"Edifying" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... communion with the Church of England. His writings implied so much detachment from that institution, expressed a view of life so profane, as it were, so independent, and so little likely, in general, to be thought edifying, that I should have expected to find him an object of horror to vicars and their ladies—of horror repaid on his own part by good-natured but brilliant mockery. This proves how little I knew as yet of the English ...
— The Author of Beltraffio • Henry James
... them exhibit themselves in the gymnastic lists, as candidates for that public admiration which seems to be the great business of their lives. The disparity between the competitors will doubtless be very amusing, as well as edifying.—When we behold the fat duchess of ——, with a face like Cynthia in all her glory, boldly approach the promenade in Kensington Gardens, in open defiance of public decorum, and, unzoned and divested of superfluous drapery, prepare for the race, in opposition to a slim vestal from ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... on the drama wholly edifying. Circuses and sassafras tea were within the range of her experience, and finding that she had struck a point of contact, Mrs. Owen expressed her pity for any child that did not enjoy a round of sassafras tea every ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... be with you. Amen. I being taken from you in presence, and so tied up that I cannot perform that duty, that from God doth lie upon me to you-ward, for your farther edifying and building up in faith and holiness, etc., yet that you may see my soul hath fatherly care and desire after your spiritual and everlasting welfare, I now once again, as before, from the top of Shenir and Hermon, so now ...
— Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners • John Bunyan
... a remark not so edifying. Pope went down to his grave soon afterwards, without exciting suspicion except among two or three people intimately concerned. A whisper of doubt was soon hushed. Even the biographers who were on the track of his former deception did not suspect this similar iniquity. The last of ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... manner. He possessed a great talent for drawing; and before long, a caricature appeared, which was a most life-like representation of the whole scene. My mother shook her head, and my father delivered a short, but expressive lecture upon the improper nature of mimicry; but in the midst of an edifying discourse Fred suddenly displayed the drawing in full view—at which all the children burst into peals of laughter, and my father abruptly closed his sermon, and frowning sternly, walked into the library; but we could perceive ...
— A Grandmother's Recollections • Ella Rodman
... approaching, it proved to be a large stone strapped before him, to render his weight a counterpoise to that of his huge companion. We passed on, and returning about half an hour afterwards down the same walk, we found the same venerable pair pursuing their edifying amusement with as ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... Rome, among the Canons Regular of the Lateran Church: At length, having his Soul thoroughly tempered with religious Virtue, enlightened with the true Evangelical Faith, and his Understanding enlarged by the most profitable and edifying Studies, he arrived in Ireland about the 60th Year of his Age; and in the Year of our Lord 432, landed in the County of Wicklow, where he began his Ministry, by the Conversion of Sinel, a great ...
— An Essay on the Antient and Modern State of Ireland • Henry Brooke
... first time was in the days of the Rump, when Lambert brought in his division to overawe the Commons. I was then quartered at the sign of the Four Crosses in Southwark, then kept by a worthy man, one John Dolman, with whom I had much edifying speech concerning predestination. All was quiet and sober then, I promise you, and you might have walked from Westminster to the Tower in the dead of the night without hearing aught save the murmur of prayer and the chanting of hymns. Not a ruffler ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the whole activity of a nation, even of its intellectual activity, to serve as a complete indication of the many forces which are at work, or as an adequate moral barometer of the general moral state. The attempt to establish such a condition too closely, seems to me to lead to a good many very edifying but ...
— English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century • Leslie Stephen
... especially frequented in the spring; for hither at this time of year abundance of people resort, solacing themselves in the mutual enjoyment of all those pleasures the place affords, and at spare hours pass away the time in many useful and edifying discourses. When Callistratus the Sophist lived here, it was a hard matter to dine at any place besides his house; for he was so extremely courteous and obliging, that no man whom he invited to dinner could have the face to say him nay. One of his best humors was to pick up all the ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... physical studies, or at any rate to postpone them to morals. Seneca shared this edifying but far from scientific persuasion. But after his final withdrawal from court, as the wonders of nature forced themselves on his notice, he reconsidered his old prejudice, and entered with ardour on the contemplation of physical phenomena. Besides the ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... the pleasure of romping along here for another year or two, and watching you get changed into a parson. It would have been well worth my while, too. It isn't every sinner like myself that has the chance to see a saint in the making. I should have found it an edifying spectacle." Then suddenly he broke off, and spoke with obvious sincerity. "Hang it all, Scott! What's the use? Chuck theology, and come along with me and be some sort of an engineer, or else the chemist old Mansfield has set his heart on making out ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... Redemptorist Fathers in Baltimore. We have found the matter solid, well digested, and instructive, and the style simple, earnest, and full of unction. The examples are, in general, appropriately selected as illustrations of the text; and many of them are very edifying, and even touching. These are, of course, to be received, according to the author's timely protest in the beginning, with the wise reserve expressly ordered by the Church in regard to such matters, in the well-known Bull of ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... of Vienna, I am sure you expect I should say something of the convents; they are of all sorts and sizes, but I am best pleased with that of St Lawrence, where the ease and neatness they seem to live with, appears to be much more edifying than those stricter orders, where perpetual penance and nastiness must breed discontent and wretchedness. The Nuns are all of quality. I think there are to the number of fifty. They have each of them a little cell perfectly clean, the walls of which are covered with pictures more or less ...
— Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M—y W—y M—e • Lady Mary Wortley Montague
... far East imperative. He hurried thither, and was mysteriously lost to sight (529). Tradition accounts for his death in several ways. If Xenophon is to be credited, he died peaceably on his bed, surrounded by his children, and edifying those present by his wisdom and his ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... lifelike and interesting picture of the dissensions that then involved all circles of Manila officialdom, both civil and religious; and of certain aspects of human nature which are highly interesting, even if not always edifying. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXV, 1635-36 • Various
... suppliant for that which, if he works as he ought, he can claim as his right; that to me the spectacle of Count Tolstoi virtually posing as a superior being, while his fellow-Russians came crouching and whining to him, was not at all edifying. To this view of the case he ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... James, and he quickly turned to the service for the ordering of deacons. "The first question here put to the candidate for holy orders is, 'Do you trust that you are inwardly moved by the Holy Ghost, to take upon you this office and ministration, to serve God for the promoting of His glory and the edifying of His people?' Now, Meredith, I ask you to think, whether, with such sentiments as you have just expressed, you can dare to answer, 'I ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... I hope she would think me capable of making, or at least of keeping, my own friendships; such a one especially as this, with a woman too, and one whose friendship she herself, till this distressful point of time, had thought the most useful and edifying that I ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... and Austria in the banditti partition of Poland, he had continually been making all the encroachments in his power; adding acres to his domains as Catharine added square leagues to hers. In precisely the same spirit, England, who was grasping at all the world, protested, with the most edifying devotion to the claims of justice and humanity, against the ambitious spirit of Russia. The "beam" did not exclude the vision of the "mote." Catharine, offended by the opposition of England, retaliated by entering into a treaty of commerce with France, which deprived ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... called the Bible exhibit the clearest indications of unity of design. Each writer testifies to the "one faith," and each contributes something to its illustration. Thus it is that, even at the present day, every book in the canon is "good to the use of edifying." The announcements made to our first parents will continue to impart spiritual refreshment to their posterity of the latest generations; and the believer can now give utterance to his devotional feelings in the language of the ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... out of the shower and started drying himself. Up to now, he thought, he had depended on Dr. Thomas O'Connor for edifying, trustworthy and reasonably complete information about psionics and psi phenomena in general. He had looked on O'Connor as a sort of living version of an extremely good edition of the Britannica, ...
— Occasion for Disaster • Gordon Randall Garrett
... bore his defeat. If I had yielded to it, he would have seen in my face that I gloried in having outwitted him. I sat down, the picture of innocence, in the nearest chair, and crossed my hands on my lap, a composed and ladylike person, edifying ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... was hard, uncongenial work,—and, being rendered somewhat flabby and nerveless by his previous evening's carouse with Macfarlane's whisky, Mr. Dyceworthy was in a plaintive and injured frame of mind, he was bound on a mission—a holy and edifying errand, which would have elevated any minister of his particular sect. He had found a crucifix with the name of Thelma engraved thereon,—he was now about to return it to the evident rightful owner, and in returning it, he purposed denouncing it as an emblem of the "Scarlet Woman, that sitteth ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... Rubicon, and breaking no bridge behind him. No word in favour of a royal restoration passed his lips. He frowned on all who ventured to suggest such a course. At each stage in his advance he pronounced, with edifying conviction, his determination to maintain the authority of Parliament; and if the announcement bore also the condition that the Parliament should be free, that was a condition to which none could fairly object, and which did not seem to lessen the soundness of Monk's Republicanism. If his sphinx-like ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... 1714, the Duke of Berri, son of the Grand Dauphin, died, and the sole direct heir to the throne was now the king's great-grandson, the Duke of Anjou, a sickly child of five years. On September 1715, the Grand Monarque made a calm and an edifying end to his long reign of seventy-two years, declaring that he owed no man restitution, and trusted in God's mercy for what he owed to the realm. He called the young child, who was soon to be Louis XV., to his bedside, and apparently ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... followers, "I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." Matt. 28:20. And Paul declares that the gifts and manifestations of the Spirit were set in the church "for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ." ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... returned with Fanny—she had taken her into the upper galleries. Yet the private dreams of Miss Winchelsea, already vivid and concrete enough, became now realistic in the highest degree. She figured that pleasant young man lecturing in the most edifying way to his students, herself modestly prominent as his intellectual mate and helper; she figured a refined little home, with two bureaus, with white shelves of high-class books, and autotypes of the pictures of Rossetti and Burne Jones, ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... imitator and writer of the history of his life) a young professor, a foreigner, (that is, Alban Butler,) and passed an hour or two in his company in the afternoon, once every week, and sometimes twice, several years, until his edifying death. Their conversation together was solely about various points of morality; about the direction of souls, and the method of arriving at perfection in every action and intention; how to teach devout persons a habit ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... manner which we were to see so often again, south as well as north, and which I find it so beautiful to have seen. In a Europe abounding in volcanic Italians, nervous Germans, and exasperated Frenchmen, it was comforting, it was edifying to see those Castilian peasants so self-respectfully ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... An edifying insight into the old Scottish cuisine among people of the better sort is afforded by Fynes Morisoh, in his description of a stay at a knight's house in North ...
— Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine • William Carew Hazlitt
... edifying tale,' said the Earl sneering, 'you must be Chaplain to the fleet, doubtless. The bad boy got whipped and the good boys went scot free, just as it should be. And now, good folks, you have had your amusement, ...
