"Kindliness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... courage always is, combined with an equally admirable spirit of kindness and humanity. His pride, if we must call it so, undebased by the least tincture of mere vanity, was intertwined with a most exquisite charity, and was not inconsistent with true humility. If ever the principle of kindliness was incarnated in a mere man, it was in him; and real kindliness can never be but modest. In the social relations of life, where men are most effectually tried, no spot can be detected in him. He was a patient, dutiful, reverent son; a generous, compassionate, tender husband; ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... joy in living; she felt it and he felt it. And she was sitting very close. With an easy stretching of cramped muscles he slid his arm along the back of the seat and let it slip carelessly about her shoulder. There was a moment of delicious freedom and relaxation, of kindliness and friendliness and a thousand other little sensations, to say nothing of a spark of a thrill—when she moved easily forward, contracting ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... And there is a general and reasonable feeling that more use should be made of bands for recruiting. The ways of German musicians are perplexing. Here is the amiable Herr Humperdinck, composer of "Haensel and Gretel," the very embodiment of the old German kindliness, signing the Manifesto of patriotic artists and professors who execrate England, while Strauss, the truculent "Mad Mullah" of the Art, holds aloof. Dr. Hans Richter, who enjoyed English hospitality so long, now clamours for our extinction; it is even said ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch
... an excellent discipline. Nothing short of an earthquake, I believe, would teach some men kindliness and ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter
... not picture to himself a Nina grown grave and sad-eyed, perhaps furtively hiding her sorrow, fearing to encounter her friends. The Nina whom he had always known was a light-hearted and laughing companion, eagerly talkative, a smile on her parted lips, affection, kindliness ever present in her shining, soft, dark eyes. Sometimes silent, too; sometimes, again, singing a fragment of one of the old familiar folk-songs of her youth. What was that one with the refrain, "Io te voglio bene assaje, e tu non pienz' ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... have been) an utterly deboshed, insincere, decrepit, and decaying age, then one cannot but look on Monsieur Thomas with something of sympathy as well as pity. Take him as he stands; he is a fellow of infinite kindliness, wit, spirit, and courage, but with nothing on which to employ those powers. He would have done his work admirably in an earnest and enterprising age as a Hudson's Bay Company clerk, an Indian civilian, a captain of a man- of-war—anything where he could find a purpose and a work. Doubt ...
— Plays and Puritans - from "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley
... this letter we see that Lincoln ruled his own spirit; and we also behold the fact that he could rule others. 5 The letter shows frankness, kindliness, wit, tact, wise diplomacy, ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... weeks in Jane's lodgings; and before the end of that time, Jane and I had got upon the most intimate footing. It was partly her kindliness that endeared her to me, and her constant sense of continuity with the earlier days which I had quite forgotten; but it was partly too, I felt sure, a vague revival within my own breast of a familiarity that had long ago subsisted ...
— Recalled to Life • Grant Allen
... anything that it is not good for him to have known. He by no means feigns the good-feeling that he professes, nor is there anything affected in the frankness of his conversation; and it is this that makes him so very fascinating. There is such a quantity of truth and kindliness and warm affections, that a man's heart opens to him, in spite of himself. He deceives by truth. And not only is he crafty, but, when occasion demands, bold and fierce as a tiger, determined, and even straightforward and undisguised in his measures,—a daring fellow as well ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... she had portrayed on their first ride up the trail, and sometimes her conscience would sting her that she had failed to confide in him as Mrs. Kingdon had advised, but his gray eyes looked out so very straight and with such calm kindliness—the gaze of a man who has lived the simple life in the open—and with so little affinity to the eyes of the world-wise, that she found herself incapable of carrying out ...
— Penny of Top Hill Trail • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... in the hands of as blood-thirsty a looking Indian as he had ever seen, and a man who remained to him an inexplicable mystery. Who and what was this man? He scanned his face in the growing light. Strength, daring, alertness, yes, and kindliness, he read in the handsome, brown, lean face of this stranger, lit by its grey-brown hazel eyes and set off with brown wavy hair which the absence of a cap now ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... much time puzzling over Jack Fyfe. Once out of her sight she forgot him. It was balm to her lonely soul to have some one of her own sex for company. What Mrs. Howe lacked in the higher culture she made up in homely perception and unassuming kindliness. Her husband was Fyfe's foreman. She herself was not a permanent fixture in the camp. They had a cottage at Roaring Springs, where she spent most of the time, so that their three ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... her mother, was, beyond peradventure, rendered more wayward and more reckless by the mother's narrow view of life. The gracious Eleanor, on the other hand, was more liberal-minded, did everything in her power to get into touch with her subjects, and by her kindliness and strength of character was able to aid her husband in no mean degree in quieting civil discord and in consolidating the interests of ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... legitimate king from the throne—never more to return. How did the Irish act in that hour? Alas! Ever too loyal—ever only too ready to stand by the throne and laws if only treated with justice or kindliness—they took the field for the king, not against him. He landed on our shores; and had the English Fenians rested content with rebelling themselves, and allowed us to remain loyal as we desired to be, we might now be a neighbouring but friendly ...
