"Docile" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of Our dominion there is an island called Raishu. We have now appointed you Governor of that island. You will find the people loyal and docile; but their laws have not yet been brought into proper accord with the laws of Tokoyo; and their customs have not been properly regulated. We entrust you with the duty of improving their social condition ...
— Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things • Lafcadio Hearn
... disrespect to my married compatriots; on the contrary, I admire them as I do all docile, unselfish beings. It is well for our women, however, that their lords, like the little Oriental donkeys, ignore their strength, and are content to toil on to the end of their days, expecting neither praise ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... only with an unusually strong infusion of schoolboy perversion. Perverse lads, indeed, generally kick over the traces at an earlier point: and refuse to learn anything. Boys who take kindly to the classical system are generally good—that is to say, docile. They develop into prosaic tutors and professors; or, when the cares of life begin to press, they start their cargo of classical lumber and fill the void with law or politics. Landor's peculiar temperament led him to kick against authority, whilst he yet imbibed ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... days; of the lessons which brother and sister used to learn together—a whole page of Mangnall's Questions at a time, and of the dire and terrible conspiracy, by which they learnt alternate answers, easily persuading the docile governess to take the right "turns." Thus Teddy, when asked "What is starch?" could reply with prompt accuracy, while remaining in dense ignorance of the date when printing was introduced into England, concerning which his small sister ...
— More about Pixie • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... those Is hidden, who aver all love a thing Praise-worthy in itself: although perhaps Its substance seem still good. Yet if the wax Be good, it follows not th' impression must." "What love is," I return'd, "thy words, O guide! And my own docile mind, reveal. Yet thence New doubts have sprung. For from without if love Be offer'd to us, and the spirit knows No other footing, tend she right or wrong, Is no desert of hers." He answering thus: "What reason here discovers I have power To show thee: that which lies ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... named Fiechus, a scholar of Dubhtachus the bard, and he was docile of disposition, subtle of wit, florid of eloquence, and beauteous of form. And a few years before he espoused a damsel who then had lately deceased, of whom was born unto him one only son. Him walking with his aforementioned tutor did the saint meet, and, the Spirit revealing it ...
— The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick - Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings • Various
... a very docile wife. "Instead of the self-dependent self-governed being you have known me," she writes to a friend, "I have learned to look to another for guidance and happiness." She is "as happy as mortal can be." Indeed it was almost too much for earth. "It has made me," she says, "more willing to ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach
... gets over his dislike for Europeans although perfectly docile with Chinese, and it is seldom that he will allow even his own master to enter the stall. A black griffin which I bought at Peking seemed to me so quiet that on an expedition of some days into the country I fed, groomed and saddled him myself, until quite convinced that we had become friends, ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... I asked him a few questions about his studies. I found him intelligent, but grave beyond his years; very docile and obedient, and ere the end of the ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... no lessons; but she had observed closely, for his sake; and being already well educated, and very quick and docile, she seldom made him ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... in the speaker himself that had held the child's attention so fast all this while. Her eyes had never wandered from his face; she had stood in docile wise looking at him and answering his questions and listening, won by the commentary she read in his face on what her friend was saying. A strange light kindled in it as he spoke; there were lines of affection and tenderness that came ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume I • Susan Warner
... one behind with a furze or bramble," thought Nic, who began to find the trot not so very bad, when, to his horror, his father cried out "Canter!" and, with the horses snorting and enjoying the motion, away they went in and out among the trees, the docile animals keeping pace together, and avoiding the dense parts ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn
... make his dwelling in the heart of his birthplace, close under its cathedral, with the tender sadness of the olive hills stretching above and around; in the basiliche or the monasteries his labour would daily lie; he would have a docile band of hopeful boyish pupils with innocent eyes of wonder for all he did or said; he would paint his wife's face for the Madonna's, and his little son's for the child Angel's; he would go out into ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... family, when we were startled by the distant report of a volley of musketry, fired in the direction of the schooner. I could not conceive what had happened. Had a mutiny taken place? Was Mr. Wyse re-enacting, with a less docile ship's company, the pistol scene on board the Glasgow steamer? Again resounded the rattle of the firing. At all events, there was no time to be lost in getting back, so, tying up the birds in three bundles, we ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... indeed a high ascription if it had been meant that they were the more spiritually minded, but that was not at all what the phrase signified to those who used it; it was merely intended to put in a complimentary way the fact that women in your day were the docile sex. Less educated, as a rule, than men, unaccustomed to responsibility, and trained in habits of subordination and self-distrust, they leaned in all things upon precedent and authority. Naturally, therefore, ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... their beautiful child which she regularly enforced upon him, maintained on the whole his courage. All their hopes and joys were indeed centred in the education of the little Ferdinand. At ten years of age he was one of those spirited and at the same time docile boys, who seem to combine with the wild and careless grace of childhood the thoughtfulness and self-discipline of maturer age. It was the constant and truthful boast of his parents, that, in spite of all his liveliness, he had never in the whole course of his life disobeyed them. In the ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... animal of a mouse colour, with white legs and a patch of white on his quarters; and has long horns lying back on his neck, where they cannot be the slightest use to him. His Javan masters find him very docile, but he has an awkward way with strangers. He is generally to be found under the care of a small boy, who is seated on his broad back, and who touches him with a rod on this side or that according to the direction which he desires the animal to take. I have already ...