— Edward Barnett; a Neglected Child of South Carolina, Who Rose to Be a Peer of Great Britain,—and the Stormy Life of His Grandfather, Captain Williams • Tobias Aconite
... appealed for aid to Bajazet. For so doing he has been severely censured, and with some justice, for the picture of the Head of Christianity making appeal to the infidel to assist him against Christians is not an edifying one. Still, it receives some measure of justification when we reflect what was the attitude of these ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen, he was second to none in the humble and endearing scenes of private life; uniform, dignified, and commanding, his example was as edifying to all around him as were the effects of that ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... great. In all his actions and words there constantly appeared the highest concern for the honour of the nation. He was neither greedy of wealth that belonged to other men nor profuse of his own, but knew how to give and where to save. He professed a most edifying sense of religion, pretended great zeal for the reformation of manners, and was really an example of sobriety, chastity, and temperance in the whole course of his life. Nor did he shed any blood, but of those who were such obstacles ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton
... which were presently seen in the rising of all the Western tribes under the wily leadership of Pontiac, chief of the Ottawa warriors, who sought to exterminate the English and restore the supremacy of the French and Indian races. The incidents of this conspiracy of Pontiac are related in an edifying paper by the Hon. E.O. Randall, of Columbus, Ohio, contributed to the Transactions of the Ohio Archaeological and Historical Society, and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... the morning she told the Rostovs and all her acquaintances the details of Count Bezukhov's death. She said the count had died as she would herself wish to die, that his end was not only touching but edifying. As to the last meeting between father and son, it was so touching that she could not think of it without tears, and did not know which had behaved better during those awful moments—the father who so ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... letter, just cited, he had some curious dealings with the English Puritans. In 1566 many of them had been ejected from their livings, and, like the Scottish Catholics, they "assembled in woods and private houses to worship God." {259b} The edifying controversies between these precisians and Grindal, the Bishop of London, are recorded by Strype. The bishop was no zealot for surplices and the other momentous trifles which agitate the human conscience, but Elizabeth insisted on them; and "Her Majesty's Government must be ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... was brought before his parents as a culprit; and without daring to utter a word in his own defence, he stood by, while Father Francis told how many times he had yawned over the "Lives of the Martyrs;" and how he had refused to read, longer than one hour, a most edifying commentary of the ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... from 1470 to 1520, and |147| they were performed, like the divozioni, by confraternities of religious laymen. The actors were boys belonging to the brotherhoods, and the plays were intended to be edifying for youth. They are more refined than the northern religious dramas, but only too ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles
... falsehood: What risk does the pious multitude run, in believing the miracles of the Lives of the Saints? They find nothing in them which is not proved, or worthy of belief; nothing but what may very prudently be believed; nothing but what is edifying; and this, according to St. Augustine, is a sufficient guarantee from ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... was here at all, does not concern any of us especially, except Lydia, who having a turn for history is always determined to find out how, why, when, and where. I am glad that she does care, as her example is edifying to us all, especially so to Christine and Lisa, who follow her about and ask questions to their hearts' content, which she is never tired of answering. The garden, we revelled in, and found it hard to ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton
... those who arbitrarily erected the new building out of the old materials of their own Convention were obliged to send for an army to support their work: like brave gladiators, they fought it out in the streets of Paris, and even massacred each other in their house of assembly, in the most edifying manner, and for the entertainment and instruction of their Excellencies the foreign ambassadors, who had a box in this constitutional amphitheatre of a ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... not his disguise:—along The galleries from room to room they walk'd, A virgin-like and edifying throng, By eunuchs flank'd; while at their head there stalk'd A dame who kept up discipline among The female ranks, so that none stirr'd or talk'd Without her sanction on their she-parades: Her title was 'the ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... was to dispel that uncertainty. It may be said without exaggeration that she succeeded in dispelling it. But she did not succeed in compelling Maria to re-hang the curtain. Maria had as much force of character as Mrs Garlick herself. The end of the scene, whose details are not sufficiently edifying to be recounted, was that Maria went upstairs to pack her box, and Mrs Garlick personally re-hung the curtain. One's dignity is commonly an expensive trifle, and Mrs Garlick's dignity was expensive. To avoid prolonging the scene she paid Maria a month's wages ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... wine; though he is advised to abstain from the wine, if he can do so without injury to his health. Flesh is permitted only to the weak and sick,[16] who were to be treated with special care. During the meal some edifying piece was read, and silence enjoined. The individual monk knows no personal property, not even his simple dress as such; and the fruits of his labor go into the common treasury. He should avoid all contact with the world as dangerous to the soul, and therefore every cloister should be so arranged ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... Woodvilles against the Earl of Warwick III Wherein Master Nicholas Alwyn visits the Court, and there learns Matter of which the Acute Reader will judge for himself IV Exhibiting the Benefits which Royal Patronage confers on Genius,—also the Early Loves of the Lord Hastings; with other Matters Edifying and Delectable V The Woodville Intrigue prospers—Montagu confers with Hastings, visits the Archbishop of York, and is met on the Road by a strange Personage VI The Arrival of the Count de la Roche, and the various ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... just it. An excellent woman has been taken from us, and, had she been my own mother, I could not have received greater kindnesses from her. Her end, my dear Wallingford, was admitted by all the clergy to be one of the most edifying known in ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... New-York, for instance, the infringement on civil or domestic liberty is become notorious, notwithstanding the political controversies of the inhabitants in praise of liberty; but no panegyric on this subject (howsoever elegant in itself) can be graceful or edifying from the mouth or pen of one of those provincials, because men who do not scruple to detain others in slavery, have but a very partial and unjust claim to the protection of the laws of liberty; and indeed ...