— The Wearing of the Green • A.M. Sullivan
... might have done had he been the first instead of the second item on the programme. But as he stood there, a fine figure of a man, his keen, good-looking face lit up with a very agreeable expression of kindliness and of good-will, a wave of appreciation seemed to surge towards him from the ...
— From Out the Vasty Deep • Mrs. Belloc Lowndes
... soon won their parents by the charm of his address and the true affection he bore their sons, so much so that when they wanted a favour from the king they bade their children ask Cyrus to arrange the matter for them. And whatever it might be, the kindliness of the lad's heart and the eagerness of his ambition made him set the greatest store on getting it done. [2] On his side, Astyages could not bring himself to refuse his grandson's lightest wish. For once, when he was sick, ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... with feelings of sincere respect and admiration, he lets it be understood that his expectations were not realized. If the Manichean bishop of Rome had offended him by his rough manners, Ambrose disconcerted him alike by his politeness, his kindliness, and by the reserve, perhaps involuntarily haughty, of his reception. "He received me," says Augustin, "like a father, and as a bishop he was pleased enough at my coming:"—peregrinationem meam satis episcopaliter dilexit. This satis episcopaliter ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... move liking in human beings are the gnarled nodosities of character, vagrant humours, freaks of generosity, some little unextinguishable spark of the aboriginal savage, some little sweet savour of the old Adam. It is quite wonderful how far simple generosity and kindliness of heart go in securing affection; and, when these exist, what a host of apologists spring up for faults and vices even. A country squire goes recklessly to the dogs; yet if he has a kind word for his tenant when he meets him, a frank ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... with his quotations, though these are not always completed—at least, not in accordance with recognised authorities. As one of the ladies says, with that kindliness peculiar to the sex, "The Chancery Barrister is most original when he is making ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy
... that she had additional information to give him, but to renew her courage. Having called upon him for aid, she had in the usual feminine way decided to make her reliance upon him complete. And, under the influence of his reassuring kindliness, ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay
... but I think with instant hearty liking. My pupil was tall and dark, his hair a little long, yet not falling to his shoulders—somewhat feminine in type of feature and Italianate in complexion. But the mouth shewed breeding, the eyes kindliness; and, after all, these are the main features. I was especially glad to find myself taller than he ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... was older than her brother, and, at the time of our story, was just over thirty. She was not an unattractive young woman, though by no means beautiful. Her great merit was the kindliness of her disposition. She was not very clever, nor very animated, nor had she apparently the energy of her brother; but she was guided by a high principle of right and wrong; her temper was sweet, and ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... Brionne, but permitted him still to live at his court, a place which the Burgundian found himself too ill at ease to remain in, so he returned to Burgundy, to conspire against his own eldest brother. William was stern without hatred and merciful without kindliness, only thinking which of the two might promote or retard his success, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... she said now, but quite quietly. Robin did not know that a confidante would have made her first agony easier to bear. She was not really being confidential now, but, realizing Dowson's comfortable kindliness, she knew that it would be safe ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... verse and line. He did not at once take it. She had come upon him surprisingly, and now, while he stared at her, he was finding her surprising in herself. Under the brim of her hat her face showed gentle and soft, with something of a special kindliness; and, because others were watching her, she had a little involuntary smile ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... of the Rue de Bourgoyne, attracted by the peculiar cosmopolitan charm, the very undeniable talent for society, the extraordinary intellectual superiority of Mme. d'Albany; attracted, also, by a certain easy-going and half-motherly kindliness which seems, to all those who wanted sympathy, to have been quite irresistible. It was the moment of the great fermentation, when even trifling things and trifling people seemed to boil and seethe with importance; when cold-hearted people were suddenly full of tenderness and chivalry, selfish people ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... of the registration, and the character of the brain. It does not follow that the stoic has a better brain than the despised "sentimentalist." Either one of them may have a good one, and either one of them a poor one. Still, charity and kindliness probably come from the sensitive system which imagines itself in the place of the object that it pities. All pity is really pain engendered by the feelings that translate one into the place of another. Both hate ...
— Crime: Its Cause and Treatment • Clarence Darrow
... have to speak twice about this, Miss Melville," he said, with an appearance of forbearing kindliness, as he passed out ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... of the stampede (Fleet Street is within the City boundaries) men in the race took time for the exercise of human kindliness, when opportunity was brought close enough to them. The letter I took to the editor of the Daily Gazette was from an old friend of his who knew, and told him, of my exact circumstances. This ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... days of rich pleasure and sweet nights of rest, kindliness and laughter and the friendly word of casual acquaintances ... and over all, the ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... "pure womanly" in the face which has been held up to the country so often as a gaunt and hungry specter's crying for universal war upon mankind. The spectacles sit upon a nose strong enough to be masculine, but hide eyes which can beam with kindliness as well as flash with wit, irony and satire. Angular she may be—"angular as a Lebanon Shakeress" she said the New York Herald once termed her—but if so, the irregularities of outline were completely hidden under the folds of the modest and dignified ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... have been more generally beloved. He was the embodiment of kindliness and consideration for everybody. His domestic servants and workpeople were warmly devoted to him, and many of them remained nearly all their lives in his service. Only very recently one of his domestic servants, who had continued after his death in the service of a member ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards
... said I, as they met with the mutually level eyeshot of women who measure one another, "this is Helene—whom, for love and kindliness, we of the Wolfsberg call the ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... "education" of well-to-do boys is beginning, the working boy's education stops. For ten or eleven years he has been happy at school. He has looked upon school as a place of enjoyment—of interest, kindliness, warmth, cleanliness, and even quiet of a kind. The school methods of education may not be the best. Mr. Paterson points out all that is implied in the distinction between the "teachers" of the Board Schools and the "masters" of the ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... disagreeable. I think it was his continual irony which at last brought him to writing as if under a mask; whereas it would have been better to write out flowingly, musically, and lucidly. His mixture of satire and kindliness always reminds me of those lanes near Beyrout in which you ride with the prickly-pear bristling alongside of you, and yet can pluck the grapes which force themselves among it from the fields. Inveterately satirical as Jerrold is, he is even "spoonily" tender at the same time; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... the world." They were silent until at last Mr. Aikens, moved by some impulse of kindliness, for he could hardly help guessing how miserable the boy's thoughts must ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Air on Lost Island • Gordon Stuart
... No question but the novelist would have welcomed as a convincing proof of her 'meliorist' doctrine the progress made in her own homeland in the century since her birth. We know by personal experience the general kindliness and cheerfulness of our fellow citizens, their tolerance, their readiness to hope, their prevalent orderliness and self-restraint. We are thinking perhaps of a certain tendency to slackness, a dangerous ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... was married at the age of sixteen, was a clever and ambitious woman. From her her son inherited his intellect; from his father he derived what the Germans call Gemueth, geniality, kindliness, humour. By his two parents he was thus connected with the double foundation on which Prussia had been built: on his father's side he had sprung from the fighting nobles; on his mother's, from the scholars and officials. In later life we shall ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
... which was without a tincture of passion or querulousness. For she had from nature a wonderful contentedness of mind and meekness, and her affectionateness and winning ways not only pleased one but also afforded a means of observing her kindliness of heart, for she used to bid her nurse[192] give the teat not only to other children but even to her favourite playthings, and so invited them as it were to her table in kindliness of heart, and gave them a share of her good things, and provided the best entertainment ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... not until after the Senator had returned from the bunk-house. He had seen to it that Cheyenne had had a bucket of hot water, soap, and towels and grease for his sore feet. In direct and effectual kindliness, without obviously expressed sympathy, the Westerner is ...
— Partners of Chance • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... cannot forget it; my mind is made up, I cannot alter it, and my dear mother entirely approves of my decision. I thank you for your offer, and pray that you may have grace given you to forsake the sin which has made it impossible that there can ever be more than a feeling of sincere interest and kindliness towards yourself, from ...