— A Visit to Java - With an Account of the Founding of Singapore • W. Basil Worsfold
... declare it possible or the contrary till I had seen the girl. I myself should be very capable of falling desperately in love with a girl who hadn't an idea in her head, and didn't know her letters. All I should ask would be passion in return, and—well, yes, a pliant and docile character." ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... Benjamin was quite natural. Mr. Benjamin hardly knew what to think;—hardly gave Lord George credit for the necessary courage, skill, and energy. But at last, as he began to put two and two together, he divined the truth, and was enabled to set the docile Patience on the watch over her mistress's belongings. So it had been with Mr. Benjamin, who at last was able to satisfy Mr. Smiler and Mr. Cann that he had been no party to their cruel disappointment at Carlisle. How Lord George had learned the truth has been told;—the truth as to Lizzie's ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... the wrongs he thought they had done him. For a time, the kindly sentiments which he still harboured toward Lady Byron, and a sort of vague hope, perhaps, that all would yet come right again, kept his mind in a mood somewhat more softened and docile, as well as sufficiently under the influence of English opinions to prevent his breaking out into open rebellion against it, ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... humming din, When, at a word, the tops are manned on high: Hark, to the Boatswain's call, the cheering cry! While through the seaman's hand the tackle glides; Or schoolboy Midshipman that, standing by, Strains his shrill pipe as good or ill betides, And well the docile crew that skilful ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... gained his end. He succeeded in demolishing a number of fortified cities which had formed the hotbeds of sedition and tumult; and thus added greatly to the power of the reigning duke. He inspired the men with a spirit of loyalty and good faith, and taught the women to be chaste and docile. On the report of the tranquillity prevailing in Loo, strangers flocked into the state, and thus was fulfilled the old criterion of good government which was afterward repeated by Confucius, "the people were happy, and strangers were ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... I said, in lisping Martian, as I pulled down my cuffs and put my cravat straight, "that was a quick process. I once heard of a man who learnt a language in the moments he gave each day to having his boots blacked; but this beats all. I trust I was a docile pupil?" ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... in the cool morning, what a contrast to the champagne houpla nights of Paris! And how docile was my pupil! He suffered me to lead him through the Castle of Chillon like a new-born lamb, and even would not play the little horses in the Kursaal at Geneva, although, perhaps, that was because the stakes ...
— The Beautiful Lady • Booth Tarkington
... no honour in his own country, was never more fully verified than in this youth. At Otaheite he might have had any thing that was in their power to bestow; whereas here he was not in the least noticed. He was a youth of good parts, and, like most of his countrymen, of a docile, gentle, and humane disposition, but in a manner wholly ignorant of their religion, government, manners, customs, and traditions; consequently no material knowledge could have been gathered from him, had I brought him away. Indeed, he would have ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... reaction, and interaction of the pictures, dogmas, and reasonings of authoritative poets, priests, and philosophers on one side, and of the feeling, faith, and thought of credulous multitudes and docile pupils on the other. In the light of these great centres of intellectual activity, parents of intellectual products, there is nothing pertaining to the subject before us, however curious, which may not be intelligibly explained, seen naturally to spring out of certain conditions ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... coming across the plank bridge, and as he drew near the cart Lloyd asked him to hold Rox for a moment. Rox was one of those horses who, when standing still, are docile as a kitten, and she had no hesitancy in leaving him with a man at his head. She jumped out, the whip in her hand. Dan was beyond all help, but she wanted at least to take his collar back to Mrs. Applegate. The strange dog permitted himself to be driven off a little distance. Part of his ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris
... root and blushed. The good vicar came to her, and there as he had rung the bell for mass he went through the service for her, and both freely discounted the joys of paradise. The good priest had it in his heart to thoroughly instruct her, and found his pupil very docile, as gentle in mind as soft in the flesh, a perfect jewel. Therefore was he much aggrieved at having so much abridged the lessons by giving it at Azay, seeing that he would have been quite willing to recommence ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... its starry walls Sparkle, as erst they sparkled to the flame Of odorous lamps tended by Saint and Sage. O framed for calmer times and nobler hearts! O studious Poet, eloquent for truth! 35 Philosopher! contemning wealth and death, Yet docile, childlike, full of Life and Love! Here, rather than on monumental stone, This record of thy worth thy Friend inscribes, Thoughtful, with quiet ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... The docile little animal made no opposition to being led from the pleasant pasture, but started and shivered as there came the sharp whizz of another arrow—too painful a memory to his ear—making the poor beast ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... Dinsmore said, seeing her hesitation; "you have nothing to fear if you are disposed to be good and docile." ...
— The Two Elsies - A Sequel to Elsie at Nantucket, Book 10 • Martha Finley
... Archie, who is very docile, withdrew. A guilty silence reigned for some moments. Then Dolly opened her eyes. "It was the suit," she said, with a shudder. "Oh, how it ...
— Dolly Dialogues • Anthony Hope
... was indeed the aim of his life. To rule over tumultuous Arab and Berber tribes in a poor country formed no fit ambition for a man of his capacity. Egypt, its wealth, its commerce, its great port, and its docile population—these ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... doctor." A benign man, as old doctors—when they don't grow contrariwise, and become unspeakably gruff and crusty—are apt to be. A benign old doctor, a docile old horse, an old-fashioned two-wheeled chaise that springs to the motion like a bough at a bird flitting, and an indescribable June morning wherein to drive four miles and back—well! Faith couldn't help exulting in her heart that they ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... his great love, is the sharp and flattering contrast between her reserve in the presence of other men and her enchanting complaisance in the presence of himself. Here his vanity is enormously tickled. To the world in general she seems remote and unapproachable; to him she is docile, fluttering, gurgling, even a bit abandoned. It is as if some great magnifico male, some inordinate czar or kaiser, should step down from the throne to play dominoes with him behind the door. The greater the ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... nor twice, but many times the Maid had to speak such words as these; but she never feared to speak them, and her courage and her purity of heart and life threw its spell over the rough men she had led, and they became docile in her hands like children, ready to worship the ...
— A Heroine of France • Evelyn Everett-Green
... are harnessed like horses, and chiefly employed in drawing little carts filled with fish, vegetables, and other produce. Before the year 1795, such dogs were also employed in smuggling; which was the easier, as they are exceedingly docile. ...
— Anecdotes of Animals • Unknown
... would lock her best clothes up in that delightful carved oak chest that stands upstairs on the landing and throw the key into the sea; and little Annie would let me do it; she is evidently the most docile of child-women. Catherine, now, had I ever ventured on adverse criticism of her garments, would have thrown me into the ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 4, April, 1891 • Various
... well and bravely done for me and for yourself," answered the stranger, as he mounted the docile Sultan and assisted the girl to ...
— In the Wars of the Roses - A Story for the Young • Evelyn Everett-Green
... Mr Mitchell's narrative; the reviewer relates how a chimpanzee, placed for a short time in the society of the children of his owner in this country, not only throve in an extraordinary manner, was perfectly docile and good-tempered, but learnt to imitate them. When the eldest little boy wished to tease his playfellow, he used, childlike, to make faces at him. Chim soon outdid him, and one of the funniest things imaginable was to see him blown at and blowing in return; his protrusible ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... pursue the subject further when they were interrupted by the approach of a horse, which pulled up abruptly at the front door. A beautiful, full-blooded mare, of tremendous proportions, reared high in the air, then dropped to a stand-still as docile ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... their voices, did, within limitations, as they requested; but when she waited on her father there was a sad, mechanical repetition of what she had done since childhood. Mrs. Mayburn found her docile and easily controlled, and the heart-stricken old lady ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... a short appearance. The eastern provinces of the empire and the wars on the frontier of the Danube, towards which the invasions of the Germans were at that time beginning to be directed, absorbed the attention of the new emperors. Gaul was far, however, from remaining docile and peaceful at this epoch. At the vacancy that occurred after Nero and amid the claims of various pretenders, the authority of the Roman name and the pressure of the imperial power diminished rapidly; and the memory and desire of independence were reawakened. ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... to Tubac. This thought aroused anew the young man's passion; and, pressing his horse's side he galloped along the path, the windings of which still hid his enemies from view. This time his horse had grown docile ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... expressive phrase of Professor Paulsen, the book "fairly drips with superficiality" (von Seichtigkeit triefen). If the man of science is to be justified, as Huxley suggested, not by faith but by verification, Haeckel and his docile Darwinian disciples have good reason to tremble for their ...
— At the Deathbed of Darwinism - A Series of Papers • Eberhard Dennert
... have approved. Aye, and if, instead of appropriating Cyprus only, they had appropriated a great deal more—if they had taken Candia too, if they had taken whatever they could lay their hands upon—that majority, equally patient, and equally docile, and not only patient and docile, but exulting in the discreditable obedience with which it obeyed all the behests of the Administration—that majority never would have shrunk, but would have walked into the lobby as cheerfully as it did upon the occasions ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... full of surprise, but willing to be docile. The news was soon spread through the city that the duke had arrived, and ...
— Chicot the Jester - [An abridged translation of "La dame de Monsoreau"] • Alexandre Dumas
... returned from the Isle of France presented to the Empress a female monkey of the orang-outang species; and her Majesty gave orders that the animal should be placed in the menagerie at Malmaison. This baboon was extremely gentle and docile, and its master had given it an excellent education. It was wonderful to see her, when any one approached the chair on which she was seated, take a decent position, draw over her legs and thighs the fronts of a long redingote, and, ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... burden has been often utilized by the British in Afghanistan, and the supply of camels raised in that country has generally been augmented by drafts from India, although the last mentioned do not thrive under the transition. The camel is docile, capable of abstinence in an emergency, well adapted for the imposition of loads and for traversing over flat or sandy ground, adapts itself to rough roads, has acute sight and smell, and, during ...
— Afghanistan and the Anglo-Russian Dispute • Theo. F. Rodenbough
... nephew's wealth, but, like all ill-gotten gear, it did not bring happiness. Frightful dreams and dreadful sights compelled the uncle to leave the mansion, where he had murdered by inches a comely, docile young man, once the comfort of a fond mother and loving father. For a few nights nothing of an alarming nature occurred; she began to hope that confidence would be restored in her household, and that she would be enabled to return in peace to her ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... said Trimmer. "Very good." He lit up thoughtfully. "Well, you might say that the Cirgameski are schizophrenic. They've got the docile Javanese blood, plus the Arabian elan. The Javanese part is on top, but every once in a while you see a flash of arrogance.... You never know. I've been out here nine years and I'm still a stranger." He puffed on his cigar, studied Murphy with his careful eyes. "You ...
— Sjambak • John Holbrook Vance
... boy docile," continued Drentell, "and unless he belies the characteristics of his people, you will find him quick and intelligent. Employ that intelligence for the good of our holy faith and to the prejudice of the Jewish race. Give ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... ship. Was it from foreseeing some possible interference like this, that Don Benito had, beforehand, given such a bad character of his sailors, while praising the negroes; though, indeed, the former seemed as docile as the latter the contrary? The whites, too, by nature, were the shrewder race. A man with some evil design, would he not be likely to speak well of that stupidity which was blind to his depravity, and malign that intelligence from which it might not be hidden? Not unlikely, ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... "friendship and admiration" for their German confreres never even suspected the huge conspiracy of which civilization has been the victim? Why did they accept the stars and crosses of Caligula-Attila? Why hob-nob with the docile creatures of his chancery, and spread at home and abroad the worship of Geist and Kultur? Are they fit to instruct us about politics, public law, and international relations, when they were so egregiously mistaken, ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... Duncan six months afterwards, "they are now with us, and all behaving very well. The proud chief has become very docile and happy, and he and all declare it their intention to remain at Metlakahtla till death. Several of the foremost Christians make it their duty occasionally to visit them, and instruct and encourage them. Thus can God ...
— Metlakahtla and the North Pacific Mission • Eugene Stock
... Chief Justice until I read and heard again in after years. In the meantime, Joe Miller had given me the story of the leopard which was sent home on board a ship of war, and was in two days made as docile as a cat by the sailors.[408] "You have got that fellow well under," said an officer. "Lord bless your Honor!" said Jack, "if the Emperor of Marocky would send us a cock rhinoceros, we'd bring him to his bearings in no time!" When I came to the subject again, it pleased me to entertain ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... is not separated by a comma from the noun. "Every one must love a boy who [that] is attentive and docile." "He preaches sublimely who [that] lives a holy life." "The things which [that] are seen are temporal." "A king depending on the support of his subjects can not rashly go to war." "The sailor who [that] is not superstitious will embark ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)
... been at first slow and painful; the rector of the grammar-school behaved neither kindly nor generously towards him; and on him he afterwards took his revenge in the character of Habbas Dahdah, in "The Improvisatore." But he was docile, he was persevering, and passed through the school, and afterwards the college, not discreditably. In 1829, he was launched again into the world, a member of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... conversation is a dish of tete de veau farci. Aren't you coming to the beach? Everybody goes to-day. Mrs. Gnu has arrived, and the Potiphars are here,—that is, Mrs. P. Old Pot. arrives on Sunday morning early, and is off again on Monday evening. He's grown very quiet and docile. Mrs. P. usually takes him a short drive on Monday morning, and he comes to dinner in a white waistcoat. In fact, as Mrs. Potiphar says, 'My husband has not the air distingue which I should be pleased to see in him, but he is quite as well as could be expected.' Upon which Firkin ...
— The Potiphar Papers • George William Curtis
... obeying like a docile child. As she took a chair facing Mary's desk she realized that in just such a kind, practical fashion would Mary proceed to manage Steve, that the years of experience in the business world as an independent ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... toelike hoofs, and related merrily how when it was a young colt, a soothsayer had predicted that its owner would be master of the world, and how he—Caesar,—had broken its fiery spirit, and made it perfectly docile, although no other man could ride ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... with young sixty-three days, and commonly brings from four to ten; the male puppies resemble the dog, the female the bitch (an assertion by no means accurate, any more than the tail always bending to the left is a common character of the species). It is the most faithful of animals, is very docile, fawns at his master's approach, runs before him on a journey, often passing over the same ground; on coming to crossways, stops and looks back; drives cattle home from the field; keeps herds and flocks within bounds, protects them from wild ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... this denial of the body on one side, with this tremendous stimulus of brain on the other, and with a delicate and nervous national organization to begin with, the result is inevitable. Boys hold out better than girls, partly because they are not so docile in school, partly because they are allowed to be more active out of it, and so have more recuperative power. But who has not seen some delicate girl, after five consecutive hours spent over French and Latin and Algebra, come home to swallow an indigestible dinner, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... is well for us or not," Maraton remarked, as he watched the wine flow into his glass, "to yield up one's will like this, to become even as a docile child, I do not know, but it is very pleasant. It is ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... every Mexican in Maverick County and in the territory immediately contiguous thereto. Many of them had been members of his gangs when he had contracts in the neighborhood of Eagle Pass. He knew precisely which of them could be depended upon to remain docile under all manner of indignity, and which of them had a bad habit of placing a sudden check on their laughter and lunging forward with a knife. They knew him, too. They feared him. They knew he could be coldly brutal—an art which no Mexican ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge
... Catholic circles and concealed as criminal their amorous escapades. For the most part, they were unintelligent, acquiescent fops, stupid bores who had tried the patience of their professors. Yet these professors were pleased to have bestowed such docile, pious creatures ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... presents to the skull of the wild but gentle gazelle. How superior also the elevated brain of the poodle dog, when compared with that of the indocile, snarling cur! Thus in animals of the same species the most marked disparity of form is easily discernible, on comparing the skulls of such as are docile and gentle, with those of the dull and intractable. The elevation of the one and the depression of the ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, February 1887 - Volume 1, Number 1 • Various
... bundle and try to run into the jungle, but on being beaten, he would put up his hands in supplication, take up the bundle and go on; but he seemed soon to forget the beating, and did the same thing at almost every jungle they came through. By degrees he became quite docile. Janoo was one day, about three months after their return to Lucknow, sent away by his master for a day or two on some business, and before his return the boy had ran off, and he could never find him again. About two months after the boy had gone, a woman, of the weaver caste, ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... tribes to warn them to keep quiet, saying that, if the Germans had chastised them with whips, we would, indeed, chastise them with scorpions in the event of their getting out of hand. And we must admit that, almost without exception, the natives of all tribes have proved most welcoming, most docile and most grateful for our arrival. Had it not been for the clandestine intrigues of the German planters and missionaries whom we returned to their homes and occupations of peace, there would have been no trouble. But the Hun may promise ...
— Sketches of the East Africa Campaign • Robert Valentine Dolbey
... wolf and the zebra become docile as the spaniel and the horse; The kite feedeth with the starling under the law of kindness; That law shall tame the fiercest, bring down the battlements of pride, Cherish the weak, control the strong, and win the fearful spirit. Let thy ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... to cause his mother some uneasiness. What would have made her happy before—oh, how she had longed for a more docile child in bygone days!—saddened her now. Was he, after all, worse than they had ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... it, Howe? No one would think to look at you, Graves, that you were so docile. You knew what you were saying when you said, 'what couldn't be cured must be endured,' and I say, 'all's fair in love and war,' so you stay here until after that ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... and full of blood. Humane, even liberal, counsels prevailed over the sated assembly. The boy seemed docile enough, and likely; just a Jack of the build needful to climb the stacks of smouldering boughs, see to the fires, cord the cut wood and the burnt wood, lead the asses, cook the dinner, call the men —to be, in fact, what Jack should be. Jack he ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... the magic of method, when directed by a master-mind, that the whole went on with the regularity and precision of machinery. More than two thousand armed men, all of whom had been accustomed to an irregular, some to a lawless, life, were as docile as children; animated, in general, by what they deemed a sacred cause, and led by a chief whom they universally alike ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... things is towards convulsions and catastrophes,[52] if the world owes religious liberty to the Dutch Revolution, constitutional government to the English, federal republicanism to the American, political equality to the French and its successors,[53] what is to become of us, docile and attentive students of the absorbing Past? The triumph of the Revolutionist annuls the historian.[54] By its authentic exponents, Jefferson and Sieyes, the Revolution of the last century repudiates history. Their ...
— A Lecture on the Study of History • Lord Acton
... they stray, they go immense distances; and it is almost beyond the power of a man on foot to tend them in a wild country: he can neither overtake them easily, nor, when overtaken, catch them. The female is, in most breeds, much the more docile. They suffer from African distemper, but in a less degree than horses. The following descriptions of mule caravans are exceedingly graphic and instructive:—"The madrina (or godmother) is a most important personage. She is an old steady mare, with a little bell ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... chargers and waste their energy and the strength of their mount in pirouettes for the admiration of the bystanders—Napoleon and his little white horse were always quiet when all around there was confusion. And the hand that ruled the Empire stroked the mane of the little white mare, so docile that a girl of ten would have been at home on her back. That is he—under fire at Wagram, with shells bursting all around—he strokes the mane of ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... negative, and consisted in not giving her trouble—a conviction which certainly could have had no reference to trouble already existing. She was therefore ingeniously passive and almost imaginatively docile; she was careful even to moderate the eagerness with which she assented to Isabel's propositions and which might have implied that she could have thought otherwise. She never interrupted, never asked social questions, and though she delighted in approbation, to the ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... woman, "that is not the way. They are docile enough, but frightened. Encourage 'em, and let 'em look at it. Give 'em time. More haste less speed, with ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... certain number were lodged in the barracks of the Preobrajenski Regiment. The sailors, who but a few minutes before had sung a funeral hymn to Logvinov, and wept when they saw that they had understood nothing, now became the docile executioners of the orders of the Bolsheviki. And when they were asked, "Why do you do this?" they answered, as in the time, still recent, of Czarism: "It is the order. ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo
... the delicacies, Chambers got mush and milk, and clabber without sugar. In consequence Tom was a sickly child and Chambers wasn't. Tom was "fractious," as Roxy called it, and overbearing; Chambers was meek and docile. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... some narrow pass. A noose would then be thrown about the exhausted animal, which would be instantly mounted by an Indian and broken immediately to the saddle. Some of these wild horses were exceedingly swift, well-proportioned, and handsome in shape, but they seldom proved as docile as those born in captivity. When in a wild condition they would snort so loudly through the nostrils on descrying an enemy that they could be heard at a distance ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston
... no means well understood in Europe. Far from being the docile and patient animal generally described, it is quite the reverse, and the males are frequently dangerous. They are exceedingly perverse; and are, as before described, excessively stupid. For the great deserts they are wonderfully ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... by the kitchen fire smoking and turning a docile and well- trained ear to the heated words which fell from his ...
— Sailor's Knots (Entire Collection) • W.W. Jacobs
... little of that camaraderie generally so noticeable between dwellers in the wilderness. Sometimes she fancied she caught a mocking light in Guy's eyes when they looked at Burke. He was always perfectly docile under his management, but was he always genuine? She could not tell. His recovery amazed her. He seemed to possess an almost boundless store of vitality. He cast his weakness from him with careless jesting, laughing down all her fears. She knew well that ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... a big, grizzled, docile-looking fellow patronizingly by the arm, led him forward, and chaired him on a large cylinder-head, in the rough, just hatched ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... party she was never so studious or so docile as she had been before. The little taste of play made her dislike work, and set her to longing after the home-life where play and work were mixed with each other as a matter of course. She began to think that it would ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... bliss to which we are to be wafted after death. And I maintain this not only because I think that these religious beliefs are erroneous, but because I know that they are most potent to make men docile and submissive to the most degrading conditions imposed on them. I feel sure that the doctrine that obedience to rulers and contentment in poverty are according to the will of God, and the doctrine that the poor and the oppressed will be compensated ...
— Communism and Christianism - Analyzed and Contrasted from the Marxian and Darwinian Points of View • William Montgomery Brown
... this attack; and for a day or two the squire's alarm and gratitude made him docile in Mr. Gibson's hands. Then he returned to the idea of its being a crisis through which his wife had passed; and that she was now on the way to recovery. But the day after the consultation with Dr Nicholls, Mr. ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... are a very docile, amiable, and intelligent people; they are faithful and honest servants, and are brave and trustworthy in danger, when they can trust to their leaders. Domestic slavery still exists, though the slave trade is prohibited. No European or native can acquire property in ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... himself, to be master of his hands, feet, of his whole body—something would clutch at his heart as he thought of it; and the breath would come hard between his lips. But he met his master with an impassive face, always silent, always docile; and Mr. Leckler congratulated himself that so valuable and intelligent a slave should be at the same time so tractable. Usually intelligence in a slave meant discontent; but not so with Josh. Who more content than he? He remarked to his ...
— The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... near the Chateau of Donnay, in the environs of Falaise, supported the maternal yoke patiently; he was an officer in the Royal Dragoons at the time of the Revolution. His younger brother, Timoleon de Combray, was of a less docile nature. On leaving the military school, as his father was just dead he solicited from M. de Vergennes a mission in an uncivilised country and set sail for Morocco. Timoleon was a liberal-minded man, of high intellectual culture, and a philosophical scepticism that fitted ill with the Marquise's ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre
... of his patent screen, and banged off pistols at his magnetic target, which he had rigged tip on the mantelpiece. Nature has given him a constitution of steel, however, and he shook off his malady more quickly and more thoroughly than the most docile of sufferers. ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... finer in limb, and bone; a deep mahogany-red in color; and of a grace, and beauty in figure excelled by no other breed whatever. The Devon cow is usually a good milker, for her size; of quiet temper; docile in her habits; a quick feeder; and a most satisfactory animal in all particulars. From the Devons, spring those beautifully matched red working-oxen, so much admired in our eastern states; the superiors to which, ...
— Rural Architecture - Being a Complete Description of Farm Houses, Cottages, and Out Buildings • Lewis Falley Allen
... of the various sciences. Even in his previous humble condition he felt and knew antiquity, as well as what was worthy in the life and in the character of the present. He had already formed a style. In the new school which he entered, he listened to his masters, not only as a docile pupil but as a learned disciple. He easily acquired their special attainments, and began immediately to use and to adapt to his purposes ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... describe the anguish which appeared in this young man's breast, when he went away. He looked up at the ship, burst into tears, and then sunk down into the canoe. Oedidee was a youth of good parts, and of a docile, gentle, and humane disposition; but as he was almost wholly ignorant of the religion, government, manners, customs, and traditions of his countrymen, and the neighbouring islands, no material knowledge could have been collected from him, had our commander ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... anticipated that the Pennsylvania Railroad would remain docile or passive while his competitive line was being built, he soon learned how sorely mistaken he was. This time he was opposing no weak, timorous or unsophisticated competitors, but a group of the most powerful and astute organizers and corruptionists. Their methods in Pennsylvania ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... drove to his terrific duty; faithful was the horse to his command. One blow, one impulse given with voice and hand, by the stranger, one rush from the horse, one bound as if in the act of rising to a fence, landed the docile creature's forefeet upon the crown or arching centre of the road. The larger half of the little equipage had then cleared our over-towering shadow: that was evident even to my own agitated sight. But it mattered little ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... official ignorance by doing that which the German Emperor does not do. A man may not exactly be born a King, or a President, but he can learn a lot of useful little formalities by watching the other Kings and Presidents. It will be observed, therefore, that the Transvaal has all along been very docile and consequently very badly used. And because it has displayed the best and noblest qualities and on all occasions endeavoured to obviate friction with other people, it has been ...
— The Boer in Peace and War • Arthur M. Mann
... named after Cambridge's most intellectual woman, by Ripley, who had a whimsical fashion of thus honouring his friends. According to Hawthorne, the name in this case was not inapt, for the cow was so recalcitrant and anti-social that it was finally sent to Coventry by the more docile kine, always to be counted ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford
... beginning Theodora had been good and meek and docile. He remembered a thousand gentle, unselfish things she had done for him. Her patience, her kindness, her unfailing sympathy in all his ills, the consideration and respect with which she treated him. When—when could this thing have begun? In Paris? Only these ...
— Beyond The Rocks - A Love Story • Elinor Glyn
... of two frenzied young animals. He would approach stealthily, seize her, and whirl her about, lifting her to his shoulder. She was agile, docile, and fearful. He untied a scarf and passed it about her; she leaned against it, and they whirled giddily about. Suddenly, it seemed that he became jealous. She would run; he follow and catch her. She ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... laughed, "have it your way! See how docile I have become already! You'll reform me yet, ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... a story to the effect that Mrs. Simpson always rode on every load of hay that her husband took to Milltown, with the view of keeping him sober through the day. After he turned out of the country road and approached the metropolis, it was said that he used to bury the docile lady in the load. He would then drive on to the scales, have the weight of the hay entered in the buyer's book, take his horses to the stable for feed and water, and when a favorable opportunity offered he would assist the hot and panting Mrs. Simpson out of the side ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... and to snare away the consecrated weapons. Neoptolemus—whose character is a sketch which Shakspeare alone could have bodied out—has all the generous ardour and honesty of youth, but he has also its timid irresolution—its docile submission to the great—its fear of the censure of the world. He recoils from the base task proposed to him; he would prefer violence to fraud; yet he dreads lest, having undertaken the enterprise, his refusal to act should be considered treachery to his coadjutor. ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... face of very impossibility achieve! "I will take Lucy to myself, if it should be in place of all the world. I will myself shed light over her being, till in a new spring it shall be adorned with living flowers that fade not away, perennial and self-renewed. In a few years the bright docile creature will have the soul of a very angel—and then, before God and at His holy altar, mine shall she become for ever—here and hereafter—in this paradise of earth, and, if more celestial be, in the paradise ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... determines method. The child is simply the immature being who is to be matured; he is the superficial being who is to be deepened; his is narrow experience which is to be widened. It is his to receive, to accept. His part is fulfilled when he is ductile and docile. ...
— The Child and the Curriculum • John Dewey
... we often find in older communities. We have a right to claim that our sculptors and painters prove so much as this for us. American taste was offended, outraged, by the odious "peg" which the Old-World soldier or beggar was proud to show. We owe the well-shaped, intelligent, docile limb, the half-reasoning willow of Mr. Palmer, to the same sense of beauty and fitness which moulded the soft outlines of the Indian Girl and the White Captive in the studio ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... vestiges in John Chinaman's habits did not affect his relations with the San Franciscans. He was singularly peaceful, docile, and harmless as a servant, and, with rare exceptions, honest and temperate. If he sometimes matched cunning with cunning, it was the flattery of imitation. He did most of the menial work of San Francisco, and did it cleanly. Except that he exhaled a peculiar druglike odor, he was not personally ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... The whole country outside the fortified posts became the theatre of bloodshed, robbery, and anarchy. It was the history of Algiers in petto. Things have slowly improved since then, especially since M. Roustan's recall; doubtless in time Tunis will be as subdued and as docile as Algiers; and meanwhile France is developing the resources of the land, and opening out one of the finest harbours in existence. Yet M. Henri de Rochefort did not, perhaps, exaggerate when he wrote: ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... bright bay, approaching to pink, in the summer-time; they are said to be remarkably swift. It is impossible to take them when full grown; but the Arabs often capture the foals, and bring them up with milk in their tents. They then become very playful and docile; but it is found difficult to keep them alive; and they have never, apparently, been domesticated. The Arabs usually kill them and ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... man-of-war's man when he had been drilled into shape. He was alert, obedient, and utterly careless of danger; he had the fighting instinct developed to the point of ferocity; he was at once strong and docile, and his very simplicity made him the best possible instrument to be employed on dangerous enterprises. The last specimens will soon be beyond the reach of social students. Here and there may be found some bronzed old man ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... effected the little change rendered necessary by his promotion from mate to master, nodded curtly, and the crew, after another exchange of looks, resumed their work without a word. Their behaviour all day was docile, not to say lamb-like, and it was not until evening that the new skipper found it necessary to ...
— A Master Of Craft • W. W. Jacobs
... deliberately recorded their appreciation of his loss as a public calamity. His mother is said to have been a woman of lofty and devout character, and her influence over her eldest son was exceptionally strong and tender. He used to declare in after life that he was as docile in her hands as the youngest of his sisters. Among other marks of his affectionate submission to parental authority, we are told that during the whole time of his residence at Turin, where he followed a course of law, ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 4: Joseph de Maistre • John Morley
... is indeed one of the heaviest that weigh upon men and incline them to sadness. And yet there is none more docile, more eager to follow the direction we could so readily give, did we but know how best to avail ourselves of this docility. In reality, if we think of it, the past belongs to us quite as much as the present, and is far more malleable than the future. Like the present, and ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck
... Fra Paolo, it endeavored to reassert in Spain the same authority which had been so humbly acknowledged there a few years before. It was doubtless felt that this most pious of all countries, which had previously been so docile, and which had stood steadily by the Vatican against Venice in the recent struggle, would again set an example of submission. Never was there a greater mistake: the Vatican received from Spanish piety ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... "Such a docile animal as the horse can readily be trained to particular habits, and does not readily forget them, however disreputable. There is an odd story to ...
— Stories about the Instinct of Animals, Their Characters, and Habits • Thomas Bingley |