— Some Historical Account of Guinea, Its Situation, Produce, and the General Disposition of Its Inhabitants • Anthony Benezet
... like Cleon, a dreaded captain of banditti in his native country of Cilicia, and had been carried thence as a slave to Sicily. He secured, just as his predecessors had done, the adherence of the Greeks and Syrians especially by prophesyings and other edifying impostures; but skilled in war and sagacious as he was, he did not, like the other leaders, arm the whole mass that flocked to him, but formed out of the men able for warfare an organized army, while he assigned the ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... probable that the purpose was merciful. On the circumstances of the execution I shall not linger. Yet, to mark the almost fatal felicity of M. Michelet in finding out whatever may injure the English name, at a moment when every reader will be interested in Joanna's personal appearance, it is really edifying to notice the ingenuity by which he draws into light from a dark corner a very unjust account of it, and neglects, though lying upon the highroad, a very pleasing one. Both are from English pens. Grafton, a chronicler, but little read, being a stiff-necked ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... considerable intellectual energy is displayed in the discussions; but to see a conclave of learned professors devoting their time to the examination and discussion of Aristotle's writings is about as edifying as to see a geographical society devoting its time to ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887 - Volume 1, Number 7 • Various
... have observed with more pleasure in her than all that concerns the office which brings me to her in this private and confidential manner. All that breaks from her, in our t'ete-'a-t'etes, upon the subject of dress, is both edifying and amiable. She equips herself for the drawing-room with all the attention in her power; she neglects nothing that she thinks becoming to her appearance upon those occasions, and is sensibly conscious that her high station makes her attire in ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... is one selected at random, 'The Life of St. Jacintha.' It lies on a young girl's work-table. A knitting-needle marks the place at which the gentle reader left off this morning. Let us turn to the passage. It is sure to be highly edifying. ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About
... domain of gastronomy the men of letters are near neighbors to the doctors. A hundred years ago literary men were all hard drinkers. They followed the fashion, and the memoirs of the period are quite edifying on that subject. At the present day they are gastronomes, and it is a step in the right direction. I by no means agree with the cynical Geoffroy, who used to say that if our modern writings are weak, it is because literary men now drink nothing stronger than lemonade. ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... I come suddenly upon a people who use it to the total exclusion of the Persian word. The change from the "balli sahib" of the Tabbas villagers to the "O, O, O" of the Afghan nomads is novel and entertaining in the extreme, and I sit and listen with no small interest to the edifying conversation of the khan, the mirza, and the mudbake on the one side, and the Eimuck chieftain and prominent members of the tribe ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... been perfected to receive the returns by messenger and private wire. The Whig bulletin over the way had already massed a constituency extending to the Temple lawn, which, in default of definite news, it was edifying with views of foreign travel and cartoons bearing on the larger issues of the election. Within doors the telegraph operator was already installed at the ancient table which had graced the grand-paternal distillery, and William ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... in the presence of the cloud which had suddenly fallen on him, he had been unable to work that evening, and had decided to pay a visit of condolence to his young kinsman and the baronet, partly in the hope of edifying them by a little quiet talk by the sick bedside, and partly to satisfy himself that no very alarming symptoms had resulted ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... old memoirs, and that so unskilfully, that the hero of the present year loses a leg or an arm in the same exploit, and uttering the self-same sentences, as one who lived two centuries ago. There is likewise a sort of jobbing in the edifying scenes which occasionally occur in the Convention—if a soldier happen to be wounded who has relationship, acquaintance, or connexion, with a Deputy, a tale of extraordinary valour and extraordinary devotion to the cause is invented or adopted; the invalid is presented in form at the bar ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... threatened by Popish intrigues at home and abroad. Even Burton, whom no one will suspect of partiality to the Church, and whose animus against the ministers often overcomes his historic judgment, in writing of what he calls the 'edifying ceremony' of the absolution of the lords, says: 'It must be conceded to their enemies that it was a solemn farce; and whatever there might be in words or the surface of things, there would be, when these Earls were restored, a power in the ...
— Andrew Melville - Famous Scots Series • William Morison
... from me to Jimmie, divided between her desire to express in one burst of eloquence the fulness of her reasons for marrying the man she adored, and her reluctance to display emotion before me. She took everything with such edifying gravity. It never dawned on her that he ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell
... quite becoming to speak thus of your dead husband. No doubt you speak the truth: there is no telling what sort of person you may have married in what still seems to me unseemly haste to provide me with a successor: but even so, a little charitable prevarication would be far more edifying." ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... are much offended at the Act for importing French Wines: [1] A Bottle or two of good solid Edifying Port, at honest George's, made a Night chearful, and threw off Reserve. But this plaguy French Claret will not only cost us more Mony, but do us less Good: Had we been aware of it, before it had gone too far, I must tell you, we would have petitioned to be heard upon ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... might be supposed at first sight to be an illustration of a nursery tale, but the text describing a Witch's Sabbath, rapidly dispels the idea. Nor does a version of the popular Faust legend—"Dr. John Faustus"—appear to be edifying for young people. This and "Friar Bacon" are of the class which lingered the longest—the magical and oracular literature. Even to-day it is quite possible that dream-books and prophetical pamphlets enjoy a large sale; but a few years ago many were to be found in the catalogues of ...
— Children's Books and Their Illustrators • Gleeson White
... exhibited for the first time, long before the doors were open, the little back street was filled with a fashionable mob, including ladies of the highest rank. An admission by noble non-subscribers with notes, gold, and cheques in hands, was begged for with a polite insinuating humility that was quite edifying. A hatful of ten-guinea subscriptions was thrust upon the unwilling secretary at the door with as much eagerness as if he had been the allotter of shares in a ten per cent railway in the day of Hudsonian guarantees. And it must be observed that this crowd included among the mere fashion-mongers ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey
... for him.' (Every one familiar with the South, must have heard similar encomiums hundreds of times: each household appears to pride itself on the possession of some singularly admirable negro, whose capacity, honesty, and fidelity are vaunted with an air of conscious magnanimity edifying to witness. The desired inference is that the institution, productive of so much mutual appreciation, must be excellent. It never seems to occur to the eulogists that the good is exceptional, or that the praised characteristics ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... the unexpected, and that brings its joys and terrors, its laughter and its tears. Here a great deal of unrestrained human nature is given free play, and the results are exciting if not edifying. Let us spend an evening, but not a night—that is too much to ...
— London's Underworld • Thomas Holmes
... to Clement, and Cicero says the same thing. And sometimes the [Greek: gnosis soterias] includes knowledge about the whence and whither of man ([Greek: tines esmen kai ti gegonamen], Clem. Exc. ex Theod. 78). Some of the mystical formulae were no doubt susceptible of deep and edifying interpretations, especially in the direction of ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... truth in all that. Of course, I could give you a very different notion of how those things hung together. Perhaps they knew a few more of these edifying anecdotes. ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... man owes to him, than the stupid texts of the Bible and the Testament, from which, be the talents of the preacher; what they may, only stupid sermons can be preached. If man must preach, let him preach something that is edifying, and from the texts that are known to ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... but he did not consider it necessary to correct the mistake of his saintly visitor, and requested her to be seated. With perfect readiness she accepted the invitation, and began at once to discourse in an edifying way. ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... edifying strain the conversation flowed on until the evening grew late and the party ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne
... occupied by a Mrs. Hailstone, whose duty it was to show visitors over the house and explain everything as she went along, ghost stories as well; and being a remarkably affable lady, with a great gift of language, we had a very intelligent and edifying lecture in every room we passed through, now upon ornithology, now chronology, next on pisciculture and the habits of stuffed pike and other fish. But this was not all. Our guide was wonderfully well read in architecture, ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... edifying occasion, while Richard grinned and Dorothy rebuked him with a frown, "wedlock results always in the owner and the owned—a slave and a despot. That is by the wife's decree. The husband is slave and she despot, or he the despot and she the slave, as best ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... Christ [the Labadist church].... She loved her husband tenderly, but when God called him elsewhere, to the service of His work and children, she embraced His will therein with much love; which was especially edifying in her, since before this, when she was living in the world, she was wont to be in great anxiety whenever he was away from home on their own concerns. At Bremen, when a portion of our community was there, then at Altona, and here in ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts
... Hodder might have been likened to a Niagara for energy; an unharnessed Niagara—such would have been his own comment. He seemed to turn no wheels, or only a few at least, and feebly. And while the spectacle of their rector's zeal was no doubt an edifying one to his parishioners, they gave him to understand that they would have been satisfied with less. They admired, but chided him gently; and in February Mr. Parr offered to take him to Florida. He was tired, and it was largely because he dreaded ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... monastery where the monks lived in continual violation of monastic observance. Their Abbot was a holy man, a model of what a monk ought to be. But though perfectly cognisant of the delinquencies of his community, he was content to display to his subjects the edifying example of his own life, and to let it appear that he was aware of their doings and pained at them. He would croon softly as he went about the house old Hell's words: "Not so, my sons, not so: why do ye these kind of things, very wicked things?" But the monks took no notice of him. It happened in ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... be no thought taken for those who are won to Christ already? to whom He is in Himself the all-sufficient attraction, and these veils and gewgaws are but annoyances, or at least superfluities? Where is the building up of the saints, the edifying of the Body of Christ? Once was it said to Peter, "Feed My lambs;" but twice "Feed My sheep." How is it that so many are satisfied with a state of things in which the sheep of Christ are starved and disgusted for the sake of the lambs, or in many cases rather for the sake of ...
— For the Master's Sake - A Story of the Days of Queen Mary • Emily Sarah Holt
... Wadham, and smoke their honest pipes. They held certain of the opinions of "the Hebdomadal Meeting," satirised by Steele in the Spectator (No. 43). "We are much offended at the Act for importing French wines. A bottle or two of good solid Edifying Port, at honest George's, made a Night cheerful, and threw off Reserve. But this plaguy French Claret will not only cost us more Money but do us less good." Hearne had a poor opinion of "Captain Steele," and of "one Tickle: ...
— Oxford • Andrew Lang
... view of criminals chained in pairs and kept at hard labour would not be very edifying ...
— The Querist • George Berkeley
... I left him he was occupied in religious duties, in 'giving Francis, his servant, some directions for preparation to communicate; in reviewing his life, and resolving on better conduct.' The humility and piety which he discovers on such occasions, is truely edifying. No saint, however, in the course of his religious warfare, was more sensible of the unhappy failure of pious resolves, than Johnson. He said one day, talking to an acquaintance on this subject, 'Sir Hell ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... Prince Frederick. Our readers will remember the humorous epitaph on him, in edifying contrast to ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... as the head of a religious establishment, was flattered by the extreme regularity of the Lady Paulina in conforming to the ritual of her house; this example of spiritual obedience and duty seemed peculiarly edifying in a person of such distinguished rank. On the other hand, her womanly sensibilities were touched by the spectacle of early and unmerited sorrow in one so eminent for her personal merits, for her extreme beauty, and the winning sweetness of her manners. Hence she readily ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... not much to be questioned, but of all modern pamphlets what or wheresoever, the English stitched Sermons be the most edifying, useful, and instructive, yet they could not escape the critical Mr. Bayle's sarcasm. He says, 'Republique des Lettres,' March, 1710, in this article London, 'We see here sermons swarm daily from the press. Our eyes only behold manna: are you ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... difficulties relating to the race-problem. I know that the ordinary reader is supposed to prefer that all the thinking should be done beforehand, and merely the results submitted to him. But I cannot believe that he would find it edifying to look at half-a-dozen books upon the races of mankind, and find half-a-dozen accounts of their relationships, having scarcely a single statement in common. Far better face the fact that race still baffles us almost completely. Yet, breed is there; and, in its ...
