment to ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... twenty-nine years old at the time of his marriage. That he was full of contentment as well as hope at this time may be inferred from his letter to Constable three ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... be the God-delegated consoler and comforter of mankind. This is the power which moves the will to deeds of charity and mercy, which awakens the latent sympathies for suffering humanity, which establishes the law of kindness, soothes the irritated and perturbed spirit, and pours contentment and happiness ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... world, Friend Chick, that the sleeker we are on the outside, the more ragged we are within. I think I'll move on. I might say something to jar your sense of sublime content. I'd be sorry to do that. Real contentment is a rare thing and must be ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... spirit; while below The squirrel, with raised paws and form erect, Chirps merrily. Throngs of insects in the shade Try their thin wings and dance in the warm beam That waked them into life. Even the green trees Partake the deep contentment; as they bend To the soft winds, the sun from the blue sky Looks in and sheds a blessing on the scene. Scarce less the cleft-born wild-flower seems to enjoy Existence, than the winged plunderer That sucks its sweets. The massy rocks themselves, And the old and ponderous trunks of prostrate trees ...
— Poems • William Cullen Bryant
... the children. Having placed the latter at one side, they furiously began their combat; but as the native of Botuan was not only courageous, but fought with justice on his side, that circumstance so aided him that, after some attempts, he killed his adversary with two spear-thrusts, and departed in contentment with his wife and children, whom he ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XII, 1601-1604 • Edited by Blair and Robertson
... little valley, which four days ago was smiling with all the health of nature and the contentment of industrious man, is waxing pestiferous with the awful odor of decaying human bodies. Buzzards, invited by their disgusting instinct, gather for a promised feast, and sit and glower on neighboring perches or else circle round and round in the blue empyrean over the location ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... next lesson is, that of patience, thoroughness in preparation, and contentment with the regular channels of business effort and enterprise. This is, perhaps, one of the most difficult to learn, of all the lessons of life. It is natural for the mind to reach out eagerly for ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... the cross-trees in such a manner that it should not strike against the mast or any of the rigging with the roll of the ship, and then the observer drew forth a pipe, which he filled and proceeded to smoke with the greatest apparent calmness and contentment. ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... situation as tutor in the house of Casimir Perier. The salary was good, but the duties were too miscellaneous, and what was still worse, there was an end of the delicious liberty of the garret. After a short experience of three weeks Comte returned to neediness and contentment. He was not altogether without the young man's appetite for pleasure; yet when he was only nineteen we find him wondering, amid the gaieties of the carnival of 1817, how a gavotte or a minuet could make people forget that thirty thousand human beings around them had barely a morsel ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 10: Auguste Comte • John Morley
... monarchy, denounced by him as a lazaretto, he was the black flag. What! could he look thus askance at order reconstituted, a nation exalted, and a religion restored? Over such serenity why cast his shadow? Take umbrage at England's contentment! Must he be the one blot in the clear blue sky! Be as a threat! Protest against a nation's will! refuse his Yes to the universal consent! It would be disgusting, if it were not the part of a fool. Clancharlie could not have taken into ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... struggles which physicians alone comprehend,—the reward of which, in case of success, is never found in the venal pay nor in the patients themselves, but in the gentle satisfaction of conscience, in the invisible ideal palm gathered by true artists from the contentment which fills their soul after accomplishing a noble work. The physician strains towards good as an artist towards beauty, each impelled by that grand sentiment which we call virtue. This daily contest wiped out of Doctor Martener's mind the petty irritations of ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... with vermin-killer if I felt any risk of such contentment! Like other people? Heaven forbid and forfend! Like other people? ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... Swan, Betty greeted me with a smile amid a nest of dimples, and led me upstairs to her parlor, so that we might talk without being overheard. I sat down on a settle, and Betty took her place beside me. Her hands rested on her lap, giving her an air of contentment as she turned her ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... Rodriguez' mandolin, that was always slung on his back, bumped up and down uncomfortably; but he eased it by altering the strap: small things like this bring contentment. And then he settled down to ride. But no contentment came near Morano nor did he look for it. On the first day of his wanderings he had worn his master's clothes, which has been an experience standing somewhat where toothache does, which is somewhere about half-way between ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany
... woman, with an unlined face, and smooth, fine auburn hair; he was spare and somewhat bent, with curly iron-gray locks, growing thin, and crow's-feet about his deep-set gray eyes. He had been smoking the pipe of twilight contentment, but now he took it out and laid it on the bench beside him, uncrossing his legs and straightening himself, with the air of a man to whom it falls, after long pondering, to take ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... alteration—the jolting motion from stone to stone—the slipperiness and unevenness of the road—and the chance, in case of an accident, of contesting the hardness of your skull with a mass of stone, which seemed as if it were made on purpose for knocking out people's brains. For some time contentment sat smiling over the city. But, as "man never is, but always to be, blest," perfect happiness appeared not to be secured even by Macadam. Ruts began to be formed—rain fell, and mud was generated at a prodigious rate; repairs were needed, and the road for a while was rough and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... bit more gracious than she used to be," Mrs. Fletcher said to Lady Wharton that night. The two old ladies were sitting together upstairs, and Mrs. John Fletcher was with them. In such conferences Mrs. Fletcher always domineered,—to the perfect contentment of old Lady Wharton, but not equally so to ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... confessed that he was happier far now as a humble turnspit than ever he had been as a sham king, and would have warned one sadly that cheats never prosper, however successful they may seem for a time; and that contentment with one's lot, humble though it be, brings with it rewards infinitely greater than riches ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... born in Dublin, of a Cheshire family; studied at Trinity College, took orders, and became archdeacon of Clogher; is best known as the author of "The Hermit," though his odes "The Night-Piece on Death" and the "Hymn to Contentment" are of more poetic worth; he was the friend of Swift and Pope, and a member of the ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... the possibilities of their shadowy types of character into appropriate incidents. In description, narration, allegory, humor, reason, fancy, subtilty, inventiveness, they exceed the best productions of Addison; but they want Addison's sensuous contentment and sweet and kindly spirit. Though the author denies that he has exhibited his own individual attributes in these "Mosses," though he professes not to be "one of those supremely hospitable people who serve up their own hearts delicately fried, with brain-sauce, as a titbit for their ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... together? were not these their own household goods, around them? Still, they needed all this mutual encouragement and heartiness of cooeperation which was so nobly, so generously manifested; and it was sincere enough to insure the very result of contentment and satisfaction which they were so wise as to anticipate. But the Governor thought,—The Drummer is getting ambitious; he wants a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... incursion or two down the house to the "room" for some books that he needed. Then Meysie bustled about her work and cleaned up with prodigious birr and clatter, being utterly unable to hear the noise she made. The minister soon became absorbed in his book, and a light of contentment shone in his face. Occasionally his hand stole to his pocket. Meysie, whose eyes never wandered far from him, knew that he was feeling for the leather case in which he kept the photographs of his boy and girl. He ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... could teach to the rising generation of Cranford, unless they had been quick learners and ready imitators of her patience, her humility, her sweetness, her quiet contentment with all that she could not do. I pondered and pondered until dinner was announced by Martha, with a face all blubbered and swollen ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... Adams never saw the silent battle that was waged in the eyes of each. How Jack Bracken devoured her with his eyes,—the comely figure, the cleanliness and sweetness of the little cottage—his painful hungry look for this kind of peace and contentment—the ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... this Universe, 360 And all this good to man, for whose well being So amply, and with hands so liberal Thou hast provided all things: but with mee I see not who partakes. In solitude What happiness, who can enjoy alone, Or all enjoying, what contentment find? Thus I presumptuous; and the vision bright, As with a smile more bright'nd, thus repli'd. What call'st thou solitude, is not the Earth With various living creatures, and the Aire 370 Replenisht, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... perfectly self-contained, that not our whole power, but only a detached particle of that power, is in action. This unrest I have found in your compositions, even as you must have found it too often in mine without better cause. With this unrest I was, however, better pleased than if comfortable self-contentment had been their prominent feature. I compare it to the claw by which I recognize the lion; but now I call out to you, Show us the complete lion: in other words, write or finish ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... religion taught their