— Nearly Lost but Dearly Won • Theodore P. Wilson
... ceased ringing. North Liberty, Connecticut, never on any day a cheerful town, was always bleaker and more cheerless on the seventh, when the Sabbath sun, after vainly trying to coax a smile of reciprocal kindliness from the drawn curtains and half-closed shutters of the austere dwellings and the equally sealed and hard-set churchgoing faces of the people, at last settled down into a blank stare of stony astonishment. On this chilly March evening of the year 1850, that stare had kindled ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte
... high cost of living are greatly aided by the natural kindliness of the people. I think I have never met simpler charity to strangers. For instance, in the little matter of appealing for street directions, I found the shawled women and the pale men would go far out of their ways to put me on the right path. ...
— What's the Matter with Ireland? • Ruth Russell
... but had all the appearance of forty, which was his patron's age. Spasmodically they entertained a good deal at the Red House, and Mark's preference—call it kindliness or vanity, as you please—was for guests who were not in a position to repay his hospitality. Let us have a look at them as they came down to that breakfast, of which Stevens, the parlour-maid, has already ...
— The Red House Mystery • A. A. Milne
... be noted, is the fundamental basis of good conversation. We must show habitual consideration and kindliness towards others if we would attract them to us. Bluntness of manner is no longer excused on the ground that the speaker is sincere and outspoken. We expect and demand that our companion in conversation should observe ...
— Talks on Talking • Grenville Kleiser
... are not ingratiating as a rule. But this one came from some rough but honest fellows, who had already shown that kindliness and tact may reside in a coarse envelope. The sailors of the Springbok, when they first boarded her in the Thames, looked on themselves as men bound on an empty cruise; and nothing but the pay, which was five shillings per month above ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... old-fashioned coat and hat rack while she went in at the hall door of the back parlor. Soon Roebuck himself came out, his glasses on his nose, a family Bible under his arm. "Glad to see you, Matthew," said he, with saintly kindliness, giving me a friendly hand. "We are just about to offer up our evening prayer. Come ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... the Presbyterians of the rich, low-lying lands behind, and am up among the Catholic people of the hills. I have felt quite at home with these kindly folk. They remind me of the kindliness of the Celtic population of another and far-off land. I like the sound of the Irish tongue, which is spoken all around me. I feel quite at home by the peat fire piled up on the hearth. The house where I am staying is that of a farmer of the ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... Without Words," the spirit of the Master is best shown. There the grace, the gentleness and the sublimity of his soul are best mirrored. And if at twilight you should hear his "On the Wings of Song," played by one who understands, perhaps you will feel his spirit near, and divine the purity, kindliness and excellence of ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... outbreak of long-smothered revenge betrayed but too clearly their own base natures. They thought him like themselves, and they knew themselves capable of nursing wrath to keep it warm through long years of apparent kindliness. They had no room in their hearts for frank, full forgiveness. So they had lived on through numberless signs of their brother's love and care, and still kept the old dread, and, probably, not a little of the old envy. How much happiness they had lost ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... conversation. Her two children came downstairs after her, and as she unfolded her napkin across her lap after grace she said, "This is my son, Alfred, Mr. Barker; and this is Edith." Barker took the acquaintance offered in silence, the young Sewells smiled with the wise kindliness of children taught to be good to all manner of strange guests, and the girl cumbered the helpless country boy with offers of ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... a glad reunion. Even Lady Maude was touched, as she met them in the courtyard, and with much more kindliness than she had been wont to treat Doll for some time, she kissed the upraised face; Manners received a stately bow. He, at all events, had much to be forgiven yet; but the baron, casting the last particle of pride to the winds, ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... "cornering of the market." These practices, which were regarded as so objectionable in the eyes of mediaeval traders, were frequently nothing more than what would be considered commendable enterprise in a more competitive age. Another class of rules was for mutual assistance, for kindliness among members, and for the obedience and faithfulness of journeymen and apprentices. There were provisions for assistance to members of the craft when in need, or to their widows and orphans, for the visitation of those sick or in ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney
... brings out first the motives of true kindliness. Saul and three of his four sons had fallen on the fatal field of Gilboa; the fourth, the weak Ishbosheth, had been murdered after his abortive attempt at setting up a rival kingdom had come to nothing. There ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... while): Maid, I tell thee beef, fairly cooked and aptly seasoned, is of itself a virtue whereby the body is strengthened and nourished, whereby cometh content, and with content kindliness, and with kindliness charity, and therewith all other virtues small and eke great; therefore eat beef, maiden, for ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... the presence of the most disconcerting fact in human experience, the kindliness of people you believe to be thoroughly wrong. She took the tray with both hands, gulped, and gave ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... confidence, and you will be compelled to take refuge in fits of sullenness—perhaps rudeness;—and then what becomes of that blissful state, where like you, every body expects, and so very—very few find happiness?—to secure which the most perfect union of taste and feeling—the utmost kindliness of manner, and a politeness as habitual as motion itself, are absolute requisites?—Have you no further arguments to offer in favour of this ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 275, September 29, 1827 • Various
... have them all here—the ape, the tiger, the pig, the motherly hen, the gamecock, the good ant; we are all, rolled into one. So the man of the future, he will be made up of many men—the courage of one, the wisdom of another, the kindliness ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... supper in Arlt's honor and that it was to be the first large affair of the season, in the hope of focussing public attention upon the boy at the very moment of his having proved his real genius as composer. Thayer appreciated to the full the gracious kindliness of the plan, and he had excused himself to Miss Gannion and hurried away in search of Arlt, devoutly praying, as he went, that the note of regret might not ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... Protestantism has ever been firm even to hardness against the self-indulgent, the idler, and the prolific, useless poor. The rich as a class and the people of the Abyss, so far as they move towards any existing religious body, will be attracted by the moral kindliness, the picturesque organization and venerable tradition of the Roman Catholic Church. We are only in the very beginning of a great Roman Catholic revival. The diversified countryside of the coming time will show many a splendid cathedral, many ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... of the world, yet in no bad sense. Indeed, beneath the veneer of fashionable life she possessed much kindliness of nature. She was capable of a good deal of cynicism toward those who she said "ought to be able to take care of themselves," and in this category she placed Clancy and Miss Ainsley. "I shall leave both to paddle their own canoes," she had said ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... enough poverty and distress in the poorer quarters to cause this excellent man often to regret that his resources were not even larger. He was a spare active grey-whiskered man of nearly sixty, with prominent and not very handsome features, though his face was full of frank and simple kindliness. ...
— The Red Triangle - Being Some Further Chronicles of Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison
... boulder-stones of the ascent to the path, he ventured to propose a little masculine assistance in a hand stretched mutely. Although there was no great need for help, her natural kindliness checked the inclination to refuse it. When their hands disjoined she found herself reddening. She cast it on the exertion. Her heart was throbbing. It might be the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... these instances of cruelty could easily be explained by the West Indians, who represented them as rare and isolated cases, and who maintained that the ordinary relation of master and slave was one of kindliness and not of hostility. He deprecated cruelty, and he deprecated slavery, both of which were abhorrent to the nature of Englishmen; but, conceding these things, he asked, "Were not Englishmen to retain a right to their own honestly ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... had generally been fond of him. Still, though Mrs. Belding's hair was snow-white, she did not impress him as being old. He reflected that there might come a time when it would be desirable, far beyond any ground of every-day friendly kindliness, to have Mrs. Belding be well disposed toward him. So he thought about her, and pondered how to make her like him. It did not take very long for Dick to discover that he liked her. Her face, except when she smiled, was thoughtful and sad. It was a face to make one serious. Like a haunting ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... one who is intellectually outgrowing very restricted social circumstances. The Baxendales were not wrong in discussing her as shy. But that phase of her life was now left far behind. Her extreme moderation was deliberate; it was her concession to the fate which made her a governess. Courtesy and kindliness might lead those whose bread she ate to endeavour occasionally to remove all show of social distinction; neither her temperament nor her sense of comeliness in behaviour would allow her to shrink from such advances, but she could not lose sight of the unreality of the ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... watching it. In the dim light of the room, his face had a kind of gentleness—a kindliness and bigness that watched over the night and reached out beyond it to the ends of ...
— Uncle William - The Man Who Was Shif'less • Jennette Lee
... more convincing than his words, though, indeed, Desmond had good reason to know the real kindliness that always lay behind ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... to be, up here. To find oneself surrounded by grass and flowers and trees, and all the kindliness of nature, to feel the breeze blow, to smoke one's pipe, and to remember that one was in a place uninhabited and unknown. A place to which no messages were ever carried except by ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... incessantly, and embarrassment and danger he foresaw as the outcome. Therefore, that suspicion might be lulled, he judged it wise to make overtures for peace. Most easily done. A little kindliness, a few evidences of consideration, a slight return of the old brotherly imperiousness, and Christian replied by a gratefulness and relief that might have touched him had he understood all, but instead, increased ...
— The Were-Wolf • Clemence Housman
... the intellectual character of the movement, and having the highest dislike and disdain for it in both aspects—Dr. Hawkins, Provost of Oriel, the last remaining disciple of Whately's school, a man of rigid conscientiousness, and very genuine though undemonstrative piety, of great kindliness in private life, of keen and alert intellect, but not of breadth and knowledge proportionate to his intellectual power; Dr. Symons, Warden of Wadham, a courageous witness for Evangelical divinity in the days when Evangelicals were not in fashion in Oxford, a man of ponderous and ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... subjected himself in sincerity to the good men he visited, and learned thoroughly wherein each surpassed him in zeal and discipline. He observed the graciousness of one, the unceasing prayer of another; he took knowledge of one's freedom from anger, and another's kindliness; he gave heed to one as he watched, to another as he studied; one he admired for his endurance, another for his fasting and sleeping on the ground; he watched the meekness of one, and the long-suffering of another; and at the same time he noted the piety ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... the common man would quickly display his inherent goodness and amiability; tenderness to our fellows, or fraternity, was therefore the distinctive trait of manhood. The irrepressible exuberance of Rousseau's kindliness overflowed from his novels and essays into a great stream of fashionable sensibility. During the years of {20} terrific stress that followed, during the butcheries of the guillotine and of the Grande Armee, it was the vogue to be soft-hearted, and even such a fire eater as ...
— The French Revolution - A Short History • R. M. Johnston
... as sensibly as sweet," said he, raising the flickering lamp, which burned before them upon a small table, and gazing upon her countenance; "and I will now tell ye, lassie, that if your features be not beautiful, there is honesty and kindliness written upon every line o' them; and though ye are a dependent in the house o' my enemy, I will trust ye. Try if I can obtain writing materials to address a few lines to my mother, and I will confide ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... circumstances to affect towards your wife the same boundless confidence that you have hitherto had in her. If you begin to lull her anxieties by honeyed words, you are lost, she will not believe you; for she has her policy as you have yours. Now there is as much need for tact as for kindliness in your behavior, in order to inculcate in her, without her knowing it, a feeling of security, which will lead her to lay back her ears, and prevent you from using rein or spur at the ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac
... saw before me suddenly her brown face and neck; she had fastened her apron a little low down in front, to be long-waisted, as was the fashion; the girlish contour of her thumb affected me tenderly, and the little wrinkles above the knuckle were full of kindliness. Her ...
— Pan • Knut Hamsun
... the dollar bill with a heroical gesture. "Here," he asserted, "is the Eagle. And by the little birds, I have not a doubt he meant charity and independence and kindliness and truth and the rest of the standard virtues. That is quite as plausible as the interpretation of the average commentator. The presence of money chills these little birds—ah, it is lamentable, no doubt, but ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... highest as well as the lowest, and the honest man as well as the hypocrite. The pictures of the roguish Friar and the self-denying Parish Priest, the Oxford Scholar and the Miller, the Physician and the Shipman, are painted with equal fidelity to life. In the breadth and kindliness of his view of life, Chaucer is a worthy predecessor of Shakespeare. Dryden's verdict on Chaucer's poetry ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... defiant ugliness. A hundred instances might be taken. The croaking noise of the rooks is, in itself, as hideous as the whole hell of sounds in a London railway tunnel. Yet it uplifts us like a trumpet with its coarse kindliness and honesty, and the lover in 'Maud' could actually persuade himself that this abominable noise resembled his lady-love's name. Has the poet, for whom Nature means only roses and lilies, ever heard a pig grunting? ...
— The Defendant • G.K. Chesterton
... be repelled by such acting as this. He did not talk much to me, but when he did speak it was with a degree of freedom and openness, and kindliness too, that plainly seemed to intimate he knew his words were music to my ears; and when his looks met mine it was with a smile—presumptuous, it might be—but oh! so sweet, so bright, so genial, that I could not possibly retain my anger; every vestige of displeasure ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... was laid upon her shoulder, but her head drooped again as she met Mr Snow's look, so grave in its kindliness. ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... in the palace of Nelse Ackerman, the king, had he felt such a sense of his own lowliness as the sight of this calm, slow-moving great lady inspired. She was the embodiment of opulence, she was "the real thing." Despite the look of kindliness in her wide-open blue eyes, she impressed him with a feeling of her overwhelming superiority. He did not know it was his duty as a gentleman to rise from his chair when a lady entered, but some instinct brought him to his feet and caused him to stand blinking as she crossed ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... young," said Villon softly. "Friends? most certainly. If we are not friends, who should be? Are we not both jackals hunting in the one pack, and jackal does not bite jackal." Then his mood changed with a swiftness which La Mothe soon found to be characteristic, a kindliness cast out the jarring banter from his face, and his luminous eyes grew wistful. "Friends? It is a good word, the very best word in the world. Friends are more than family or kinship, and not many care to call old Francois Villon friend nowadays. There was a time——" He paused, running his hand ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... The negative side of Buddhism, with its passionless calm and self-renunciation, is the only one that has been realised in the West, and the teachings of Mahayana which have borne fruit and flower, visible to all the world, of happiness, courtesy, kindliness in the spiritual attitude of a whole people, have never received the honour which was ...
— Buddhist Psalms • Shinran Shonin
... to divide the two parts of his nature, and bequeathed all his pride, his vanity, and his pretensions to his son, while he gave his light-heartedness, his buoyancy, and kindliness to his daughter, the partition could not have been more perfect. Richard Kearney was full of an insolent pride of birth. Contrasting the position of his father with that held by his grandfather, he resented ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... hammock; he had found time to tell her that, for the first time, he had held temptation literally in his hand and been able to conquer it. And she felt that Castle Lashcairn was not big enough to hold all the kindliness and happiness that seemed to be focussing upon it from all the round horizon. Faith in the logical inevitability of good had changed to certainty: it seemed to her, now, that faith was only an ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... that matter, with perhaps one exception); but to suppose that so accomplished a lover would accept a mere mournful shake of the head as a final refusal is simply too absurd. Miss FAY DAVIS made quite a little triumph of gentle gracious kindliness out of one of those potentially tiresome explanatory parts without which no mystifications can be contrived. Miss KATE JEPSON is a comedienne of rich grain, and gave a very amusing study of the hero's old nurse. Miss JEAN GADELL, that clever specialist in dour unpleasant stage women, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, June 7, 1916 • Various
... of small fingers, and some of his best comradeships had been with tiny boys and girls. Now, in an instant, all his sense of injured dignity fell away from him, and the watchers under the awnings wondered at the sudden kindliness in his face, as he grasped Mac's ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... delusive scene of domestic condescension and kindliness he passed to his Hall of Audience to consider official matters. Twice a week at sunset he appeared at one of the gates of the palace to hear the complaints and petitions of the poorest of his subjects, who at no other time or place could ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... qualities that are attractive in a sovereign: affability, gentleness, kindliness, generosity. She had a way of convincing every one of her personal interest. She had an excellent memory, and surprised those with whom she talked by the exactness with which she recalled the past, even to details they had themselves nearly forgotten. The sound of her gentle, penetrating, ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... Cowper's kindliness of heart is abundantly evinced by his treatment of a parish clerk, one John Cox, the official of the parish of All Saints, Northampton. The poet was living in the little Buckinghamshire village of Weston Underwood, having left Olney when mouldering walls and a tottering house warned him ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... talk so to me, Mr Clayton, I entreat you. I am disturbed and unwell to-day. Your illness has unsettled me. Pray command me. Speak to me as is your wont—with the same kindliness and warmth—you know I am bound to you. Let me serve you in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... by penitence, however, affords no ground for mitigation of judgment; and the kindliness with which Mr. Darwin speaks of his assailant, Bishop Wilberforce, is so striking an exemplification of his singular gentleness and modesty, that it rather increases one's indignation against the ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell
... should never have taken active steps to obtain the material to which this biography owes its principal value. I am under great obligations to Mr. Herbert Jenkins, the publisher, in that, although the author of a successful biography of Borrow, he has, with rare kindliness, brought me into communication with Mr. Wilfrid J. Bowring, the grandson of Sir John Bowring. To Mr. Wilfrid Bowring I am indebted in that he has handed to me the whole of Borrow's letters to his grandfather. I have to thank ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... gazed into the glowing embers; until at last he took a charred stick, and collected the embers into a heap glowing red-gold like a bouquet of fiery poppies; and as he did so, his handsome eyes gleamed with just such a reverent affection, such a prayerful kindliness, as must have lurked in the eyes of primeval, nomadic man in the presence of the dancing, beneficent source of light ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... thy gaze Turns in on thine own soul, be most severe. But when it falls upon a fellow-man Let kindliness control it; and refrain From that belittling censure that springs forth From common lips like ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... very frequently did things that were not "done" by Good People. But everything they did was inspired by a consideration for the comfort of others. They committed gaucheries, but the fount thereof was kindliness. ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... caused them to turn, and there he was, looking gayer than ever, a picture of health, strength, and kindliness, and clad in a most becoming outing suit ...
— Dorothy Dainty at the Mountains • Amy Brooks
... together thus; without some such bond of union no good will be done. The relation of pastor and people is so delicate and spiritual, the purpose of it so different from that of mere teaching, the laws of it so informal and elastic, the whole power of it, therefore, so dependent on sympathy and mutual kindliness that, unless there be something like the bond which united Paul and the Philippians, there will be no prosperity or blessing. The thinnest film of cloud prevents deposition of dew. If all men in pulpits could say what Paul ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... world who utters an unbroken strain of joy and contentment. His poverty was to him a constant fountain of satisfaction, and he frankly took the natural joys of life as they came, supported under every vicissitude by his religious sense of the goodness and kindliness of the One God, manifested in everything in the world that was sweet and genial, and beautiful to behold. It is strange that we have to go to the literature of Persia to find a poet whose deep religious convictions were fully reconciled with the theory of human existence which ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... sends greetings," he said, "and bids thee farewell for to-day now that she hath seen thee safe again among thy people." His own scowl belied the kindliness of ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson
... a word that volleyed at her from all directions, numbed and bewildered her: the multiple echoes of her own first utterance of the word. Why wasn't the world full of love, when love made happiness? Why did people hide their natural kindliness as if it were something shameful? Why shouldn't people say what they thought and act as they were inclined? Why all this pother about what one's neighbour thought, when this pother was not energized by any good will? Why was truth avoided as the plague? Why did this ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... the face by a piece of shell at Fredericksburg. From the spring of 1863 this nursing, both in the field and more especially in hospital at Washington, became his "one daily and nightly occupation;" and the strongest testimony is borne to his measureless self-devotion and kindliness in the work, and to the unbounded fascination, a kind of magnetic attraction and ascendency, which he exercised over the patients, often with the happiest sanitary results. Northerner or Southerner, the belligerents received the same tending from him. It is said that ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman
... and General Lee, during the meeting, sat in a pew with his military cape cast loosely about him. In a conversation that occupied the brief space preceding the call to order, he took part, and told with marked cheerfulness of manner and kindliness of tone some pleasant anecdotes of Bishop Meade and Chief-Justice Marshall. The meeting was protracted until after seven o'clock by a discussion touching the rebuilding of the church edifice and the increase of the rector's salary. General ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... peace, and all emotions pure. No sorrow there to make the vision dim, And wash the mellow ripeness from the cheek; No guilty deed to brand the heart with shame, And write its direful sentence on the brow; No rankling venom struggling through the veins, And blasting all the kindliness within, Till like a torrent bursting o'er restraint, It spread its desolation on mankind; But a pure regnant holiness and love, Directing impulse with most queenly sway To ends of tenderness and charity; A nature ...
— Eidolon - The Course of a Soul and Other Poems • Walter R. Cassels
... and give the most, that is, in order to live fully. The basis of health is internal cleanliness, and to attain this it is necessary to exercise self-control and moderation, as well as to cultivate good will and kindliness towards others. Kindness and love lubricate life and make the running smooth. Envy, spite, hatred and the other negative emotions act like sand in the bearings, producing friction in the vital machinery, which they destroy in ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker
... excellence of morality be denied, there is nothing for spirituality to aspire after, and nothing in God to worship. Years before I saw this as clearly as here stated; the general train of thought was very wholesome, in giving me increased kindliness of judgment towards the common world of men, who do not show any religious development. It was pleasant to me to look on an ordinary face, and see it light up into a smile, and think with myself: "there is one heart that will judge of me by what ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... overshadowed for a little, it has taken its place finally among the masterpieces of English fiction, along with Jane Austen and the Vicar of Wakefield. There has never been a more delightful and tender study of English village life, or one in which insight is so joined with kindliness. ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... weakness, too, for the bourgeois, and he has made M. Jourdain immortally delightful. There is not a really cruel touch in the whole character; we laugh at him so freely because Moliere lets us laugh with such kindliness. M. Jourdain has a robust joy in life; he carries off his absurdities by the simple good faith which he puts into them. When I speak of M. Jourdain I hardly know whether I am speaking of the character ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons |
