"Self-abnegation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and asserted itself successfully. It had been enabled to do so by Sir Charles's action. To him the matter represented the mere carrying out of a bargain; but friends were, as is natural in such a case, remonstrant, and he was accused of "needless self-sacrifice," of "Quixotic conduct," of "self-abnegation," of "your usual disinterestedness in politics," and the bargain was much criticized. A letter from Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice, congratulating Sir Charles on the stand he had made, added: "Not that ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... interests all centering at her fireside, forms a painful contrast in many a household to the liberal, genial, brilliant, cultured husband in the zenith of his power, who has never given one thought to the higher life, liberty, and happiness of the woman by his side; believing her self-abnegation to be ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... confused and conflicting claims of the modern family and modern industry render possible for vast numbers today. And this, although wide opportunity for personal and individual development was so sadly lacking, and the self-abnegation expected from women was so excessive, that the intellectual and emotional life must often have been ...
— The Trade Union Woman • Alice Henry
... and ammunition in the Society's name. He now found, himself superseded in authority, his services and self-sacrifice unappreciated, his drafts[9] dishonored, his motives distrusted. Nothing could show more strongly his devotion and self-abnegation than his action in the present crisis. Seeing the colony again deserted by the agent and in a state of discontent and confusion, he forgot his wrongs and remained at the helm. Order was soon restored ...
— History of Liberia - Johns Hopkins University Studies In Historical And Political Science • J.H.T. McPherson
... liberty, grace, beauty, charity, the inspirers of art and science, of music and literature, of justice and of religion, all are feminine. When man says: "Our Father which art in heaven," he prays as his mother taught him. Through the self-abnegation that was unconscious of its sacrifice, woman was to be the instrument for bringing human life up, on, to the God who, being spirit, could act upon a clay-bound mind only through the highest human thing that love could know. Men, ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson
... termed "sanctification." No mortal language can ever express how much of an addition it is; but there must necessarily precede this marvelous grace, a definite and absolute subtraction, a loss of all things for the excellency of Christ, a complete self-abnegation, which has been mentioned in a previous chapter upon consecration. Until this absolute loss of all things has been truly experienced, there cannot be obtained the gain of this additional experience. We cannot lay hold of the promised inheritance until we completely ...
— Sanctification • J. W. Byers
... congratulations and pleasant laughter. For three days they were lodged in the guest-chambers, and then the Prior asked them whether they stood firm in their wish to enter the Order. On their assent he expounded to them the severities of the life, the self-abnegation that would be required of them, bidding them consider whether they could face it; at the same time instructing them in all the customs and practices of the house. The dress was put upon them, they were ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen
... which led them to the danger and the excitation that they loved; and, having their good faith and sympathy, heart and soul, with him, he met, in these lawless leopards of African France, with loyalty, courage, generosity, and self-abnegation far surpassing those which he had ever met with in the polished civilization ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... as he saw it, that is, for the sake of duty, that Southwell thus endured. We must not impute all the evils of a system to every individual who holds by it. It may be found that a man has, for the sole sake of self-abnegation, yielded homage, where, if his object had been personal aggrandizement, he might have wielded authority. Southwell, if that which comes from within a man may be taken as the test of his character, was a devout and humble Christian. In the choir of our singers we only ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... more. In the matter relating to their deepest consciousness, no words had passed between them. She felt as if she were a widow, and hoped he would understand. His full recognition of her position, and acceptance of the fact that she did and must mourn for her lover, his complete self-abnegation, brought ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... at once. Then she turned upon him a face of radiant self-abnegation. "I will do anything you tell me. Only tell ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... to say pretty girl," said Miss Cringle, with calm self-abnegation, "don't mind me, say it. The captain knows what he's about. He told me you were a milksop; he said you were a good young man ...
— Many Cargoes • W.W. Jacobs
... life was gone,—and henceforward all personal matters were to her so indifferent that she scarce was conscious of a wish in relation to her own individual happiness. Through the sudden crush of a great affliction, she was in that state of self-abnegation to which the mystics brought themselves by fastings and self-imposed penances,—a state not purely healthy, nor realizing the divine ideal of a perfect human being made to exist in the relations of human life,—but one of those exceptional conditions, which, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... Middle Ages Christian Europe seems to have been striving, out of a strong, primitive, animal nature, towards the self-abnegation and the abstraction of Christ. This brought about by itself a great sense of completeness. The two halves were joined by the effort towards the one as yet unrealized. There was a ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence
... signs of that death, wherein our Lord gave Himself entirely to us, to live by His death, and to the Father of us all in holiest sacrifice as the high-priest of us His people, leading us to the altar of a like self-abnegation. Upon what that bread and that wine mean, the sacrifice of our Lord, the whole world of humanity hangs. It is ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... the greatest dignities cannot silence a man's own conscience. If, on the other hand, I had continued to seek fortune in a military career, which is surrounded by a halo of glory, but is otherwise the worst of professions for the constant self-abnegation, for the complete surrender of one's will which passive obedience demands, I should have required a patience to which I could not lay any claim, as every kind of injustice was revolting to me, and as I could not bear to feel myself dependent. Besides, I was of opinion that a man's ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... accused her of ambition; and yet she loved him; but love is not always absolute devotion and self-abnegation; love is not always a virtue; it is often the result of egotism; it is, as Madame de Stael says, one personality in two persons, or a mere double personality. Frances loved the prince royal, but not the less had she been dazzled by ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... a woman's natural tendency towards asceticism, self-extinction, self-abnegation. All through life she had made painful efforts to understand and follow out her duty. Ratcliffe knew her weak point when he attacked her from this side. Like all great orators and advocates, he was an actor; the ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... said nothing to him of my love. But great satisfaction was afforded to my mind by the fact that our love was so pure, and that each would be ready, if needful, to make a sacrifice for the sake of the other. But that self-abnegation did not, after all, extend to Volodya, for when he heard that a certain diplomat was to marry the girl, he was disposed to slap his face and to challenge him to a duel. It happened that I had only spoken once to the young lady, and my love passed away in a week, as I made ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... women are better than men in anything, it surely is in individual self-sacrifice for those of their own family. But I lay little stress on this, so long as they are universally taught that they are born and created for self-sacrifice. I believe that equality of rights would abate the exaggerated self-abnegation which is the present artificial ideal of feminine character, and that a good woman would not be more self-sacrificing than the best man: but on the other hand, men would be much more unselfish and self-sacrificing than at present, because they would no longer be taught to worship their own will ...
— The Subjection of Women • John Stuart Mill
... not leave unnoticed the beautiful self-abnegation which sends off Epaphroditus as soon as he was well enough to travel, as a gift of the Apostle's love, in order to repay them for what they had done for him. He says nothing of his own loss or of how much more lonely he would be when the brother whom he ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... Dr. Mercier further believes that the benevolence founded on religious emotion has its origin in sexual emotion, which is, again, extremely likely. This community of origin would allow for the transformation of one into the other, and supplies a key to the language of lover-like devotion and self-abnegation which is so prominent in religious devotional literature. The importance attached to dress is also very suggestive; for here, again, the element of sacrifice expresses itself in the cultivation of a studied repulsiveness ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen
... who is a first-rate writer, with ambitions in authorship, to devote himself to putting down things about some interesting person with the chance of their never being published? Very few people would have sufficient self-abnegation ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... symptom of a profound passion is an all-absorbing self-abnegation. The fondest dream of a heart really touched, is to make for the loved one the most extraordinary ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... fool to think that I could ever be anything to her, even a friend," he said to himself bitterly; "women are incapable of friendship. It is all or nothing with them; a blind self-abnegation or the coldest indifference. Devotion cannot touch them, unless the man who gives it happen to be that one man out of a thousand who has the power to bewitch their senses. Truth and affection, of themselves, have no value with them. How many people spoke to me of this Holbrook as an unattractive ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... had exchanged the virginal integrity of her life at Mrs. McKee's—for this wind-swept little house, tidily ugly, infinitely lonely. There were two crayon enlargements over the mantel. One was Schwitter, evidently. The other was the paper-doll wife. K. wondered what curious instinct of self-abnegation had caused Tillie to leave the wife there undisturbed. Back of its position of honor he saw the girl's realization of her own situation. On a wooden shelf, exactly between the two pictures, was another ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... his father, his rugged face shining in the ardour of self-abnegation. "The only pain to me was pain on his account, poor, foolish young man. Do you suppose his incensed words could give me any pain, or even his blows? 'Being reviled we bless; being persecuted we suffer it; being defamed we entreat; we are made as the filth of the world, and as the offscouring ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... outer manner seems, indeed, to reflect what we have ventured to call the gray tones of her life, and a certain weariness of routine breaks out even in the mechanical precision of her existence. Power, in the parochial as in the domestic circle, is bought by her at the cost of a perpetual self-abnegation, and it is a little hard to be always hiding the hand that pulls the strings. We may excuse a little forgetfulness in a wife when her daily sacrifice is wholly forgotten in the silver teapot and the emblazoned memorial which proclaim ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... long exile herself from her old home and her kindred none ever knew—at least none among her husband's unsympathetic family—for she was, as a Princess, too proud to complain; as a mother, cheerful in her devotion and self-abnegation. ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... be supposed that the Mexicans, oppressed as they were by the revolutions and disasters arising from their own character, were without any good and noble traits which might redeem the lawlessness from which they suffered. Many deeds of Mexican arms, of self-abnegation in times of peril, and of heroic acts in the face of deadly odds, have left glorious episodes in their history. It is to be recollected that the struggles in which they were engaged arose often from an excess of zeal for liberty, and a strong spirit of individualism which ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... conversation was all contradictory. In one breath, on the self-abnegation principle, he would say, 'I don't know any thing about paintings;' in the next breath, his overweening egotism would make him loudly proclaim: 'There never was but one painter in this world, and his name is Hockskins; he lives in my town, and he knows more than any ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... being and every energy of his mind and body, this man has indeed lost himself. Yet he lives in his art as the other has not, he has saved himself in a sense of which the other knows nothing; and exactly in proportion as he has succeeded in his self-abnegation, so far has he attained, as we say, immortality. There is not, then, one sphere of life in which the paradox is not true. The great historical lovers in romance, the pioneers of science, the immortals in every plane, are precisely those that have ...
— Paradoxes of Catholicism • Robert Hugh Benson
... of self-abnegation has rarely been heard of in history. It has made Regulus famous for all time. His advice was taken, the treaty was refused; he, refusing to break his parole, or even to see his family, returned to Carthage with the ambassadors, knowing ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... and the refuge from age-entrenched wrong and absolutism. To them, Lincoln, his life, his history, his character, his entire personality, with all its wondrous charm and grace, its sobriety, patience, self-abnegation, and sweetness, has come to be the very prototype ...
— Abraham Lincoln • George Haven Putnam
... her. He assures me he was "'orror-struck." Like a man, he admitted that he was conversing with "that—that there." I always like this part of the tale. His confession seems to him to have been the uttermost depths of mortal self-abnegation. Alas, the heiress of Soap-Suds Senior had no appreciation of the queenly attribute of forgiveness. She boxed his ears, and he never saw her again. "She was allus a spiteful cat," he observes pensively; "so p'raps the wash 'us 'ud ha' been dear at ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... Self-abnegation and austerity were now to take the place of pleasant frivolities and fashionable amusements. Her conviction was that her mind required the ties and bonds of Quakerism to fit it for immortality. Not that she, in any way, trusted ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman
... "Fransquillon," as Godin first styles them; but, save the feeble productions of Van der Borcht, the Jesuit Poirtiers, and the Dominican Vloers, we find but translations and imitations. Moons versifies some hundreds of fables. A half-sentimental, sickly style, consisting only of praises, of self-abnegation, of pious ejaculations, prevails. It is the worst of reactions;—the country, after its first outburst, had sunk into quietude, the lethargy ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... and that the preaching of a morality is as easy as the establishment of it is difficult. His business ought rather to have been, to take the phenomena of human goodness, such—for instance—as pity, love, and self-abnegation, which are already to hand, and seriously to explain them and show their relation to his Darwinian first principle. But no; he preferred to soar into the imperative, and thus escape the task of explaining. But even in his flight he was irresponsible enough ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... promise self-abnegation when self was wrapped up in another, and heart and soul were purified by a sweet example. But when the helpful voice was silent, the daily lesson over, the beloved presence gone, and nothing remained but loneliness and grief, then Jo found her promise ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... the river, beyond the sunset, toward an unseen bourne of peace and happiness, and her lovely face had in it a look of utter hopelessness and of sublime self-abnegation. The air was still. It was late autumn, and all around her the russet leaves of beech and chestnut fell with a ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... adherence to the dictates of justice and the rigorous promptings of conscience; and while devoutly yielding allegiance solely to the Triune God, to whose service he had reverently dedicated his young life, there were times when in almost ascetic self-abnegation he unconsciously bowed down to that stem-lipped, stony Teraph who, under the name of "Duty," sat a cowled and shrouded idol in the secret oratory of his unselfish heart. Are there not seasons when even the most orthodox wonder whether the Dii Involuti passed away for ever, with the paterae ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... her since she left it. No wonder then that she put down "two dozen children" to Mrs. Flanagan, and "four knit hoods" with the measles; or that a great blot fell upon "twenty yards red flannel," as the pen dropped from the hands she clasped together; saying with all the fervor of true self-abnegation: "I hope he will be happy; oh, I hope ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... that Sidonie envied Claire more than all else was the child, the luxurious plaything, beribboned from the curtains of its cradle to its nurse's cap. She did not think of the sweet, maternal duties, demanding patience and self-abnegation, of the long rockings when sleep would not come, of the laughing awakenings sparkling with fresh water. No! she saw in the child naught but the daily walk. It is such a pretty sight, the little bundle of finery, with floating ribbons ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... during intermission last Sabbath; but Marg'et Ann, having arrived at her own position by a process of complete self-abnegation, found it hard to know how to proceed with this stalwart sinner who insisted upon understanding things. It is true he spoke humbly enough of himself, as one who had not her light, but Marg'et Ann was quite aware that she did not believe ...
— The Wizard's Daughter and Other Stories • Margaret Collier Graham
... with a simplicity of confidence hard to be understood in a man of his antecedents. It may have been, however, that he recognized the inevitable in the disparity of years and in his wife's early training, and that he chose to cover her failings with a self-abnegation that was not without nobility. Upon such a tacit affirmation he set a final seal in a codicil to his will, well calculated to silence those who saw scandal in the association between his wife and his friend. "The copy of ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... should enjoy the adult form of amusement. But while the Professor grew more and more half-hearted in his protestations that he really didn't care where he went, Mrs. Marshall grew more and more positive that he must not be allowed to miss the music, finally silencing his last weak proffer of self-abnegation by saying peremptorily: "No, no, Elliott; go on in to your debauch of emotion. I'll take the children. Don't miss your chance. You know it means ten times as much to you as to me. You haven't heard a good ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... be said to represent the intellectual rather than the material side of the Socialist movement—there were many fanatics. This fanaticism showed itself in different ways—sometimes in the most admirable self-abnegation, in the sacrifice of wealth, position, and happiness; frequently in abnormal actions of other kinds, and most ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... actually exist are those of religious bodies, against whom a heavy war is being made at this moment; for the natural tendency of sick persons is to quarrel with remedies and often with physicians. France ignores self-abnegation. Therefore, no association can live except through religious sentiment; the only sentiment that quells the rebellions of mind, the calculations of ambition, and greeds of all kinds. The seekers of better worlds ignore the fact that ASSOCIATION ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... lead only to wrong action. It would cost him nothing to carry out his large, beneficent purposes. Indeed, they would add to his pleasures and enhance his reputation. She was but a woman, and saw no other path of escape from the conditions of her lot except the thorny one of self-abnegation. ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... the common homeland. There can be no real misgiving for the future when at the country's call man offers the strength of his life and woman her active devotion, she most of all, who has the greater insight and larger faith because of the life of austerity and self-abnegation. Even a solitary wayfarer in the Himalayas has remembered to send me message of cheer and good hope. What is it that has bridged over the distance and blotted out all differences? That I will come gradually to know; till then it will remain enshrined ...
— Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose - His Life and Speeches • Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose
... powerful effort he mastered his emotion, referring it to the impression made upon him by her appearance. He spoke also of sacrifices, which, even when voluntarily made, painfully wound the heart; of a self-abnegation which could find its consolation in the happiness of a friend, but which failed not to leave a sting in the soul that had cherished ...
— The Amulet • Hendrik Conscience
... grandeur of self-abnegation that fills the philosophy of humanity, we feel the contrast of strong human personality, which animates us with an inspiring sensation as we listen to ...
— Cobwebs of Thought • Arachne
... there is no true hope for ourselves or them save in the triumph of our sacred cause. Our stars alone form canopy wide enough to shelter the ever-accumulating ranks of humanity. We must, every one of us, learn the lesson of self-abnegation—it is the sublime lesson of the cross, learned by St. Paul, lived by St. John, worshipped by the Magdalene, and incarnated through the Virgin Mary—thus proving it is for all classes, characters, and sexes. He who will not learn it, is neither ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... hitherto uncontrollable steam. He stammered out words to the effect that it came in his way and he happened to find it; others had missed it; that was all; somebody had to stumble upon it. That is all very well, and we love thee, Jamie Watt (he was always Jamie to his friends), for such self-abnegation, but the truth of history must be vindicated for all that. It proclaims, Thou art the man; go up higher and take your seat there among the immortals, the inventor of the greatest of all inventions, a great discoverer and one of the ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie
... father was a generous-hearted, impulsive, talented, but uneducated man; my mother was a conscientious, self-sacrificing, intelligent, but uneducated woman. Both were devotedly religious, and both believed implicitly that self-abnegation was the crowing glory of womanhood. Before I was seventeen I was employed as a district school teacher, received a first-class certificate and taught with success, though how I became possessed of the necessary qualifications I to this day know ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... to doubt. For the Deity it speaks of is supposed to be an immortal God disguised as Man,— a God who voluntarily rejects and sets aside His own glory to serve and save His perishable creatures,—thus the root of that religion would consist in Self-abnegation, and Self-abnegation is, as experience proves, utterly ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... was strangely symmetrical. He was temperate, without austerity; brave, without rashness; constant, without obstinacy. His love of justice was only equalled by his delight in compassion. His regard for personal honor was only excelled by love of country. His self-abnegation found its highest expression in the public good. His integrity was never questioned. His honesty was above suspicion. He was more solid than brilliant; his judgment dominated his imagination; his ambition was subject to his modesty, and ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... undoubtedly to be attributed to the enthusiastic piety of St Bernard, abbot of the first of the monastic colonies, subsequently sent forth in such quick succession by the first Cistercian houses, the far-famed abbey of Clairvaux (de Clara Valle), A.D. 1116. The rigid self-abnegation, which was the ruling principle of this reformed congregation of the Benedictine order, extended itself to the churches and other buildings erected by them. The characteristic of the Cistercian abbeys was the extremest simplicity and a studied ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... their flesh, lacerated their bodies, inflicted all manner of torture on their frames, that they might purge away every evil desire, every wrong propensity, and conquer their material elements into submission to the spiritual. Deeds of lofty self-abnegation, rarely if ever known to modern days, were then common. Stern virtue, as virtue was then understood, was largely prevalent. The habits of life were devout, reverential, careful of sanctities, solemn and austere. Individuals and community lived in the constant remembrance of being strictly ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various
... God. Such were the reflections that passed through his mind before he could be induced to perpetrate this serious violation of the settled rules of a life, this single blot and stain on a career of unbroken self-abnegation. With a sigh, he took his ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... ascetic faces which the old masters loved to picture, worn into deep furrows of care by penitence and holy sorrow, though lighted with the triple ray of Faith, Hope, and Love. They have no sympathies with the saints and heroes who have been great through self-abnegation, for such lives are a constant reproach to their own sybaritical tendencies. Constantly mistaking the effervescence of passion for the fire of genius; viewing the sublime realities of religion only as fantastic dreams; seeing nothing but the gloom of the grave beyond ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... Thackeray had let the whole power of his intellect apply itself to a conception of the character of a gentleman. This man is brave, polished, gifted with that old-fashioned courtesy which ladies used to love, true as steel, loyal as faith himself, with a power of self-abnegation which astonishes the criticising reader when he finds such a virtue carried to such an extent without seeming to be unnatural. To draw the picture of a man and say that he is gifted with all the virtues is easy enough,—easy enough to describe him as performing all the virtues. The ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope
... had not the habit of refusing himself the things that were sweet to him. They went into the small dining-room. The luncheon bell had rung a quarter of an hour ago, and Miss Granger was waiting for her parents, with an air of placid self-abnegation, by an open window. ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... is, in my judgment, quite as incorrect; though the injustice may be less glaring. He says that the theory of natural selection is, in general, exclusively associated with the name of Mr. Darwin, "on account of the noble self-abnegation of Mr. Wallace." As I have said, no one can honour Mr. Wallace more than I do, both for what he has done and for what he has not done, in his relation to Mr. Darwin. And perhaps nothing is more creditable to ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... realm, no pity, no sympathy springing from the memory of her own offspring, moves her to kindness; but she goes at it with a demoniac fury, and would peck its little life out, if fear did not lend it wings. She has a self-abnegation great as that of human mothers. Her voracity and timidity disappear. She goes almost without food herself, that her chicks may eat. She scatters the dough about with her own bill, that it may be accessible to the little bills, or, perhaps, to teach them how to work. The wire-worms, the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... and associations of her early life had destroyed her faith in abstract nobility of character; self-abnegation she neither comprehended nor deemed possible; and of a stern, innate moral heroism she was utterly sceptical; consequently a delicately graduated scale of selfishness was the sole balance by which she was wont ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... hesitated as to whether this or that were the Kingdom of God—this shrinking dream of a world sufficient to itself, or this brightening vision—then the last light had come, and he had seen one to be victor by sheer self-abnegation, by contempt of his own life, by the all but divine power of an ordinary man walking in grace. There had been no rhetoric in that triumph, no promises, no intoxication of phrases, no overwhelming personality ...
— Dawn of All • Robert Hugh Benson
... arms as a rebuff from another woman. In her heart she saw the finer course, yet the little voices clamoured, told her she would be destroying the ideality of a delicate nature, spoiling something that could never be the same again: on the one side whatever there was of self-abnegation in her love, on the other ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... was the highest recompense that he could desire for the self-abnegation of which he had given such a noble proof, in condemning himself to a fisherman's life. To feel that he had been able to render his adopted family such an inestimable benefit was to him a thought full of sweetness ...
— The Waif of the "Cynthia" • Andre Laurie and Jules Verne
... far as regards astronomy, as will Ptolemy beyond rivalry [sic: no doubt some words omitted]. Believe me to be, Sir, with the profoundest respect, etc. The work is the result of thirty-five years' travel and observation, labor, expense, and self-abnegation." ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... engaged in commerce and manufacture. And here emerged all the religious teachers who have most powerfully influenced mankind, for it was in Asia in an unknown antiquity that the Persian Zoroaster taught the dualism of good and evil; that the Indian Gautama 600 years before Christ declared that self-abnegation was the path to a dreamless Nirvana; that less than a century later the Chinese Lao-tse enunciated the mysteries of Taoism and Confucius uttered his maxims regarding the five earthly relations of man, to be followed ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... I shall be long," murmured Ermine, a vivid colour flashing forth upon her cheek, and leading the question from herself. "Just suppose you did carry out this fierce act of self-abnegation, what do you think ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... The self-abnegation implied in these extracts must not, however, be interpreted too literally, for the editorial "dico" on numerous pages, and even an occasional chapter marked "Propria opinio," testify to the fact that Gilbert had opinions of his own, and was ready on occasion to furnish them to ...
— Gilbertus Anglicus - Medicine of the Thirteenth Century • Henry Ebenezer Handerson
... powers, and in which he is certain to "bring down the house." Completely carried away by his emotions, he began to turn the sermon over in his head. First of all he sought for a text; not this one, nor that one, but a few words breathing the very spirit of Christ's self-abnegation. He soon found what he wanted: "For whosoever will save his life, shall lose it; and whosoever will lose his life for My sake, shall find it." The unearthly beauty of the thought and the divine simplicity of its ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris
... permanence in theatrical history. There were many subtle beauties in it. The illimitable tenderness, back of the sweet dignity, in the betrothal of Virginia to Icilius; the dim, transitory, evanescent touch of presentiment, in the forecasting of the festival joys that are to succeed the war; the self-abnegation and simple homeliness of grief for the dead Dentatus; the alternate shock of freezing terror and cry of joy, in the camp scene—closing with that potent repression and thrilling outburst, "Prudence, but no patience!"—a situation and ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... long wished to believe, he found that he believed. He spoke gustily, in broken incomplete sentences, but with all his heart and strength, of this new faith within him. He spoke of the greatness of self-abnegation, of his belief in an immortal life of Humanity in which we live and move and have our being. His voice rose and fell, and the recording appliances hummed as he spoke, dim attendants watched him ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... he would keep all dainty bits for himself, leaving the scraps for his devoted mate, who would wait meekly to eat what he chose to leave. She made up for this wifely self-abnegation by frequenting the hen houses. She would watch patiently by the side of a hen on her nest, and as soon as an egg was deposited, would remove it for her luncheon. She liked raw eggs, and six were her ...
— Adopting An Abandoned Farm • Kate Sanborn
... said, in reply to sympathetic greeting, "I am a little hipped; situation growing too heavy for me. Patriotism all very well; public spirit desirable; self-abnegation, as OLD MORALITY says, is the seed of virtue. But you may carry spirit of self-sacrifice too far. Read my speech at dinner to HARTINGTON, of course? Put it in the right light, don't you think? We Dissentient Liberals, as they call us, are ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, May 24, 1890 • Various
... of unselfishness, whereby he elects to share the offence and punishment of Eve, is a vice in him, a "bad compliance." Self-abnegation, the duty of Eve, is hardly within the right of Adam; and Dr. Johnson expressed a half-truth in violently paradoxical terms when he said that Milton "thought woman made only for obedience and man only for rebellion." It ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... night the air seemed stifling and unwholesome. After all, was he making the best of his life? He had started a great work. Hundreds and thousands of his fellow creatures would be the better for it. So far all was well enough. But personally—was this entire self-abnegation necessary?—was he fulfilling his duty to himself? was he not rather sacrificing his future to a prejudice—an idea? In any case he knew that it was too late to retract. He had renounced his proper position in life, it was too late for him now to claim it. And ...
— A Prince of Sinners • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... modelled with great power and freedom, showing that Donatello still possessed the vigour and penetration for which the Campanile prophets are notable. The head is full of character; not perhaps what one would expect from the apostle of self-abnegation: but it is determined, strong in the mouth and broad chin. It was, of course, only meant to be seen a few feet from the ground, and the lines do not compare in depth with the Habbakuk or the Zuccone; but there is none the less an analogy in the manner by which Donatello calls in the ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford
... did not forget his promise to have his granddaughters call upon Mercedes. Now and then they sent her tickets for church fairs. But it takes more love than most women have for each other to give the tact, the self-abnegation, that such unequal relations, to be permanent, require. The momentary gush of sympathy that the Bowdoin girls felt, upon their grandfather's account of Sadie's loneliness, was chilled at the first haughty word Mercedes gave them. ...
— Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... collar broader and lower in the neck. At thirteen she was beautiful enough to startle one, they say, but that was nothing; she spent time and care upon these things, as if, like other women, her fate seriously depended upon them. There is no self-abnegation like that of ...
— Balcony Stories • Grace E. King
... who thus for a valuable consideration consents to waive all his personal feelings, will even carry his self-abnegation so far as to be present and look on at the murder of his kinsman. But true to his principles he will see to it that the thing is done decently and humanely. When the struggle is nearly over and the man is down, writhing on the ground with the murderers busy about him, his loving ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... in private life, not early trained to the self-abnegation demanded of princesses, the Empress Eugenie did not bring into her new sphere all the aplomb and seriousness about little things which are early inculcated on ladies brought up to the profession of royalty. The career ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... feeling, are fully catered for; and those superstitions which the majority of mankind still love in their hearts, though they are somewhat ashamed of them, are allowed to luxuriate unchecked. Further, Catholicism encourages and blesses that esprit de corps which has produced the brightest triumphs of self-abnegation as well as the darkest crimes of cruel bigotry in human history. A Church which unites these advantages is in no danger of falling into insignificance, even if the best intellect and morality of the age are estranged from it. It may even have a great future as the nucleus of a ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... especially full of fears, and, it must be owned, especially inimical to all Mary's wishes. She was the one who had perhaps been most domineering to her brother's wife, and she was certainly the one whose domination Mary resisted with the most settled determination. There was a self-abnegation about Lady Sarah, a downright goodness, and at the same time an easily-handled magisterial authority, which commanded reverence. After three months of residence at Manor Cross, Mary was willing to acknowledge that Lady Sarah was more than a sister-in-law,—that her nature partook ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... Confucius, the self-abnegation of Gautama, the lofty idealism of Zoroaster, may be fitly commemorated and perhaps magnified by human monuments or ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane
... is a touch of protection and maternal affection in the way in which Ernest Daudet regards his younger brother, and the latter never mentions his early struggles without recalling the self-abnegation, generous kindliness, and devotion of "mon frere." The two went through some hard times together. "Ah!" says the great writer, speaking of those days, "I thought my brother passing rich, for he earned seventy-five ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III., July 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... how good or how holy you may be, if you look Christward until you see the depths of his submission to the Father, the length of his love for souls, the heights of his lofty purity and unworldliness, the tenderness of his sympathy, the richness of his communion with the Father, his self-abnegation, his humility, and his unswerving faithfulness, your soul will feel itself so immeasurably beneath Christ that you can not help longing to be more like him. It will create in your soul an inexpressible aspiration to draw further ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor
... key-notes of the two characters, therefore took, by the action of a moral law which is often very odd in its effects, certain measures that were contrary to their respective natures. The selfish man put on self-abnegation; the man who thought chiefly of others took refuge on the Aventinus of pride. That phenomenon is often seen in political life. Men frequently turn their characters wrong side out, and it sometimes happens that the public is unable to tell ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... heroism greater than that which led the martyrs of old to the stake, or the brave women in the reign of terror to the guillotine! Their inspiration to bravery was patent to all around: their cause was a lofty one, and they were apostles of that high creed of self-abnegation which leaves behind a memory in the hearts of all noble men and women. But there are other pangs quite noiseless: there are other martyrs who suffer without the sign, who cannot even confess the reason for the high faith that ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... Russia, who had set their wits to match his. Some of them were ugly and clever, some were stupid and beautiful, but they had all been dangerous. He had passed them by. No woman in the world that he had ever known had had the nobility of spirit, the courage, the self-abnegation ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... that I have heard of Anna Stone's life speaks more clearly of the depth of real self-abnegation,—perfect obliteration of self, in fact—and the secret of her power in winning souls where others failed to win, than this story I am now to tell you. Several years ago, before Anna returned home from America, an old woman about sixty-four years of age, was engaged to do sewing for ...
— Notable Women Of Modern China • Margaret E. Burton
... interest is perfectly legitimate. The love of self cannot be condemned. The Savior himself has enjoined us to love our neighbor as ourselves. To love him more than ourselves is a very high and beautiful virtue. It is the self-abnegation which inspired Christian heroes. But heroism is rare, and cannot be imposed, nor taken, as a rule. Personal interest is a powerful stimulant, and the superior harmony of social relations makes it ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... Persons of the sterner type of mind, caring comparatively little for the physical comforts and gracious amenities of life, and possessed of a strong sense of duty and decorum—inclined, perhaps, not only to piety and self-abnegation, but also to be somewhat dour and uncompromising—were naturally attracted to Stoicism. Those of the complementary character preferred the doctrines of Epicurus. The Stoics were the Pharisees, the Epicureans ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... been severe in her judgment of a few mothers who worried about their sons and wanted to get them exempt in some way. But these stern loyal mothers who stood in close ranks with heavy lines of sacrifice upon their faces, tears on their cheeks, love and self-abnegation in their eyes, gave her a new view of the world. These were the ones who would be in actual poverty, some of them, without their boys, and whose lives would be empty indeed when they went forth. Ruth Macdonald had never before realized the suffering this war was causing individuals until ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill
... and even opposite dogmatic convictions may be, and are, religiously one. Accordingly, he maintains that the essence of religion must lie in 'something profounder than ecclesiastical and dogmatic considerations. And could we get at that something—call it spiritual life, godliness, holiness, self-abnegation, surrender of the soul to God; or, better still, love and loyalty to Christ as the one Redeemer and Lord of the spirit—could we pierce deeper than the notions of the understanding to that strange, sweet, all-subduing temper and habit of spirit, that climate and ...
— Western Worthies - A Gallery of Biographical and Critical Sketches of West - of Scotland Celebrities • J. Stephen Jeans
... ministers, deacons, and Sabbath-school workers, give proof that her life, for over a quarter of a century, during which she incessantly toiled for Christ, were years of holy and unremitting industry, and holy consecration in the service of Him whose whole life was one of self-sacrifice and self-abnegation. "For He came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom ...
— Gathering Jewels - The Secret of a Beautiful Life: In Memoriam of Mr. & Mrs. James Knowles. Selected from Their Diaries. • James Knowles and Matilda Darroch Knowles
... self-abnegation and prudence to their extreme limits, went to the general's quarters, and having warmly thanked him, laid before him the dangers to which he would expose himself by running counter to the opinions of those who had had their own way in the city for the ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... it as a scheme of a number of friends, who had requested me to go about and propose it." This method he found so well suited to the production of results that he habitually followed it in his subsequent undertakings. It was sound policy; the self-abnegation helped success; the success secured personal prestige. It was soon observed that when "a number of friends" or "a few gentlemen" were represented by Franklin, their purpose was usually good and was pretty sure to be carried through. Hence ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... in any aspect, must be regarded as a gloomy religion. It is hard enough to crucify all natural desires and lead a life of self-abnegation; but for the spirit, in order to be purified, to be obliged to enter into body after body, each subject to disease, misery, and death, and then after a long series of migrations to be virtually annihilated as the highest consummation of happiness, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... earning our own way in the world, active, live intelligences, writing books, nursing in hospitals, cleaning the plague-spots out of the cities, influencing in a thousand ways the uplift of that coarser brute man and besides all this practicing a thousand acts of self-abnegation in the home. Keeping man's house, cooking his food, ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... pattering about for a time, remonstrating, and apologizing, and trying 'to smooth down,' and 'hush up,' and mollify, and keep peace between the offending parties. He stands between the blunt, straightforward manliness of the honest Kent on the one hand, and the sycophantic servility and self-abnegation, which knows no will but the master's, as represented by the Steward, on ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... for the fact that the strength of vice in her father becomes an equal strength of virtue in her. Abused since her babyhood, doing the work of a man among degrading companionships, she yet remains capable of the noblest self-abnegation. Mrs. Burnett delights in heroes and heroines who are thus loftily at variance with their surroundings. Her stories are romantic in spirit, offering little to the lover of psychologic analysis. Her character-drawing ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... freedom, neither mine nor thine, but a oneness that would bring all relations into harmony with itself. The very essence of love is humility, and at the same time its glory is that it abolishes all laws, all rights, all powers, and is to itself alone law, right, and power. By the completeness of self-abnegation may the footsteps of love be traced. This partially the author recognizes, choosing it for the conclusion of the whole matter, but erring in that he makes it come with resistance and reluctance, the conquest of love, instead ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... controlled by his one pair of hands. His life is all one great theoretical mistake, yet he makes fewer practical mistakes than any other man, so situated, whom the world ever saw. Those he does make are not on the side of self. He merges his whole personality in the Church, with a self-abnegation which would establish in business a whole century of martyrs ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... directed to "Mr. Osmund Derwent, Esquire." And then, for one minute, human nature had its way, and Phoebe's head was bowed over the folded note. There was no one to see her, and she let her heart relieve itself in tears. Ay, there was One, who took note of the self-abnegation which had been learned from Him. Phoebe knew that Osmund Derwent did not love her. Yet was it the less hard on that account to resign him to Rhoda? For time and circumstances might have shown him the comparatively alloyed metal of the one, and ...
— The Maidens' Lodge - None of Self and All of Thee, (In the Reign of Queen Anne) • Emily Sarah Holt
... she would deny them, now came to her and spoke of "the sore pity of her treachery." Could they say otherwise since they were the voices of her own heart? And could Jeanne fail to listen to them since she had always listened to them whenever they had counselled her to sacrifice and self-abnegation? ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... strong, wise, and loving words were needed, it was then; if ever mortal man had living texts before his eyes to illustrate and illuminate his thought, it was there; and if ever hearts were prompted to devoutest self-abnegation, it was in the work which brought us to anything but a Chapel of Ease. But some spiritual paralysis seemed to have befallen our pastor; for, though many faces turned toward him, full of the dumb hunger ...
— Hospital Sketches • Louisa May Alcott
... feelings towards him were purely potential. I did him the simple justice to believe that his self-abnegation was sincere. But, with your practical, cynical little mind, darling, you are hardly capable of—excuse me for saying so—of appreciating the real value and ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, November 28, 1891 • Various
... country. So far are they, moreover, from cherishing animosity or desiring to magnify the Fatherland that they modestly label them "Westminster Chimes." It is pleasant to record that the Board of Trade, exhibiting the same spirit of self-abnegation, has insisted on substituting the time-honoured ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 31, 1920 • Various
... slowly that a sigh of emotion passes through the great throng of spectators. Christ even washes the feet of Judas. Was there in all time or eternity past, or will there be in all time or eternity to come, such a scene of self-abnegation? The Lord of heaven and earth stooping to such a service which must have astounded the heavens more than its dramatisation overpowered us! What a stunning rebuke to the pride and arrogance and ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... fraternal relation. The fact of it did come, and, as she feared, would inevitably continue to come between her and her father, marring to an appreciable degree their mutual confidence and sympathy. At Deadham he had braced himself to deal with the subject in a spirit of rather magnificent self-abnegation. But the effort had cost him more than she quite cared to estimate, in lowered pride and moral suffering. It had told on not only his mental but his physical health. Now that he was in great measure restored, his humour ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... that Mr. Decker shamelessly broke his promise. That night, in the very goodness of his heart and uxorious self-abnegation, he, like all devoted husbands, not only offered himself, but his friend and benefactor, as a sacrifice on the family-altar. It is only fair, however, to add that he spoke with great fervor of the generosity of Mr. Oakhurst, and dwelt ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... founded 'prizes for virtue,' which are frequently given to zealous and exemplary domestic servants. But ordinary good conduct is not sufficient; there must be some act or acts of great devotion, and truly Christian self-abnegation." ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... the majesty and power of his eloquence at an Athenian mob twenty-two hundred years ago. No modern sculpture equals the ancient; no modern song or eloquence; and then there have come down to us lessons in patriotism, devotion to duty, self-abnegation and valor, which will thrill great hearts as ...
— The Wedge of Gold • C. C. Goodwin
... is a still more perfect example of the Spanish type of Mysticism. His fame has never been so great as hers; for while Teresa's character remained human and lovable in the midst of all her austerities, Juan carried self-abnegation to a fanatical extreme, and presents the life of holiness in a grim and repellent aspect. In his disdain of all compromise between the claims of God and the world, he welcomes every kind of suffering, and bids us choose ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... demand immediate complete socialization of Russia, leaving that to a gradual process of evolution and change of existing conditions. In the ten years preceding the first revolution thousands of young intellectuals joined the party and fought the tsar's regime. They showed a degree of self-abnegation found only in people whose heart is kindled with the true spirit of devotion to a great cause. The revolution of 1905 would never have taken place but for their organized "terror from below." The high regard held for them by the widest ...
— The Russian Revolution; The Jugo-Slav Movement • Alexander Petrunkevitch, Samuel Northrup Harper,
... in the best way, and may not work itself clear of the besetting temptation of personal gifts and of circumstances in a first or even second work. It is something capable of education and accomplishment, and the patience with which it submits itself to this needful schooling and self-abnegation is one of the surest tests of its actual possession. Could even Shakspeare's poems and earlier plays come before us for judgment, we could only say of them, as of Keats's "Endymion," that they showed affluence, but made no sure prophecy ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... generally, as he turns out to be the father, not the lover, of the leading lady. It has remained for Mr. CARTON to give us in an original three-act play a deformed hero, who has to sacrifice love to duty, or, rather, to let self-abnegation triumph over the gratification of self. This self-sacrificing part is admirably played by Mr. GEORGE ALEXANDER, whose simple make-up for the character is irreproachable. That something more can still be made by him of the scene of his great temptation I feel sure, and if he does this he will have ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., Nov. 22, 1890 • Various
... and the scorn of her act that she had felt at intervals all through the fall and winter—that had prevented any real enjoyment of her stolen honors and kept her from writing home about them,—had deepened into bitter self-abnegation. But Jim had come and gone. He still believed in her, for he did not know what she had done. Nobody knew. Nobody would ever know now. It was absurd to fear discovery after all these months. So Eleanor had argued, throwing care and remorse to the ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde
... between the individuals of different sexes who peopled the earth; a passing sentimentality could exist, or carnal caprice, but seldom love. The poor invalid Lucy was his affinity; they met and they loved. In their pity for human miseries, their hatred of inequalities and injustice, their self-abnegation in the cause of the humble and unfortunate they were equal; they were not only united by their hearts ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... foolish souls and false! who loudly cried 'True chivalry no longer breathes in time.' Look round us now; how wondrous, how sublime The heroic lives we witness; far and wide Stern vows by sterner deeds are justified; Self-abnegation, calmness, courage, power, Sway, with a rule august, our stormy hour, Wherein the loftiest hearts have wrought and died— Wrought grandly, and died smiling. Thus, O God, From tears, and blood, and anguish, thou hast brought The ennobling act, ...
— Poets of the South • F.V.N. Painter
... one of control and of verification, to hinder souls from being lost in the depths of illusion and in the deceits of pride. But besides this, humility, obedience, self-abnegation, virtues dear by excellence to the heart of Jesus Christ, are impossible without due submission to the external authority. When one believes only in himself, he obeys only himself, and hence has never practised complete renunciation nor ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... slept peacefully and happily with the red, pulsing planet over the hemlock shining faithfully upon her. The next day she reappeared before her parents with a cloudless face and a willingness to make such amends as could be brought about without too much self-abnegation. In the broad light of day the mother could not hold to the horrors of the evening before. She had been nervous and overwrought; it wasn't so bad ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... know what it means to face the demons of the desert, to lie down at night with wild beasts for companions. They have not yielded to the depravity of the human heart and the temptations of a licentious age. They have conquered sinful appetites by self-abnegation and fasting. They come to a distracted society with a message of peace—a peace won by courageous self-sacrifice. They call men to save their perishing souls by surrendering their wills to God and enlisting in a campaign against the powers ...
— A Short History of Monks and Monasteries • Alfred Wesley Wishart
... way. Here he had a vision of Jesus Christ nailed to the cross. It is probably impossible to prove a vision; but that this one was real to Francis, at least, we may judge by its effects. Thenceforth he devoted himself to a pious life of marvellous self-abnegation. Seeing the change that had come upon him, his former friends fell away; but he, undisturbed, went on performing works of charity; making gifts of money, food, and even his own clothes to the poor. Again a voice ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various |