race at later date. However, Tess found at least approximate expression for her feelings in the old Benedicite that she had lisped from infancy; and it was enough. Such high contentment with such a slight initial performance as that of having started towards a means of independent living was a part of the Durbeyfield temperament. Tess really wished to walk uprightly, while her father did nothing of the kind; but she resembled him in being content with immediate and small achievements, ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... they destroy tranquillity by putting us at the mercy of externals. Whatsoever we make necessary for our contentment, we make lord of our happiness. By our eager desires we give perishable things supreme power over us, and so intertwine our being with theirs, that the blow which destroys them lets out our life-blood. And, therefore, we are ever disturbed by apprehensions and shaken by fears. We ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... larder,—which last had before presented one unvaried round of impenetrable beef. Mr. Obadiah Oldbuck, when he decided to adopt a pastoral life, and assumed the provisional name of Thyrsis, never looked upon his flocks and herds with more unalloyed contentment than I upon that fleecy family. I had been familiar, in Kansas, with the metaphor by which the sentiments of an owner were credited to his property, and had heard of a pro-slavery colt and an anti-slavery cow. The fact that these sheep were but recently converted ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... do their parts now. Billy, who was the youngest and frailest of the little colony of workers, had fallen into the way of dropping asleep whenever opportunity offered; she did so now with a little sigh of contentment. Her girlish face against the faded crimson back of the chair looked startlingly white. In her sleep she moved her lips and the others caught a pathetic little "one-two-three-four" dropping from them. Poor Billy! She was giving a music lesson in ...
— Four Girls and a Compact • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... it is Herod casting men into prison. With us it is the angel, appearing to lead them out of prison and set them free! In short religion with us is emancipation and liberty; with them it is bondage and contentment. ...
— Conflict of Northern and Southern Theories of Man and Society - Great Speech, Delivered in New York City • Henry Ward Beecher
... her fair face, which had been covered with her hands, and bending down, kissed the dying lips. Then, with a look of unutterable gladness and contentment, Geordie closed his eyes as if he was going ...
— Geordie's Tryst - A Tale of Scottish Life • Mrs. Milne Rae
... crown is faith, as thou knowest, my father; Fails the world, yet that faileth not; love hath begot it, Sweet life and contentment at last springeth from it; No helping these need whose hearts still are with me, Nay, rather they handle the gold rod of ...
— Poems By The Way & Love Is Enough • William Morris
... of contentment. She would remember and tell her Aunt Debby about this. While her Aunt Debby had chided her about repeating these little romantic tales which came to her ears, Hester had a feeling that the elder Miss Alden was ...
— Hester's Counterpart - A Story of Boarding School Life • Jean K. Baird
... needless pain; it was his turn. And yet, with all her resentment against him, and all her grim savoring of the scandal which he seemed to fear so much, there ran a golden thread of unacknowledged contentment in the conviction that those fears were all ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... countess in bed, but awake, and her eyes beaming with happiness and contentment. For a fortnight I had only seen her sad, melancholy, and thoughtful. Her pleased countenance, which I naturally ascribed to my influence, filled me with joy. We commenced as all happy lovers always do, and we were both unsparing of the mutual proofs of our love, ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... meals made up of bacon, potatoes and bread, of corned beef and cabbage, and of pork and beans, there exists an equal and sufficient amount of nourishment; but if other dishes are added to these, the variety will result in better general health and contentment. If we were to live day after day on rice, bread, potatoes, or any one other article of food, we would not long be strong enough for any kind of work. In matters of diet variety is not only the spice of ...
— Twenty-Five Cent Dinners for Families of Six • Juliet Corson
... whole room in at a glance, and breathed a sigh of contentment so long, so deep, that it must have come from ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... fortune. I know full well, my noble men, that if I asked it you would gladly give me some great proof of your bravery and goodness—but I ask you to take no risk and make no sacrifice. I merely wish to know whether I can find in any of you that secret of all true courage and happiness—contentment. Now let every man of you who is contented, thoroughly contented, rise. Remember, there are no degrees ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... much pretension to fashion could go through Paris without a coach followed by three lacqueys and a page.[333] Evelyn, at any rate, thought the expenses of a traveller were "vast": "And believe it Sir, if he reap some contentment extraordinary, from what he hath observed abroad, the pains, sollicitations, watchings, perills, journeys, ill entertainment, absence from friends, and innumerable like inconveniences, joyned to his vast expences, do very dearly, and ...
— English Travellers of the Renaissance • Clare Howard
... Rochejaquelein, "Memoires," 423: "We lived exposed to a tyranny which left us neither calm nor contentment. At one time a spy was placed amongst our servants, at another some of our relations would be exiled far from their homes, accused of exercising a charity which secured them too much affection from their neighbors. Sometimes, my husband ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... of making himself understood. One was a gurgling sound, which indicated pleasure and contentment; and the other a chatter, or half a shriek, when intensely excited or alarmed. But now he did neither of these things. The sounds emitted could not well ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Mysteries of the Caverns • Roger Thompson Finlay
... was not satisfied, and berated Jarvis roundly, when, presently he came walking up to the porch with Neil, looking the picture of well-browned contentment. He took her displeasure lightly enough, and presently had her ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... lying prepared in the trench, covered with withered branches. His wife was one of the best day-laboring women in the village—ready for anything, day and night, in weal and in woe; for she had trained her children, especially Amrei, to manage for themselves at an early age. Industry and frugal contentment made the house one of the happiest in the village. Then came a deadly sickness which snatched away the mother, and the following evening, the father; and a few days later two coffins were carried away from the little house. The children had been ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... Remus, don't pay no 'tention ter me," said Aunt Tempy, folding her fat arms upon her ample bosom, and assuming an attitude of rest and contentment. "I'm bad ez de chillun 'bout dem ole tales, 'kaze I kin des set up yer un lissen at um de whole blessid night, un a good part ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... forward, did as he was told, and the tired procession entered the barnyard. The plowman fed his horses, and stopped to listen for a moment to their deep-drawn sighs of contentment, and to the musical grinding of the oats in their teeth. His imaginative mind read his own thoughts into everything, and he believed that he could distinguish in these inarticulate sounds the ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... Burrill! there is no contentment equal to his; seated in the easiest of chairs, before a table laden with viands upon which he has just gorged himself, he contemplates his legs and his surroundings with extreme satisfaction; his legs first, because, being stretched directly before him, they ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... clear sky, and a cool wind touching at his face. The contentment of Bull Hunter increased with every step he took. He had diminished the sharpness of his hunger by taking up a few links of his belt, but he was glad when he saw smoke twisting over a hill and came, on the other side, in view of a crossroads village. He fingered the few ...
— Bull Hunter • Max Brand
... for them all began a season of deep and quiet contentment that was to remain in the memories of all of them as a kind of idyl. It was a life of elemental toil, hardship, and danger, and of strong, elemental pleasures—rest after labor, food after hunger, warmth and shelter after bitter ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... sick at heart, overwhelmed with a quick burst of irresistible compassion for this brute agony he could not relieve. The sweetness was gone from the evening, the sense of peace, of security, and placid contentment was stricken from the landscape. The hideous ruin in the engine's path drove all thought of his poem from his mind. The inspiration vanished like a mist. The de ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... they wear in two plaits, hanging down their backs far below the waist. The men are also, as a rule, fine-looking. In fact, the land is good, and everybody and everything looks prosperous. The beasts are up to their knees in rich pasture, are fat and sleek, and lie down to chew the cud of contentment, instead of searching anxiously for a scanty sustenance. The horses are well fed, and their coats are fine and glossy, and the sheep, pigs, and other animals are in equally good condition. It is therefore a cheery country to travel through, and at this spring-time of the ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... and Graduation Day was only some twenty-eight hours away, none of the three was doing anything more onerous than yawning, and the yawn which came from Perry Bush, didn't sound as though it cost much of an effort. It was, rather, a comfortable, sleepy yawn, one that expressed contentment and relief, a ...
— The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour
... see! What bitter tears with thee I shed! Thou hast resigned thy destiny Unto a ruthless tyrant dread. Thou'lt suffer, dearest, but before, Hope with her fascinating power To dire contentment shall give birth And thou shalt taste the joys of earth. Thou'lt quaff love's sweet envenomed stream, Fantastic images shall swarm In thy imagination warm, Of happy meetings thou shalt dream, And wheresoe'er thy footsteps err, Confront ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... with terror, and shall be forced to confess the supremacy of good: he shall withdraw into the depths of hell, whence he shall never again issue forth, and all the reanimated beings devoted to the Mazdean law shall live an eternity of peace and contentment. ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... excellently favoured, which came among us without deceit, stark naked. Nothing got us more love amongst them than this usage; for I suffered not any man to take from any of the nations so much as a pina (pineapple) or a potato root without giving them contentment, nor any man so much as to offer to touch any of their wives or daughters; which course, so contrary to the Spaniards, who tyrannize over them in all things, drew them to admire her Majesty, whose commandment I told them it was, and also wonderfully to honour our nation. But I confess it was a ...
— The Discovery of Guiana • Sir Walter Raleigh
... strange land he was most sorrowful and afflicted. There at length he would find repose and happiness. Thus it happened when the wanderers from Braintree settled on the shores of the upper Charles. They brought their unhappy fortunes so far, and there, in due time, found comfort and contentment. ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... family, presents himself in a new light to our observation. We would be glad to be able give a diurnal record of his modes of deportment, and getting along. Unhappily, the records are few and meagre. It will be obvious, that the necessity for a more profound dissimulation of contentment, cheerfulness, and a feeling of loving his home, was stronger than ever. It was a semblance that must be daily and hourly sustained. He would never have acquitted himself successfully, but for a wonderful ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint
... of contentment: if the ostrich had been content with his nails he would never have ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... were content to sacrifice his career for love of her, they might get on very well together. But—what desolating words to use in connection with Eagle March—"get on well together!" He wasn't one to be satisfied with mere contentment, where he had hoped ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... loving and cheerful hearts. This little home might have been snug enough; with no appearance of want about it; rooms well furnished; cleanliness pervading it; the table well supplied; the fire burning bright; and yet without cheerfulness. There wanted the happy faces, radiant with contentment and good humour. Physical comfort, after all, forms but a small part of the blessings of a happy home. As in all other concerns of life, it is the moral state which determines the weal or woe of the ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... the principal source of this contentment, for he was a young man—he wasn't really young, but you always thought of him as young—of infinite potentialities; Burnaby, just back from some esoteric work in Roumania, whither he had gone after the War, and in Washington for the night and greatly pleased to accept an invitation for dinner; ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... were at work which tended to throw Chartism into obscurity. The repeal of the Corn Laws had given the people cheap bread, and the advent of free trade gave abundant work and good wages. With increased bodily comfort came contentment of mind. The greater freedom of intercourse, caused by railway travelling, showed the lower classes that the governing bodies were not so badly disposed towards them as they had been taught to believe. On the other hand, the upper classes acquired a higher ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards
... in buckskin like a savage, brown almost as a savage, as active and as alert, seemed to fit not ill with these environments, nor to lack either confidence or contentment. He walked on steadily, following the path along the bayou bank, and at length paused for a moment, throwing down his burden and stooping to drink at the tiny pool made by the little rivulet which trickled down the face of the bluff. Here he bathed his face and hands ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... nothing but acquaintance can undeceive them. I, who have been behind the scenes, both of pleasure and business, and have seen all the springs and pullies of those decorations which astonish and dazzle the audience, retire, not only without regret, but with contentment and satisfaction. But what I do, and ever shall regret, is the time which, while young, I lost in mere idleness, and in doing nothing. This is the common effect of the inconsideracy of youth, against which I beg you will be most carefully upon your guard. The value of moments, when cast up, is ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... career of passion, for which a temperament wholly different from hers was needed. It is not simple-minded maidens that one wants at Court to share the confidence of princes. No doubt natures of that sort—simple, disinterested souls are pleasant and agreeable to them, as therein they find contentment such as they greedily prize; but for these unsullied, romantic natures, disillusion, trickery alone is in store. And if Mademoiselle de la Beaumele-Blanc had listened to me, she might have turned matters ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... his shop and sought in marriage of her father her who had played him the trick aforesaid and who was the daughter of the chief of the guild of the blacksmiths. So he took her to wife and they abode with each other and lived the most solaceful of lives, in all prosperity and contentment and joyance, till the day of death; and ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... sense is this: that these symposia of rustic vanity were kept entirely within the family, like some secret ancestral practice. To the world their serious faces were never deformed by the suspicion of any simper of self-contentment. Yet it was known. "They hae a guid pride o' themsel's!" was the word in ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... that crept toward him with her love. And these simple tales pleased the old and riven oak-tree; they were not as heroic as the tales the winds, the clouds, and the stars told, but they were far sweeter, for they were tales of contentment, ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field
... that her father was suffering less, that he was convalescing, and that he appeared to be happy, she experienced a contentment which she did not even perceive, so gently and naturally had it come. Then, it was in the month of March, the days were growing longer, the winter was departing, the winter always bears away with it a portion of our sadness; then came April, that daybreak of summer, ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... handkerchiefs worked in front, tending the plough or harrow, or driving the lightly-laden waggon or cart with sturdy well-fed horses. And then the air of tranquillity and repose which pervaded the spot, the contentment visible everywhere, made an impression on me which time has never been able to obliterate, and which, in far, far-off regions, has come back on me with greater force than ever, and prevented me from remaining, as many of my companions ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... in his chair, feeling for his cigarette case, and the contentment of his look deepened. "You have been a child, asleep to life," he murmured complacently. "I told you you were a princess—let us say a sleeping princess waiting for the prince, like that old fairy tale of the ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... turmoil and danger, We reap what we sow, for the soil is our own; We spread hospitality's board for the stranger, And care not a jot for the king on his throne. We never know want, for we live by our labor, And in it contentment and happiness find; We do what we can for a friend or a neighbor, And die, boys, in peace and good-will to mankind. Then enter, boys; cheerly, boys, enter and rest; You know how we live, boys, and die in the ...
— Poems • George P. Morris
... hostility to himself, had sought to undermine his influence and had fought his plans for the promotion of clean sport among the Mill men. None knew better than Simmons that an active interest in clean and vigorous outdoor sports tended to produce contentment of mind, and a contented body of men offered unfertile soil for radical and socialistic doctrines. Hence, Simmons had from the first openly and vociferously opposed with contemptuous and bitter indignation all Jack's schemes and ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor
... sense-life are but quickening wombs Which breed sure griefs: those joys begin and end! The wise mind takes no pleasure, Kunti's Son! In such as those! But if a man shall learn, Even while he lives and bears his body's chain, To master lust and anger, he is blest! He is the Yukta; he hath happiness, Contentment, light, within: his life is merged In Brahma's life; he doth Nirvana touch! Thus go the Rishis unto rest, who dwell With sins effaced, with doubts at end, with hearts Governed and calm. Glad in all good they live, Nigh to the peace of God; and all those live Who pass their days exempt ...
— The Bhagavad-Gita • Sir Edwin Arnold
... the rapt contentment join and share; My tide is full; There is new happiness in earth, in air: All beautiful And fresh the world but now so bare ...
— Verses • Susan Coolidge
... contentment involuntarily aroused by our passage through the fruitful Courland in the luxuriant month of July, and by the sweet illusion that now at last I had cut myself loose from a hateful existence, to enter upon a new and boundless ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... creaked on they gravely discussed this problem, contemplating profoundly the backs of the animals. Hawker gazed in silence at the meditating two before him. Under the wagon Stanley, the setter, walked slowly, wagging his tail in placid contentment ...
— The Third Violet • Stephen Crane
... patriarch is the most serious loss that could have befallen this infant colony. The perfect harmony and contentment in which they appear to live together, the innocence and simplicity of their manners, their conjugal and parental affection, their moral, religious, and virtuous conduct, and their exemption from any serious vice, are all to be ascribed to the exemplary conduct and ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... pleasure is to serve God, who has no other solace than to love and praise Him? There is, moreover, nothing which makes so great an impression on the people of the world, as witnessing the interior contentment of a truly good man, which is seen in the serenity of his countenance. This is, according to St. Augustine, what compels them to admit that they themselves have not true joy, for that is ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe |
