"Blessedness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I was not, and when I could not believe that I should ever be restored to the well-being of existence. The worst of it was, that, in such moods, it seemed as if I had hitherto been deluding myself with rainbow fancies as often as I had been aware of blessedness, as there was, in fact, no wine of life apart from its effervescence. But when one day I told Percivale—not while I was thus oppressed, for then I could not speak; but in a happier moment whose happiness I mistrusted—something of what I felt, he said one thing which ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... communicated, without diminishing from the Plenitude of his own Power and Happiness. The Philosophers before mentioned have indeed done all that in them lay to invalidate this Argument; for, placing the Gods in a State of the most elevated Blessedness, they describe them as Selfish as we poor miserable Mortals can be, and shut them out from all Concern for Mankind, upon the Score of their having no Need ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... own, save this, that God's will is to be my will. Here is safety,—here is happiness. Fearlessly follow the Guiding Pillar. He will lead you by a right way, though it may be by a way of hardship, and crosses, and losses, and privations, to the city of habitation. Oh! the blessedness of thus lying passive in the hands of God; saying, "Undertake thou for me!"—dwelling with holy gratitude on past mercies and interpositions—taking these as pledges of future faithfulness and love—hearing His voice behind us, amid life's manifold perplexities, exclaiming, "This ...
— The Faithful Promiser • John Ross Macduff
... end of the world." No one who does not go away, leaving all and going alone, can feel the force of this promise; and when I begin to feel my heart threatening to go down, I betake myself to this companionship, and, thank God, I have felt the blessedness of this promise rushing over me repeatedly when I knelt down and spoke to Jesus as a present companion, from whom I am sure to find sympathy. I have felt a tingle of delight thrilling over me as I felt His presence, and thought that wherever I may go He is still with me. I have ...
— James Gilmour of Mongolia - His diaries, letters, and reports • James Gilmour
... expected to meet so pure and sweet a gaze of reverential welcome as beamed on him from the soft, dark eyes of the little white-checked maiden who sat on the bed, holding the sufferer in her arms. Still less had he anticipated the serene blessedness that sat on the wasted features of the dying girl, and all ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... everything truly useful that unites everlasting love with its object—in short everything that serves to bring about a genuine marriage. External things imbue me with profound respect, if, in their way, they are good for something; and you will some day hear me enthusiastically praise the blessedness of home and ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... God and myself. Please God, I hope soon to be able to confide it to her verbally; in the mean time, I send her a thousand kisses. My compliments to all kind friends. We have lost our good Martherl, but we hope that by the mercy of God she is now in a state of blessedness. ...
— The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, V.1. • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
... and mighty people, have never been of any service to me: they are too grand, and too happy, to mind whether a younger son of a younger son sinks or swims; whether I live in single wretchedness or double blessedness. Not one relation has nature given, who cares for me half as much as the friend I have made ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... a thousand pities a young fellow, blessed with an allowance of brains as his neighbour obviously was, should waste his valuable time with profligate women who might present him with a nice dose to last him his lifetime. In the nature of single blessedness he would one day take unto himself a wife when Miss Right came on the scene but in the interim ladies' society was a conditio sine qua non though he had the gravest possible doubts, not that he wanted in the smallest to pump Stephen about Miss Ferguson ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... their day and generation they faithfully tendered to their country. From the excellent characters which they sustained in life, so far as I have had the means of knowing, I humbly hope, and fondly trust, they have gone to receive the rewards of blessedness ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... gods contains in it felicity, blessedness, and self-perfection. Wherefore also Euripides ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... consequence what they study or under whom. It would be more amusing, to be sure, and more reputable, if they would take up the old republican cant and declaim about Brutus and Timoleon, the duty of killing tyrants and the blessedness of dying for liberty. But, on the whole, they might have chosen worse. They may as well be Utilitarians as jockeys or dandies. And, though quibbling about self-interest and motives, and objects of desire, and the greatest happiness of the greatest number, is but a poor employment for a grown man, ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... loving some one more than oneself! And oh, the blessedness of toiling together for something greater and more important than either! That is what makes it possible for the other thing to endure—not merely for a few mad, glad years, followed by drab duty and dull regret, but for a happy lifetime of useful vigor. That, and not leisure or dignity, is the great ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... look into her burning eyes, if he were but able to see her smile again and again, then he utterly forgot Stambul, his capital, the host, the war, and the foreign ambassadors—and praised the Prophet for such blessedness. ...
— Halil the Pedlar - A Tale of Old Stambul • Mr Jkai
... a mere break in the frightful and enduring continuity of the sea-line—even as something that was not sea nor sky nor the cold silent and mocking illusion of clouds—it took a character of blessedness in my eyes; my gaze hung upon it joyously, and my heart swelled with a new impulse of life in my breast. It would be strange, I thought, if on approaching it something to promise me deliverance from this dreadful situation did not offer itself—some whaler or ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... great distance L100 for Missions, with L100 left at my disposal, and L5 for myself. I took, therefore, the whole L200 for Missions, and thus had L480 in hand to meet the L476 which I desired for this object. Those who know the blessedness of really trusting in God, and getting help from Him, as in this case, in answer to prayer, will be able to enter into the spiritual enjoyment I had in the reception of that donation, in which both the answer to prayer was granted, and with it the great enjoyment ...
— Answers to Prayer - From George Mueller's Narratives • George Mueller
... the ceremony of her manumission is completed by one man powdering on her head the down of birds and another pouring on it the contents of a bladder of oil. She is then at liberty to marry again or lead a life of single blessedness, but few of them, I believe, wish to encounter the risk attending a second widowhood. The men are condemned to a similar ordeal, but they do not bear it with equal fortitude, and numbers fly to distant quarters to avoid the brutal treatment which ...
— A Further Contribution to the Study of the Mortuary Customs of the North American Indians • H.C. Yarrow
... you, oh, believe that, as you read, I wait at the door of your heart. O thou who art so dear, give to me, I pray, a shelter and a habitation. Then, because of my great love, I shall be one with you, bringing you comfort and myself great blessedness. O thou, who art still my husband, I beseech you to realize that any act on your part of violence and self-destruction will hurl our lives apart to the full width of the ten existences; so that, through another thousand years of unfulfilment we shall be groping in ...
— The Dragon Painter • Mary McNeil Fenollosa
... Secondly. It evidences his blessedness also, as it intimates that this knowledge is above any that flesh and blood can reveal. "This is such knowledge as my Father which is in heaven only can give: it is too high and excellent to be communicated by such means as other knowledge ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 3 - Massillon to Mason • Grenville Kleiser
... Wordsworth withdrew altogether. If we must look for spiritual sustenence in the poem, we shall find it perhaps not so much in any definite warning against cruelty to creatures, as in the sentiment of the blessedness of human companionship and the omnipresence of God's ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... superstition,—as some would call it,—than the proud sceptic, ever croaking, like some hideous night-bird, as he turns his bleared eyes away from the beams of the Sun of Righteousness, "No God, no Bible, no Saviour, no Heaven of blessedness, no Immortality," wandering through life without hope and God in the world, and, at death, taking a ...
— The Cabin on the Prairie • C. H. (Charles Henry) Pearson
... was nearly over, but it held the possibility still of one supreme blessedness. He might ...
— The Romance of Zion Chapel [3d ed.] • Richard Le Gallienne
... of such full peace, and rapturous content, as if she knew all, and was satisfied with all that should happen to him. As if her care for him, her love for him, had blossomed, and bore the ripe fruit of blessedness. ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... reading, much oftener peruse the Scriptures, and attend public worship; and they are more attentive to all the means of grace. In a word, they are more likely to become useful and happy in this life, and to be prepared for lasting blessedness in the life ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... is o'er, On wings of love your soul may rise, To dwell with angels in the skies, Where psalms are sung eternally, And martyrs ne'er again shall die; But with the saints still bask in bliss, And drink the cup of blessedness. ...
— The Annals of the Parish • John Galt
... not "lazy, good-for-nothing Indians, fit only for the soldiers' target." We are men and women struggling against clannishness and superstition—against evil without and within—reaching up to you who know the blessedness of the Light of the Gospel, asking you to reach down, down into our dark lives and lift us up. Let us get a glimpse on this side ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 50, No. 6, June 1896 • Various
... Lepers; until it was Ducats here and Ducats there all day long. Nor was this the worst; for my Master began to be Troubled in the Spirit, and to cry out against the Vanities of the World, and to sigh after the Blessedness of a Life passed in Seclusion ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... brushing her hand with his lips, "Madam, you grow handsomer every day. If I were forty, now, I should fear for your single blessedness." ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... was undressing, that night, in the large, comfortable, well-carpeted English bedroom, with that great English four-posted bed in the recess which seems made to shame folks out of single-blessedness—"Giacomo, I have had this evening the offer of probably six thousand pounds—certainly ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... at those old couples, and not feel impressed with the sanctity and blessedness of marriage, which, binding two destinies in one, giving the same interests and the same objects of affection to both, secures for each a companionship and a consolation for those days which must come ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... was the conception of Spinoza. Christ for him is the wisdom of God manifested in all things, and chiefly in the mind of man. Through him we reach the blessedness of an intuitive knowledge of God. Salvation is an escape from the "inadequate" ideas of the mortal human personality to the "adequate" and ...
— God The Invisible King • Herbert George Wells
... quick, athletic bounds, up the stairway to the second terrace. It was he! she saw him! In her eyes he was everything in physique and virile beauty that a maiden of the Republic could desire! The bitterness and waiting of months were worth the blessedness of the instant. Cornelia never knew what Drusus said to her, or what she said to him. She only knew that he was holding her in his strong arms and gazing into her eyes; while the hearts of both talked ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... and blessedness consist solely in the enjoyment of what is good, not in the pride that he alone is enjoying it, to the exclusion of others. (2) He who thinks himself the more blessed because he is enjoying benefits which others are not, or because he is more blessed or more fortunate ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part I] • Benedict de Spinoza
... the blessedness of the Gospel was very clear and delightful. He "knew Whom he had believed," and ever rejoiced in the blessed assurance that he would have grace given to keep him to the end. He was one of the first converts of the ...
— By Canoe and Dog-Train • Egerton Ryerson Young
... show me the way to his dwelling." The wood-chopper replied: "It is not far from here. This mountain is known as the Mountain of the Heart. In it is a cave where dwells a saint who is called 'The Discerner.' The number of his disciples who have attained blessedness is countless. He still has some thirty to forty disciples gathered about him. You need only follow this path which leads to the South, and you cannot miss his dwelling." The Ape King thanked the wood-chopper and, sure enough, he came to the cave which ...
— The Chinese Fairy Book • Various
... character, or your home. May my history prove a beacon to warn you from the quicksands of ambition, on which so many human souls are wrecked, and may your little barque, wafted by gentle sunny gales, be safely steered across the great ocean of life, and at last be securely moored in that haven where blessedness and ...
— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous
... to call you up in the morning.' I showed him my little room. At six o'clock he called me up, and we went into the arbour. There, in the sweetest way, he told me of the love of Jesus and of the blessedness of trusting in Him and loving Him in our childhood. With many a story he preached Christ to me, and told me how good God had been to him, and then he prayed that I might know ...
— The Personal Touch • J. Wilbur Chapman
... Moxon to visit his wife. That room where she lay in pain often, in weakness always, was a mean, poorly-furnished room, with a window in the thatch, and just a glimpse of heaven beyond, but that glimpse was all reflected in the blessedness of her peaceful face. Mr. Moxon's threadbare coat hung loosely on his large lean frame, like the coat of a poor, negligent gentleman, such as he was. He had the reputation of being a capital scholar, but he had not made the way ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... whisper, "Father; forgive me, for I knew not what I did when I murmured at thy dealings." Then a solemn hush will follow—a holy twilight of the soul,—as if the sorrows of earth were blending with the joys of heaven, the pains of mortality with the blessedness of the angelic bards. Oh, these are the flowers for a sickroom! How dreary and desolate does it seem without them! The strong and healthy may live on, careless and irreligious, but what would become of the poor, grief-stricken, despairing ...
— Canadian Wild Flowers • Helen M. Johnson
... severest punishment, and being placed beyond the means of escape. It required no very vivid imagination to depict the most frightful scenes through which I should have to pass, in case I failed. The wretchedness of slavery, and the blessedness of freedom, were perpetually before me. It was life and death with me. But I remained firm, and, according to my resolution, on the third day of September, 1838, I left my chains, and succeeded in reaching ...
— The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass - An American Slave • Frederick Douglass
... medical education has led me to a continual tendency to suspend the judgment. What a state of blessedness it would have been, had I possessed the dead certainty of the homoeopathic persuasion, and as soon as I found the Lakes Bangweolo, Moero, and Kamolondo, pouring out their waters down the great central valley, bellowed out, 'Hurrah! Eureka!' and gone ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... friend, Are we "lucky dogs," indeed? Are we all that we pretend In the jolly life we lead?— Bachelors, we must confess, Boast of "single blessedness" To the world, but not alone— Man's ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... love was her only hope, and as she sat alone with her wretchedness the thought of confiding in him became as seductive as the river's flow to the suicide. The first plunge would be terrible—but afterward, what blessedness might come! She remembered Gerty's words: "I know him—he will help you"; and her mind clung to them as a sick person might cling to a healing relic. Oh, if he really understood—if he would help her to gather up her broken life, and put it ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... Horus is his avenger. Horus conquers the power of darkness. Henceforward Osiris reigns in the kingdom of the West, the home of the dead. He is the sun in the realm of the shades. He receives the dead, is their protector, and the judge whose final award is blessedness or perpetual misery. The departed, if their lives have not been wicked, become one with him. They are each of them called by his name. To Osiris, all sepulchral inscriptions are addressed. His career, with the victory of ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... is the blessedness that you expect?—to have the joys of earth with the addition of the element of eternity? Men think that heaven is to be a compensation for earthly loss: the saints are earthly-wretched here, the children of this world are earthly-happy; but that, they think, shall be all reversed—Lazarus, ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... here. Why God in His wisdom allows sin in the world, I do not know, I cannot understand. But this I understand: that He has one world into which He will not let sin enter. He has notified us in advance that no sin, nothing that defiles, can enter Heaven, can mar the blessedness of that holy place. "Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in His holy place? He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully" We must get rid of ...
— When the Holy Ghost is Come • Col. S. L. Brengle
... Catherine clothed in waterproof from head to foot, walking beside him, the rays flashing now on her face, now on the wooded sides of the lane, while the wind howled through the dark vault of branches overhead. And then, as they talked or were silent, suddenly a sense of the intense blessedness of this comradeship of theirs would rise like a flood in the man's heart, and he would fling his free arm round her, forcing her to stand a moment in the January night and storm while he said to her words of passionate gratitude, of faith in an immortal union reaching beyond ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... but nevertheless I will not be silent. The fire which burns in my breast consumes me. I must at length give it vent. My heart, that for years has burned upon a funeral pyre, and which is so strong that in the midst of its agonies it has still ever felt a sensation of its blessedness—my heart must at length find death or favor. You shall ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... wild dreams, in which my soul delighted, I was sometimes tempted to rise up a prophet, preach salvation to the poor, and confound the wise. Persecution I must expect, but in that I should glory: it was the badge of blessedness, the mark of election, the signing of the covenant. Elevated to these celestial heights, with what contempt did I look down on the doctors, proctors, and preachers of Baal (for such were all the unenlightened) and on their dignities, paraphernalia, and many coloured robes. ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... Be blessedness theirs, who like knights of renown Thus scatter such largesse o'er country and town, Their monument building in many a dome Like healthful and beautiful ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... Paradise, and grander than all the starry hosts of heaven, was this most precious favor. By it the world is delivered of its hidden riches, and the mind of man developed into its broadest capabilities. Yes, dear girls, there is a blessedness in work that transcends every joy you have. You know it; but the question comes, How to make ...
— Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! • Annie H. Ryder
... cynic.' His object is to show that silly goodness is better than clever vice. As I have indicated, the long and the short of the matter is that Thackeray created a lot of villains, and has therefore been called a cynic by those who don't even know what the word means, or that there is a literary blessedness in the making of villains to bring out the more ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... at fifty, "I'll not marry, not trade off my single blessedness yet; at least, there's time enough, there's women enough; I'm young, hale, hearty, in the prime of life; no, I'll not give up the ship ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... BLESSEDNESS; wherein Not one dim cloud hath crossed thy soul; No sigh of grief, no touch of sin, No frail mortality's control; Nor once hath disappointment stung, Nor care, world-weary, made thee pine; But rapture, such as human tongue Hath ...
— Catharine • Nehemiah Adams
... blissfully, If Heaven so sweet a death for me design!" But the rapt sense, by such enchantment bound, And the strong will, thus listening to possess Heaven's joys on earth, my spirit's flight delay. And thus I live; and thus drawn out and wound Is my life's thread, in dreamy blessedness, By this sole syren ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... Materialism!—Scarce a line of division could be drawn between men and the brute beasts of the field! I consider,—though possibly I am only one among many of widely differing opinion,—that if you take the hope of an after-joy and blessedness away from the weary, perpetually toiling Million, you destroy at one wanton blow their best, purest, and noblest aspirations. As for the Christian Religion, I cannot believe that so grand and holy ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... me to believe," said Kilcullen, with a gentle laugh, "that you are contented to live and die in single blessedness at Grey Abbey?—that your ambition does not soar higher than the interchange of worsted-work ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... the everlasting kingdom of God if we knowingly refuse or neglect to live to every word of God. We are therefore exhorted, beseeched, entreated, encouraged, warned, and commanded to obey every text in the Bible. We are encouraged to obedience by being told of the blessedness of keeping ...
— How to Live a Holy Life • C. E. Orr
... at night and was haunted by a presage of disaster. Yet what happened? She started her boys, and in a few years found her capital doubled into the bargain, on which she sold out and went back again to Consols and died in the full blessedness of fund-holding. ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... we in waiting lie; Thou little Child, yet glorious in the might Of heaven-born freedom on thy being's height, Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke The years to bring the inevitable yoke, Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife? Full soon thy soul shall have her earthly freight, And custom lie upon thee with a weight, Heavy as frost, and ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... are the most touching and elevating record of a life spent in important official business, in interesting social intercourse, in literary and antiquarian researches, in the enjoyment of art and nature, and in the blessedness of a prosperous family life, and throughout in an unbroken communion with God. There is hardly a letter without an expression of that religion in common life, that constant consciousness of a Divine Presence, which made his life a life in God. To many readers this free outpouring of ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... and governors; chance, only, had made them acquainted. She had been very kind. No, he must not presume upon her graciousness and tell her that his heart had gone out to her in a wonderful way. Many men had proffered their love, but had been rejected. It was blessedness unspeakable to be permitted to walk by her side, to hear her voice, to enjoy her esteem, friendship, ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... would point them to the heavens, when the skies were clear, and told them of the blessedness of their mother who was now with the holy angels and beheld the glory ...
— Three Young Pioneers - A Story of the Early Settlement of Our Country • John Theodore Mueller
... things are rapidly passing away; old superstitions, old prejudices, and old notions are now bidding farewell to their old associates and companions, and giving way to one whose wings are plumed with the light of heaven and tinged by the dews of the morning. There is a remnant of blessedness that clings to her in spite of all evil influence, there is enough of the Divine Master left to accomplish the noblest work ever achieved under the canopy of the vaulted skies; and that time is fast approaching, when the picture of the true woman will ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... stayed on at Haworth for the six years that followed his wife's death. When Mr. Bronte died he returned to Ireland. Some years later he married again—a cousin, Miss Bell by name. That second marriage has been one of unmixed blessedness. I found him in a home of supreme simplicity and charm, esteemed by all who knew him and idolised in his own household. It was not difficult to understand that Charlotte Bronte had loved him and had fought down parental opposition in his behalf. The ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... phenomenal knowledge" (B@rh. II. 4. 12). The true self manifests itself in all the processes of our phenomenal existences, but ultimately when it retires back to itself, it can no longer be found in them. It is a state of absolute infinitude of pure intelligence, pure being, and pure blessedness. ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore." (Ps. xvi. 11.) While this company, brought out of great tribulation, to which they had been subjected in the centuries before the time of Constantine, are represented as in possession of eternal blessedness, the other company of the "sealed" ones, are by this mark furnished with the gifts and graces of the Holy Spirit, to enter the lists with the Dragon in a much more trying and prolonged contest. The latter company, although preceding the other, in the order of symbolic revelation; ...
— Notes On The Apocalypse • David Steele
... of separateness is emphasized when we turn to the prayers of Christ. And in this connection it is worthy of note that though Christ has much to say concerning the duty and blessedness of prayer, and Himself spent much time in prayer, yet never, so far as we know, did He ask for the prayers of others. "Simon, Simon, behold, Satan asked to have you, that he might sift you as wheat: but I made supplication for thee, that ...
— The Teaching of Jesus • George Jackson
... caravanserai, haunted with vociferous nightmares, and many wakeful people come down late for breakfast in the morning. Upon that theory the cynic may explain the whole affair—exhilaration, nightmares, pomp of tongue and all. But, on the other hand, the peculiar blessedness of boyhood may itself be but a symptom of the same complaint, for the two effects are strangely similar; and the frame of mind of the invalid upon the Alps is a sort of intermittent youth, with periods of lassitude. The fountain of Juventus ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... helped him to pretend a chap when he did not feel it. It served him in assuming an air of "the game is worth the candle," when the whole tableful at the house requoted to him certain scathing remarks on the girl-habit which, in the day of his single blessedness, he had made to each one of them separately. It was more than useful to him when he rolled into the "Knockery," the second evening after his sad condition had become patent, and the assembled company rose to smother him with sofa cushions and lecture him, with decided seriousness, ...
— Stanford Stories - Tales of a Young University • Charles K. Field
... lingering and painful. All the forenoon of this day she was in the pangs of death, and sensible until the last minute or two before her final expiration. I cannot remember the discourse that passed between us, only her devout soul was full of satisfaction about her going to a state of blessedness with the Lord Jesus Christ. As far as my distress would permit, I studied to confirm her ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... live, To take in draughts of life from the gold fount Of kind and passionate looks; to count, and count The moments, by some greedy help that seem'd A second self, that each might be redeem'd And plunder'd of its load of blessedness. 660 Ah, desperate mortal! I ev'n dar'd to press Her very cheek against my crowned lip, And, at that moment, felt my body dip Into a warmer air: a moment more, Our feet were soft in flowers. There was store Of newest joys upon that alp. Sometimes A scent of violets, and blossoming limes, Loiter'd ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats
... intercourse then is more delightful and blessed is, that when conjugial love becomes of the spirit, it becomes more interior and pure, and consequently more perceptible; and every delightsomeness grows according to the perception, and grows even until its blessedness is discernible in its delightsomeness."(1b) Such love, however, he says, is rarely to be found ...
— Bygone Beliefs • H. Stanley Redgrove
... returns shall she make? Her country asks but one. Fresh zeal in self-tuition and in training those subject to her charge, for domestic fidelity, for true citizenship, and for immortal virtue and blessedness. ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... the blest! Long, long before then, your and my remembrance, Faith, will have perished from the earth. You will be then a seraph, and I—. If there be ever an interval of pain, it will be when I think of your blessedness, and you, if angels sometimes weep, will drop a tear to the memory of your father, and it shall ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... is an old bachelor elf who successfully resists all efforts of scheming fairy mammas to marry him to young and beautiful fairies, persisting in single blessedness even in exile from his kind, being driven off as a punishment for his heterodoxy on matrimonial subjects. This is one explanation of the fact that Leprechawns are always seen alone, though other authorities make the Leprechawn solitary by preference, he having learned the hollowness of ...
— Irish Wonders • D. R. McAnally, Jr.
... countless parallels to thoughts like these. How is it that no similar poem could be quoted from the whole range of ancient literature? How is it that to the Greek and Roman poets that morning of life, which should have been so filled with "natural blessedness," seems to have been a blank? How is it that writers so voluminous, so domestic, so affectionate as Cicero, Virgil, and Horace do not make so much as a single allusion to the ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... mothers,—these were the joys of our Saturday nights in our underground diggings. We were absolutely happy. And we never tried to measure our happiness in those days, or gauge it, or flay it to see if it be dead or alive, false or real. Ah, the blessedness of that supreme unconsciousness which wrapped us as a mother would her babe, warming and caressing our hearts. We did not know then that happiness was a thing to be sought. We only knew that peddling is a pleasure, that a bank account is a ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... content to keep on whirling into an eternity of darkness—with a destination so remote, and a mission so obscure, as not to be of the slightest disturbance to her immediate consciousness. All she asked of fate that moment was the blessedness of nothing; and for answer—her mind was jerked back ruthlessly to the curse ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer
... and glowing hour before the sun went down. Angelo grew strong and lively once more; rest and peace restored her elasticity of spirit, and extracts from various letters will show in what tranquil blessedness, the autumn and winter glided by. After a few weeks' residence at Rieti, the happy three journeyed on, by way of Perugia, to Florence, where they arrived at the end of ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... the examination easier that M. Renan freely and fully admits the achievements of Christianity. Indeed he glories over them. The beneficence of Christianity, its hallowing and elevating power in the history of the world, its wondrous blessedness among men, the glory it has cast over human life and human aims, the nobleness it has conferred on human character, all these he takes a pride in confessing and appreciating. He will not be a whit behind the stanchest believer ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... selfish—and I believe, ye gods of Epicurus! I believe in Rochefoucault about men, and in Lucretius (not Busby's translation) about yourselves. [8] Your bard has made you very nonchalant and blest; but as he has excused us from damnation, I don't envy you your blessedness much—a little, to be sure. I remember, last year,——[Lady Oxford] said to me, at——[Eywood], "Have we not passed our last month like the gods of Lucretius?" And so we had. She is an adept in the text of the original (which I like too); and when that booby Bus. sent his translating ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... professing to be nailed with Jesus Christ to the Cross and to glory only in His reproaches and sufferings, yet were eager in heaping up riches, and, when amassed, in clinging fondly to them. "For," he said, "the Gospel makes christian blessedness to consist in poverty, contempt, pain, weeping, and persecutions; and even philosophy teaches us that prosperity is the stepmother of true virtue, adversity ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... happy young people, taking for the first time since his childhood a holiday on a work-day, seemed to comprehend the first notes of that great harmony of life which proves by the laws of sequence the last. The premonition of some final blessedness, to survive all renunciation and sacrifice, was upon him. He felt raised above the earth with happiness. Jerome seemed like another person to his companions. The wine of youth and certainty of joy stirred all the light within him to brilliancy. ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... national committee of private citizens. Her wood work was shining and glossy, her steel shone like mirrors, and she was cool as Paradise. Out of the smoke, and turmoil, and suffocation of battle these wretched men had emerged, to enjoy the blessedness, unappreciated before, of shelter, and free air and cleanliness. There was ice in abundance on board, and savory lemonade lay glassily around in great buckets. Women flitted from group to group with jellies, bonbons, cigars, and oranges, and the grateful eyes of the prostrate ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... will Of him, who sets us here, which in these orbs Thou wilt confess not possible, if here To be in charity must needs befall, And if her nature well thou contemplate. Rather it is inherent in this state Of blessedness, to keep ourselves within The divine will, by which our wills with his Are one. So that as we from step to step Are plac'd throughout this kingdom, pleases all, E'en as our King, who in us plants his will; And in his ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... Eugenia! Now of the angel race, and hous'd in Heaven! Forgive, dear saint! these blameful eyes that flow With human love, and mourn thy blessedness. O! ye strange powers! with what excelling truth Has Art's small hand here mimic'd mightiest Nature! What cheeks are these! could Death e'er crop such roses? Eyes! star-bright twins! fair glasses ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... there are too many of them by hundreds of thousands—do not want to be blessed. They only want to be comfortable in this world, and in the next. As for blessedness, they do not even know what it means; and our Lord's seven beatitudes, which begin—"Blessed are the poor in spirit"—are not at all to their mind; even, alas! alas! to the mind of many who call themselves religious and ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley
... set them in such blessedness. One thereof had He made so strong, so mighty in his intellect; to him did He grant great sway, next to Himself in the Kingdom of Heaven. So bright had He made him, so beautiful was his form in Heaven that was ...
— Our Catholic Heritage in English Literature of Pre-Conquest Days • Emily Hickey
... thinking of something else,' he replied; and his tone made Audrey look up rather quickly. 'Do you remember your tirade on the subject of single blessedness, my Lady Bountiful, and how freedom outbalanced all the delights of wedded bliss? I recollect we were on the moors then, and Kester was with us, and I took out my pocket-book and wrote down the date. Well, I will be magnanimous and not ask an awkward question. ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... you, and more than praise And thankfulness, for some things done; And blessedness, and length of days As long as earth shall last, or sun! You first among the peoples spoke Sharp words and angry questionings Which burst the bonds and shed the yoke That made your men the ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens
... need of salvation. One has to read Schleiermacher's phrase, 'the senses' here, as we read Paul's phrase, 'the flesh.' On the other hand, the preponderance of the consciousness of God, the willing obedience to it in every act of life, becomes to us the secret of strength and of blessedness in life. This is the special experience of the Christian. It is the effect of the impulse and influence of Christ. We receive this impulse in a manner wholly consistent with the laws of our psychological and moral being. We carry forward this impulse with varying ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore
... has been at St. Walburge's about four years. He has passed 40 summers in single blessedness, and says he intends to "last it out." His preaching is serious and earnest in style. His eloquence may not be so captivating as that of some men; but it comes up freely, and involves utterances of import. Father Payne has not much action, but ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... the sky, and thanked the universe for the blessedness of being alone in the universe. To be alone, to be oneself, not to be driven or violated into something which is not oneself, surely it is better than anything. He thought of Lottie, and knew how much more truly herself she ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... Prop. xvi., that an infinite number must follow in an infinite number of ways), but only those which are able to lead us, as it were by the hand, to the knowledge of the human mind and its highest blessedness. ...
— The Ethics • Benedict de Spinoza
... dreams of horror, comes again The welcome morning with its rays of peace. Oblivion, softly wiping out the stain, Makes the strong secret pangs of shame to cease: Remorse is virtue's root; its fair increase Are fruits of innocence and blessedness: Thus joy, o'erborne and bound, doth still release His young limbs from the chains that round him press. Weep not that the world changes—did it keep A stable, changeless state, 'twere ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... that night I have been my Lord's. It seemed to me that He had come Himself—come from His cross—to raise two souls from the depths of Hell. Marie went into a convent, and died in peace and blessedness; I came home here, to do my duty if I could—and save my soul. That seems to you a mere selfish bargain with God—an 'egotism'—that you hate. But look at the root of it. Is the world under sin—and ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... "I will seek that city and the blessedness thereof." And it was far. And I made great provision for my journey. And after forty days I beheld the city and on the forty-first day ...
— The Madman • Kahlil Gibran
... God. Who is God? The great Being for whom alone the universe exists; in whom alone it can have its happiness. It came from Him. It can not find any rest or joy but in Him. Oh, that Christians understood and believed that God is a fountain of happiness, perfect, everlasting blessedness! What would the result be? Every Christian would say, "The more I can have of God, the happier. The more of God's will, and the more of God's love, and the more of God's fellowship, the happier." How Christians, if they believed that with their whole heart, would, with the utmost ease, give ...
— The Master's Indwelling • Andrew Murray
... of your country teach the vanity of life, the blessedness of poverty and the wickedness ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... the higher it makes itself the more he ascends upwards to it; the more he follows it, the further off it appears, by reason of its high excellence, according as it is said: Accedit homo ad cor altum, et exaltabitur Deus. Such blessedness of affection begins in this life, and in this state it has its mode of being. Hence the heart can say that it is within with the body, and without with the sun, in so far as the soul with its twin faculty, puts into operation two functions: the one to vivify and realize the animal body, the ...
— The Heroic Enthusiast, Part II (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... soaring in the sunlight, but somehow I want the Gothic—I long for 'dim religious light' and windows stained with saints. Oh, to find my soul again! If I could tell you how the Convent rises before me as a vision of blessedness—after life's 'shaky scraw'—the cool cloisters, the rows of innocent beds, the delicious old garden. There are tears at my heart, as I think of it. What flowers I will bring to my favourite nun.... God grant she is still alive! What altar-cloths I will weave with my silver and gold! ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... is the rose distilled Than that which, withering on the virgin thorn Grows, lives, and dies in single blessedness. ...
— Breakfasts and Teas - Novel Suggestions for Social Occasions • Paul Pierce
... and contentment that he knew in this life was to find himself at times with some of his friends at a tavern, which was his favourite haunt in all the places where it fell to his lot to live, considering that this was the true blessedness and peace of this world, and the only repose from his labours. And thus, having ruined his constitution by the fatigues of his art and by his excesses in eating and in love, he was attacked by asthma, ...
— Lives of the most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 06 (of 10) Fra Giocondo to Niccolo Soggi • Giorgio Vasari
... baptized her, with much consolation, being persuaded that God had preserved her for that hour. I am convinced that she has a very short time to live, but I trust, in the mercy of God, that in the other life she will obtain eternal blessedness through the merits of our Lord Jesus Christ, who gained it for her with His precious blood. From Cauayan I went to a little hamlet called Cotai, where I baptized eighty-three persons. From that place I went to Paet, where I baptized one hundred and twenty, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson
... the blessedness I knew When first I saw the Lord? Where is the soul-refreshing view Of Jesus ...
— The Otterbein Hymnal - For Use in Public and Social Worship • Edmund S. Lorenz
... murmuring, 'Vivas in Deo,' and reflecting upon the significance of the words; for, often as he had seen them, he had never till now mused upon their meaning. What was the life in God I Did it mean that of the world to come? Ay, but how attain unto eternal blessedness save by striving to anticipate on earth that perfection of hereafter? And so was he brought again to the conclusion that, would he assure life eternal, he must renounce all ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... herself—all this was gone by forever. She was afraid of nothing any more. She did not need to defend herself again. She had been taken out of all her misery, and placed in the safe shelter of a good man's love. What had she done to deserve such blessedness? What could she do to show her recognition of the same? She could only weep, poor child! and feel like a child, whom the Great Father has ceased to punish—forgiven, and taken ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... book-making. One of Philo's contemporaries is said to have written over one thousand treatises, and in one of his rare touches of satire Philo relates[28] how bands of sophists talked to eager crowds of men and women day and night about virtue being the only good, and the blessedness of life according to nature, all without producing the slightest effect, save noise. The Jews also studied philosophy, and began to talk in the catchwords of philosophy, and then to re-interpret their Scriptures according to the ideas of philosophy. The Septuagint translation of the Pentateuch was ...
— Philo-Judaeus of Alexandria • Norman Bentwich
... into new life and hope, and its legend which spoke of the happy restoration of the times. Hence, in forgetfulness of all former prognostications of Antichrist and fearful coming evils, the reference by some of the most eminent of their bishops to the latter-day blessedness, as even then about fulfilling. The state of things was such, Eusebius tells us, that it looked like 'the very image of the kingdom of Christ.' The city built by the emperor at Jerusalem, beside the new and magnificent ...
— A Brief Commentary on the Apocalypse • Sylvester Bliss
... being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life." Rom. 4:6-8: "David also describeth the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works; saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... Gurney again employed him, but in a subordinate position; and though there was subdued sadness in the house, because they missed the prattle of their lost darling— missed her sunny face and cheery songs—yet even in her death she had left such a benediction that they were still experiencing its blessedness months after she had passed away. It was her dying request which had influenced her father to change, and he was truly changed; for not only had he, as we have noticed, conquered his appetite for strong drink, but he had so completely ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... dropped her head on his shoulder, sobbing. The sobs passed unnoticed by the dying girl, even as her brother's arrival had done. She lay there perfectly immovable. Only when the viaticum had been administered, when the priest's voice promised her eternal blessedness, her marble lips appeared to live again, and she murmured in a feeble but ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... years his friendship with his publisher became more intimate. In writing him he often indulged his humor for fun and banter: "Bachelor as I am, I congratulate thee on thy escape from single (misery!) blessedness. It is the very wisest thing thee ever did. Were I autocrat, I would see to it that every young man over twenty-five and every young woman over twenty was married without delay. Perhaps, on second thought, it might be well to keep one old maid and one old bachelor in each town, by way of warning, ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... brought plovers' eggs into their lives and taught them to appreciate the difference between coupe Jacques and Macedoine de fruits. His friends pointed out that it was a doubtful kindness to initiate a boy from behind a drapery counter into the blessedness of the higher catering, to which Lucas invariably replied that all kindnesses were doubtful. ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... in German which has no English equivalent; it expresses just the missing ideal I am speaking of. It is a terrible mouthful, as German words often are—Lebensglueckseligkeit—it is the rapture and blessedness and happiness of living. Carry the idea away with you, and make it one of your personal ideals, and home ideals, and school ideals, ...
— Three Addresses to Girls at School • James Maurice Wilson
... sun is on his flushing march, his golden hair abroad, It seems as on the mountain's side of beams a furnace glow'd, Now melts the honey from all flowers, and now a dew o'erspreads (A dew of fragrant blessedness) all the grasses of the meads. Nor least in my remembrance is my country's flowering heather, Whose russet crest, nor cold, nor sun, nor sweep of gale may wither; Dear to my eye the symbol wild, that ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... his infinite mercy, may dispose the heart of this young creature to turn to Him, and to the means of grace, which He has Himself appointed. To-morrow, when we kneel in the house of God, rejoicing with joy unspeakable over the glory of the church triumphant, and meditating on the blessedness of that holy multitude ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... clue to the cruelties perpetrated under the name of religion. For he who does dwell on it, must comfort himself under the prospect of his brethren's eternal misery, by the selfish expectation of personal blessedness. When I asked whether I had been guilty of this selfishness, I remembered that I had often mourned, how small a part in my practical religion the future had ever borne. My heaven and my hell had been in the present, where my God was near me to smile or to frown. It had seemed to ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... humble tribute to him, who, in the hour of my birth, took me into his watchful care, and whose parental faithfulness, combined with that of my mother, was the means of bringing my erring feet to the cross, and kindling in my soul anticipations of immortal blessedness. If I failed to speak, methinks the old family Bible, that I brought home with me, would rebuke my silence, and the very walls of my youthful home would tell the story of my ingratitude. I must speak, though ...
— Forty Years in South China - The Life of Rev. John Van Nest Talmage, D.D. • Rev. John Gerardus Fagg
... contended for the ivy-wreath of tragedy with Aeschylus, and he outlived Euripides, who, however, also attained to a good old age. To speak in the spirit of the ancient religion, it seems that a beneficent Providence wished in this individual to evince to the human race the dignity and blessedness of its lot, by endowing him with every divine gift, with all that can adorn and elevate the mind and the heart, and crowning him with every imaginable blessing of this life. Descended from rich and honourable ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... unseen world, seeking for passages in the Bible which speak of the happy state of the righteous. She was enabled to rejoice in the rest upon which her beloved ones had entered, and in a wonderful manner to realize the blessedness of their lot." Her other children gathered around her at Walmer, anxious to comfort her, and be themselves comforted by her in this succession of bereavements. She had been such a tower of strength to all her ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman
... influencing the conduct of their adherents but in checking freedom of thought and discussion. To this, with all the vehemence of emphasis at our command, we object. From what Archbishop Hayes believes concerning the future blessedness in Heaven of the souls of those who are born into this world as hideous and misshapen beings he has a right to seek such consolation as may be obtained; but we who are trying to better the conditions of this world believe that a healthy, happy human race is more in keeping ...
— The Pivot of Civilization • Margaret Sanger
... to pander to curiosity. Such a limited revelation as we could receive would probably only confuse us. It is not remarkable, then, that we have but a meagre account of the preparatory processes for final blessedness. ...
— Love's Final Victory • Horatio
... malheur de la vielillesse n'est souvent que l'extrait de notre vie passee." (The blessedness or misery of old age is often but the extract of our past life.) ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... its rewards. In the perfection of these sunful days, all possibility of change seemed to have been outgrown, left far behind in an old, wearisome existence of long ago. The world had entered upon an eternal blessedness, and the jasper walls of heaven shut it out from harm forever, like coral reefs encircling a lagoon in the Pacific seas. Only by remembering the years that had been before, and the years that should follow after, could the reluctant mind convince itself that this ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 2 • Various
... hymn; after which the pastor reviewed and explained the meaning of the different exercises of the evening, and what they were intended to teach about the origin and truth and blessedness of Christianity. A prayer was offered, and the services closed with that noble hymn, beginning "All hail the power of Jesus' name," sung to ...
— Gems Gathered in Haste - A New Year's Gift for Sunday Schools • Anonymous
... thus supprest Expell'd the seat of blessedness and rest, Look'd back and saw the high eternal mound, Where all his rebel host their outlet found Restor'd impregnable: The breach made up, And garrisons of Angels rang'd a top; In front a hundred thousand thunders roll, And lightnings temper'd to transfix a soul, Terror of ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... joined in merry and jovial drinking-songs. If there happened to be a marriage, the young people assembled round the house, and late in the evening and early in the morning sang the praises of bride and bridegroom, prayed for blessings on the couple, and sometimes discussed the comparative blessedness of single and married life. Or if a notable person happened to die, his dirge was sung, and the poet composed an encomium on him, full of wise reflections on destiny, and the fate that awaits all. There was, in fact, no ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various |