— Anthropology • Robert Marett
... surface-truth enough in these things to save a wiser man. And between whiles I had to look after the savage who was fireman. He was an improved specimen; he could fire up a vertical boiler. He was there below me, and, upon my word, to look at him was as edifying as seeing a dog in a parody of breeches and a feather hat, walking on his hind-legs. A few months of training had done for that really fine chap. He squinted at the steam-gauge and at the water-gauge with an evident effort of intrepidity—and he had filed teeth too, the poor devil, and the wool ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... were established in every clime. 'Always ahead' seemed to be the motto of James Gordon Bennett, and surely enterprise was no small factor in the phenomenal success of the Herald. The tone, it has been said, was not always so edifying as that of its contemporaries, the Post and Commercial, still every article was piercing as a Damascus blade. To buy one paper meant to become afterwards one of its customers. It was indeed astonishing what a variety ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... another such book as makes the reading of it a luxury, even in hot summer weather. It takes us to an island home, in the chill regions of the North Sea, and introduces us to pastoral scenes as lively and as edifying as those of Oberlin, in the Ban ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... creatures in Berlin: he was called 'Cerf,' and the title of Commissionsrath had been conferred upon him by the King of Prussia. To account for the favours bestowed upon him by royalty, many reasons of a not very edifying nature were circulated. Through this royal patronage he had succeeded in extending considerably the privileges already enjoyed by the suburban theatre. The decline of grand opera at the Theatre Royal ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... thoroughness and erudition do not conflict with the nature of a confession as long as it is not mere cold intellectual reflection and abstraction, but the warm, living, and immediate language of the believing heart. With all its thoroughness and erudition the Apology is truly edifying, especially the German version. One cannot read without being touched in his inmost heart, without sensing and feeling something of the heart-beat of the Lutheran confessors. Jacobs, who translated the ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... was most sorely tried by Moses Wilkinson, a so-called Wesleyan Methodist, whose congregation, not a very respectable one to begin with, had recently been swollen by a Revival which had been accompanied by circumstances the reverse of edifying. [Lord Macaulay had in his youth heard too much about negro preachers, and negro administrators, to permit him to entertain any very enthusiastic anticipations with regard to the future of the African race. He writes in his journal for July ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... dividing off the additional books of the Septuagint or those attached to the Vulgate. These they called apocryphal, after Jerome's example. Though considered of no authority in matters of doctrine, they were pronounced useful and edifying. The principal reason that weighed with the Reformers was, that Christ and the apostles testified to none ...
— The Canon of the Bible • Samuel Davidson
... first committed; and that Thou didst so replenish him with the truth of Thy doctrine and endue him with innocency of life, that he was enabled, both by word and deed, faithfully to serve Thee in this office, to the glory of Thy name, and the edifying and well-governing of Thy Church. For this so great mercy, and for ail the blessings which, in Thy good Providence, it brought to this portion of the flock of Christ, we offer unto Thee our unfeigned thanks, through Jesus Christ our Lord, to Whom, with Thee and the Holy ...
— Report Of Commemorative Services With The Sermons And Addresses At The Seabury Centenary, 1883-1885. • Diocese Of Connecticut
... glowing terms a vision of the divine, that, to all but a Hindu, the picture seems not only incongruous but highly absurd and disgusting. One can hardly imagine that any mortal, to whom a vision of the divine being had been granted, could fail so utterly to furnish us with an edifying description of the same. ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... telephone-message sent to the bank to announce the murder of M. d'Ormeval, which stops all payments. The upshot of all this is that the police, if you persist in your schemes of revenge, will have in their hands all the proofs that are wanted against you and your brother. I might add, as an edifying piece of evidence, the story of the conversation which I overheard between your brother and yourself in a dining-car on the railway between Brest and Paris, a fortnight ago. But I feel sure that you will not drive me to adopt ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... was much mention of mountains, valleys, streams, and waterfalls, harebells and daffodils. These descriptions were interspersed with dialogues, which, though they proceeded from the mouths of pedlars and rustics, were of the most edifying description; mostly on subjects moral or metaphysical, and couched in the most gentlemanly and unexceptionable language, without the slightest mixture of vulgarity, coarseness, or pie-bald grammar. Such appeared to me to be the contents ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... various descriptions, but most of them were gentlemanly men enough in their appearance, and these were ranged round little tables in parties of five or six, or sometimes more. It cannot, indeed, be said that their occupations were particularly edifying. Dice, backgammon-boards, and cards were spread on many of the tables; punch smoked around with a very fragrant odour; and whatever might have been the nature of the conversation in general, the oaths and expletives, with ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... Litany is made specially appropriate by the insertion of the suffrage, "That it may please Thee to bless these Thy servants, now to be admitted to the Order of Deacons (or Priests), and to pour Thy grace upon them; that they may duly execute their office, to the edifying of Thy Church, and the glory of Thy Holy Name." Then follows a special Collect and Epistle. Before the Gospel the Bishop proceeds with the Ordination Service. Until 1865 the Oath of the Queen's Supremacy was ...
— The Church Handy Dictionary • Anonymous
... be, leaving aside psychological investigations that I have no authority for making, since I am not acquainted with Pepita Ximenez, it is quite certain that she lived in edifying harmony with the old man during three years, that she nursed him and waited upon him with admirable devotion, and that in his last painful and fatal sickness she ministered to him and watched over him with tender and unwearying affection, until he ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera
... before. An imposing group of churchmen stood ready to receive the ointment, including three prelates, an archbishop, and two bishops. These dignitaries carried the precious relic to the high altar, consecrated it, and anointed the king with a solemn ceremony highly edifying to the observers, and greatly gratifying to the vanity of the ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... know of any family among his parishioners at whose table he could find his daily bread for a reasonable consideration. Loring, as has been seen, was a man to whom the converse of his fellow-men, as found upon our frontier, was neither edifying nor improving. He preferred the society of his own thoughts. The rector, the General (Colonel Newcome, it will be remembered, always accorded the head of column to the church), the adjutant-general of the new department and one solitary subaltern of cavalry were the only men he had met ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... the priest who came was an Italian Jesuit, the Reverend Father G——. He held his little audience entranced with a fund of edifying stories and interesting replies to the questions asked. The calm serenity of the night, the gentle, refreshing breeze that came from a neighboring wood of pine-trees, the beautiful glitter of the flitting glow-worm, and the rich perfume wafted from the purple magnolia ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... its methods were providentially chosen by a process of spiritual selection. Its agencies are the accretions of the Divine purpose in its progress toward the salvation of the undermost, and the edifying of the whole body of Christ. To the production of its unique Christian institutions the exclusive devotion to the study of the peculiar conditions of these entirely distinct communities was necessary. There have been generated by this devotion and acquired ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 12, December, 1889 • Various
... with you, Amen. I being taken from you in presence, and so tied up, that I cannot perform that duty that from God doth lie upon me to youward, for your further edifying and building up in faith and holiness, &c., yet that you may see my soul hath fatherly care and desire after your spiritual and everlasting welfare; I now once again, as before, from the top of Shenir and Hermon, so 'now' from the lions' ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... labour, his lively imagination continually led him astray, and as I found amusement in his so doing, it proved to be an easy matter to induce him to wander off into scenes of gipsy life, which, however edifying they might be to my reader, would certainly not have the charm of novelty to the black-eyed lady to whom they were supposed to be addressed. However, as I read over from time to time to my Rommany chal ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... the name of Dickens, attracted, properly enough, huge crowds, who were willing to pay high prices to hear a popular author interpret his works. A species of lion-taming, which, if not exactly exciting, is harmless and withal edifying. The last two varieties of entertainment usually took place in the "Egyptian Hall," in Piccadilly, "St. James' Hall," or "The Gallery ...
— Dickens' London • Francis Miltoun
... know. You needn't teach me that. I do it not so much as a precaution as out of curiosity. I just itch to know what's doing in the world. And it's very interesting reading, I tell you. Some letters are fascinating—parts of them written grand—more edifying ...
— The Inspector-General • Nicolay Gogol
... convent like so many loose sacks of meal, enjoying to the full the dolce far niente which seems to be the universal rule of Southern climates. They ate and drank and slept and snored; they made pastoral visits through the surrounding community which were far from edifying; they gambled, and tippled, and sang most unspiritual songs; and keeping all the while their own private pass-key to Paradise tucked under their girdles, were about as jolly a set of sailors to Eternity ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... a good deal about the Jews, about their opinions, their religion, and about what had been going on during the last half century amongst them. Or grounds of policy he professed to accept the Jewish faith—of which an edifying example is given in the fact that, on one occasion, Bernice was prevented from accompanying him to Rome because she was fulfilling a Nazarite vow in the Temple ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... week Syd was always expecting to be summoned by his father or the first lieutenant, but he encountered neither; they seemed to have forgotten his existence. So he read below a great deal of light, cheerful, edifying matter upon navigation—good yawning stuff, with plenty of geometry in it and mathematical calculations, seeing little of his messmates, who were ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn
... how she had opened her door at dawn to let in her husband, during the great gale that was rocking the orchard trees and filling the air with whirls of blossom, that came down like a thick fall of snow, he made an observation which was felt at the time to have an edifying power in it, and which was incorporated with the story ever after. "And when I telled him how the grete stack of chimneys fell not half-an-hour after, over the very place where they had passed, and how they were in such a hurry ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... converted character, ain't he, Doctor?" sarcastically remarked Quick, who had been watching this edifying scene. "Nasty Eastern temper all gone; no Hebrew talk of eye for eye or tooth for tooth, but kisses the fist that smote him in the best Christian spirit. All the same, I wouldn't trust the swine further than I could kick him, especially in ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... An edifying pastime for an adult woman! I did not utter this sentiment, for she would rightly have styled me the most ungrateful ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... the more private room, and the reason of their withdrawal is, that, according to the Chaplain of Newgate, the practice of garroting was suggested to the English thieves by this representation of Indian Thugs. It is edifying, after what I have written in the preceding paragraph, to find that the only lesson known to have been inculcated here is that of a ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... of evil has been in a state of portentous, and, until the revival of learning and the arts, perpetually increasing, activity. The Grecian gods seem indeed to have been personally more innocent, although it cannot be said, that as far as temperance and chastity are concerned, they gave so edifying an example as their successor. The sublime human character of Jesus Christ was deformed by an imputed identification with a Power, who tempted, betrayed, and punished the innocent beings who were called into existence by His ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... me?" he inquired, as he came. "Don't let me interrupt, I beg. I know I'm an edifying ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... this sanguinary worship devoured, in solemn banquets, the quivering limbs of the victims. Let us not look for examples too far removed from the civilization which has produced our own. In the Greek and Roman world, the stories of the gods were not very edifying, as every one knows: the worship of Bacchus gave no encouragement to temperance, and the festivals of Venus were not a school of chastity. It would be easy, by bringing together facts of this sort, to form a picture full of sombre coloring, and to conclude that our idea of God, the idea ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... the Book. The book containing the writings of Ben Sira was known under a variety of titles. The Latin Church followed the Greek in calling it Ecclesiasticus. This term was applied to those books which were not in the canon, but were held to be edifying and proper for public use in the churches. The Hebrew text of Ben Sira enjoyed wide currency, was frequently quoted by the later rabbis, and was often referred to by later Jewish and Christian writers. It was almost completely supplanted in time, however, ...
— The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent
... instigated him, holding it for certain that it was beyond their power to injure him, since, should they even kill him, death would be an assured passage to life.[954] Thus, with quiet submission, and with edifying prayers which it would be too long to insert, the Admiral de Coligny passed those hours which his enemies subsequently, in their desperate attempts to justify or palliate the most abominable of crimes, represented as given up to infamous plots ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... standing so far below it! I, too, have on my bureau a bust of our great Poquelin, but Madame Desvanneaux thinks that this author's style is somewhat too pornographic, and has ordered me to replace his profane image by the more edifying one of our charitable patron, Saint Vincent ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... Badger has each time stopped at the house to see his mother (who, by the way, kissed me and called me "Sissie," to my great amusement) and there I have seen this poor young man. He seems so patient and resigned that it is really edifying to be with him. He is very communicative, too, and seems to enjoy company, no matter if he does say "her'n" and "his'n." Wonder why he doesn't say "shisen" too? The girls are highly amused at the description I give of my new acquaintance, but still more so at Mrs. ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... Judges, and | Magistrates of the realm, * especially for the [Lord] Provost | and Magistrates of this ancient [and royal] city [or burgh]: | that all these in their several callings may serve truly and | faithfully to the glory of God and the edifying and well | governing of his people, remembering always the strict and | solemn account which they must give before the judgement seat | of Christ. And for all other subjects of this realm, let us pray | that they may live in the true faith and fear of God, in dutiful | obedience ...
— The Book of Common Prayer - and The Scottish Liturgy • Church of England
... of Arabic to enable one to parse and analyse the verse of Al-Mutanabbi; enough of Church History to show us, not how the Church wielded the sword of persecution, but how she was persecuted herself by the pagans and barbarians of the earth;—of these and such like consists the edifying curriculum. Now, of this high phase of education, Khalid was thoroughly immune. But his intuitive sagacity was often remarkable, and his humour, sweet and pathetic. Once when I was reading aloud some of the Homeric effusions of Al-Mutanabbi, he said ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... celebrated her honeymoon—an event which must have taken place in the 'sixties or thereabouts. She is dead now. So is her husband, the prince of moralizers, the man who first taught me how contemptible the human race may become. Doubtless he expired with some edifying platitude on his lips and is deblatterating them at this very moment in Heaven, where the folks may well be seasoned to that ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... visible our wit or our understanding spiritually, by clear and crafty utterance of words, may be so well ordered and uttered: that these things corporeal may be coupled with things spiritual, and that these things visible may be conjoined with things Invisible. Excited by these causes to the edifying of the people contained in our Christian faith of almighty Christ Jesus, whose majesty divine is incomprehensible: and of whom to speak it becometh no man, but with great excellent worship and honour, and with an inward dreadful fear. Loth to offend, I purpose to say somewhat under the correction ...
— Mediaeval Lore from Bartholomew Anglicus • Robert Steele
... mortification, but he tried to appear unconcerned, and the services went on to their conclusion. Boys who sat near the windows stretched their necks to see whether smoke was issuing from the poor-house; and it is to be feared that the ministrations of the morning were not particularly edifying to the congregation at large. Even Mr. Snow lost his place in his sermon more frequently than usual. When the meeting was dismissed, a hundred heads came together in chattering surmise, and when they ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... reject stereotyped forms, and to insist on analysis and verification. Evidently all forms of suggestion tend to create an atmosphere of delusion. Pathos increases the atmosphere of delusion. It introduces elements which corrupt the judgment. In effect, it continues the old notion that there are edifying falsehoods and useful deceits. The masses always infuse a large emotional element into all their likes and dislikes, approval and disapproval. Hence, in time, they surround what they accept with pathos which it is hard ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... surprise of all who had known him, soon demonstrated that he was going to cheat a certain Old Gentleman—who had been considered his intimate friend during his long life—of his company at the close of it. His end in fact was most edifying. He made his peace with both God and man before he departed. To the last he remained persuaded that the horned face, which had peered at him through the ruins of Donoughmor, was that of the ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... leaving this palace, we went with Mr. Folsom to see the Brimenhoff. This is the place where the Dutch parliament meets. We went into the second chamber and heard the debates, which were not very edifying. The appearance of the members was very much like that of a New ...
— Young Americans Abroad - Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, - Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland • Various
... Ask anyone of sound, natural judgment, how many sensible, edifying, worthy women are found at once in a ball-room or concert-room, or any other rendezvous of fashionable society. The answer, if not convincing, would at least be surprising. And yet, every year, numbers of these golden-haired, blue eyed girls leave ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... with glittering arms, the long train of their devout companions, who bore aloft on their heads the sacred vessels of gold and silver; and the martial shouts of the Barbarians were mingled with the sound of religious psalmody. From all the adjacent houses a crowd of Christians hastened to join this edifying procession; and a multitude of fugitives, without distinction of age, or rank, or even of sect, had the good fortune to escape to the secure and hospitable sanctuary of the Vatican. The learned work, concerning ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... Mother,—Mercy will have informed you of the circumstances of our misfortune. Happily his cruel disease left the king in possession of his senses till the last moment, and his end was very edifying. The new king seems to have the affection of his people. Two days before the death of his grandfather, he sent two hundred thousand[2] francs to the poor, which has produced a great effect. Since he has been here, he has been working unceasingly, answering with ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... fifty-third page I came to a dead stop. Except quite incidentally neither Goethe nor Faust had as yet been mentioned. These fifty-three pages had been entirely devoted to what seemed to my rather unmetaphysical mind a not very luminous or edifying dissertation on the difference between Ansicht and Einsicht—between mere Opinion and true critical Insight; and, as far as I could discover, the only conclusion as yet arrived at was that the writer possessed an exclusive monopoly in ...
— The Faust-Legend and Goethe's 'Faust' • H. B. Cotterill
... Patty, seated decorously but unwillingly beside her father, was impatiently awaiting the entrance of the family, knowing that Mark would be with them if he had returned from Boston. Timothy Grant, the parish clerk, had the pew in between, and afforded a most edifying spectacle to the community, as there were seven young Grants of a church-going age, and the ladies of the congregation were always counting them, reckoning how many more were in their cradles at home and trying ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... edifying conversation, the pair arrived at a clearing on the river, containing a house and some out buildings, not far from its bank. These communicated by a private road with the public one, which crossed the stream about an eighth of a mile farther on. Turning the corner of the barn, Coristine saw ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... lawyer's instinct told him were essentials. The idea that Bassett could ever have been so stupid as to leave traces of any imaginable iniquities plain enough for Thatcher to find them after many years was preposterous. The spectacle of the pot calling the kettle black, never edifying, aroused Dan's ire against Thatcher. And Bassett was not that sort; his old liking for the man stirred to life again. Even the Rose Farrell incident did not support this wretched tissue of fabrication. He had hated Bassett for that; but it was not for the peccable ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... you to see everything that has part or lot in African frailty. Go everywhere, see everything. Bring your notes to me, and I will select such fragments of the broken commandments as suit my purpose, which is, as always, the edifying of the human race. Only this time I mean to purge it ...
— The Mission Of Mr. Eustace Greyne - 1905 • Robert Hichens |
