"Gentleness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Caribs from such an impeachment and declares that their language "combines wealth, grace, strength, and gentleness. It has expressions for abstract ideas, for Futurity, Eternity, and Existence, and enough numerical terms to express all possible combinations of our numerals." It might be noted in passing that it was these ...
— The New Avatar and The Destiny of the Soul - The Findings of Natural Science Reduced to Practical Studies - in Psychology • Jirah D. Buck
... was a coarse, turbulent, and very profane man, but these two fellows saw that I was a little, broken-down boy-soldier, painfully hobbling along on a stick, and they took hold of me with their strong, brawny hands, and helped me off the boat with as much kindness and gentleness as if I had been the finest lady ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell
... Hyacinth, don't meet him by making a scene. At present he associates you with nothing but gentleness, affection, and pleasure. That is your power over him. It's a power that grows. Don't let him have any ...
— Love's Shadow • Ada Leverson
... saw no softening in Cedric's manner, and she became alarmed and threw some tenderness in her voice and spoke softly, that she might lead or manage her lord by gentleness and tact. ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... would have pictured this development. He expected her desert experiences to give her a strong forceful character. She would be like the pioneer women of early times, he imagined; rugged and energetic and full of resources. But he had not expected this gentleness of manner, this unconscious dignity and a certain poise that reminded him of—he was puzzled to think of what it did remind him. Later, it came to him, as he continued to watch her. Not for naught had Mary ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... time and section the sailing of a coat. Show no theory. Show the satisfaction and see the window. All the gentleness is mixing. There is ...
— Matisse Picasso and Gertrude Stein - With Two Shorter Stories • Gertrude Stein
... don't you give him a sermon, you pilgrims? And you, Tihon, why don't you drive him out? He hasn't paid you for his night's accommodation. Chuck him out! Eh, the people are cruel nowadays. There's no gentleness or kindness in them.... A savage people! A man is drowning and they shout to him: "Hurry up and drown, we've got no time to look at you; we've got to go to work." As to throwing him a rope—there's no worry about that.... ...
— Plays by Chekhov, Second Series • Anton Chekhov
... daughter. Perhaps, as becomes a dutiful husband, he should have retorted upon his complaining wife with complaints of his own; but his interests and his isolation had made him thoughtful and forbearing. He had the trait of gentleness which frequently sweetens and equalises large natures. He remembered that behind whatever complaints— reasonable or unreasonable—Puss might make, there existed a stronghold of affection and tenderness; he remembered that her whole life ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... again, and one gladly skips some of the speeches of the Old Campaigner in "The Newcomes." They are terrible, but not more terrible than life. Yet it is hard to understand how Mr. Ruskin, for example, can let such scenes and characters hide from his view the kindness, gentleness, and pity of Thackeray's nature. The Letters must open all eyes that are not wilfully closed, and should at ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... from a vile trunk and transplanted into good soil, but still knotted and rough like the wild holly of the original stock. I have, believe me, had no little trouble in reaching the state of comparative gentleness and calm in which you behold me. Alas! if I dared, I should reproach Providence with a great injustice—that of having allotted me a life as short as other men's. When one has to struggle for forty or fifty years to transform one's self from a wolf into a man, ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... other principal inhabitants of Quebec presented addresses to His Honor, intimating the high opinion in which he was held, and alluding to his conspicuous ability, comprehensive knowledge, patient candour, liberal respect for the opinion of others, and his equality and gentleness of temper, pointedly and flatteringly. Mr. Chief Justice Monk was similarly treated by the influential inhabitants. The Assembly continued, notwithstanding the war exigencies of the times, in their factiousness, ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... about fifty years of age, now entered. His habiliments were somewhere between decent and shabby genteel, and his voice and manners had that distinguished gentleness which wins—because it feels—its way. This was the Disdar Aga, the last relic of the wealthy Turks of the place: for before the Servian revolution Shabatz had its twenty thousand Osmanlis; and a tract of gardens on the other side of the ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... still liable, of course, to varieties of penal treatment, according to the degrees of their aggressiveness and the moods of the local authorities; but the disposition at head-quarters was decidedly towards gentleness with them. Hardly had the new Council of State been constituted when, Cromwell himself present, three of the most eminent London physicians, Dr. Wright, Dr. Cox, and Dr. Bates, were instructed "to visit James Nayler, prisoner in Bridewell, and to consider of ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... of which have here been brought to terms with each other and with the whole design of the work. The ugliness of Skarphedinn's demeanour might have turned out to be as excessive as the brutalities of Svarfdla or Ljsvetninga Saga; the gentleness of Njal has some affinities with the gentleness of the martyrs. Some few passages have distinctly the homiletic or ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... He cannot bear to look at her. He says it is more like Oriental leprosy than anything he has seen in these countries. But her gentleness and patience and her realization ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... of her cheeks, and the saddened expression of her large eyes, excited his compassion. He was too polite to express it in words, but it was signified by the deference of his manner and the extreme gentleness of his tones. He talked of Madame's anxious love for her, of the Signor's improving health, of the near completion of their plan for going to Europe, and of their intention to take her with them. Rosa was full of thankfulness, but ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... follow, or whether there will be a cosmos at all or only intelligent chaos to the end. But this girl seemed to carry her future in her face. She was a little mother to us all. It was a tribute to her gentleness and dignity that, although she was a poor girl among a bevy of rich ones, she was a favorite; unacknowledged perhaps, but still a favorite. She always stood ready with her unostentatious help. She was everybody's understudy. Flossy Carleton, as she was then, fastened ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... of the composition of the Cabinet so much that, almost at the last moment, he withdrew his acceptance of the State Department. It was Lincoln's gentleness of argument which overcame his reluctance to serve. We may be sure, however, that Seward failed to observe that Lincoln's tactlessness in social matters did not extend to his management of men in politics; we may ...
— Abraham Lincoln and the Union - A Chronicle of the Embattled North, Volume 29 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... had never ceased in her peculiar devotion. As she could not go with the priest, she promised to be with him at least in the spirit. He left her at half-past ten in the morning, and after four hours spent alone together, she had been induced by his piety and gentleness to make confessions that could not be wrung from her by the threats of the judges or the fear of the question. The holy and devout priest said his mass, praying the Lord's help for confessor and penitent alike. After mass, ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... enough to love passionately; you must also love well. A passionate love is good doubtless, but a beautiful love is better. May you have as much strength as gentleness; may it lack nothing, not even forbearance, and let even a little compassion be mingled with it. You are young, fair and good; but you are human, and because of this capable of much suffering. If then something ...
— Honey-Bee - 1911 • Anatole France
... continued, gently, "that your sudden idea must be dismissed, for reasons which I think will content you. In the first place, the present Lord Castlewood is, and always has been, an exemplary man, of great piety and true gentleness; in the next place, he is an invalid, who can not walk a mile with a crutch to help him, and so he has been for a great many years; and lastly, if you have no faith in the rest, he was in Italy at the time, and remained there for some years afterward. There he ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... of humanity left in the soldier who allowed Marguerite through the barrier into the prisoner's cell? Had the wan face of this beautiful woman stirred within his heart the last chord of gentleness that was not wholly atrophied by the constant cruelties, the excesses, the mercilessness which his service under this fraternising republic ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... something against which no pressure could avail. She was being commanded now, but there was that in the voice which, while commanding her, made her long to do as she was bid. It was an obedience filled with passion, resigning itself to the will of a force which was all gentleness, but oh, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... "he was the most rarely accomplished the court had ever beheld; while some that found inconvenience in his nearness, intending by some affront to discountenance him, perceived he had masked under this gentleness a terrible courage, as could safely protect ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... They all assumed to be mighty rakish and knowing, they were not very tidy in their private dresses, they were not at all orderly in their domestic arrangements, and the combined literature of the whole company would have produced but a poor letter on any subject. Yet there was a remarkable gentleness and childishness about these people, a special inaptitude for any kind of sharp practice, and an untiring readiness to help and pity one another, deserving often of as much respect, and always of as much generous construction, ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... not come until there was an accumulation of bitterness in her heart the venting of which was the strongest emotion of that period of strong emotions. As she drove about the campus, perched on the high seat of the red-wheeled dog-cart, her lovely face looked down with none of Eleanor Hubert's gentleness into the envying eyes of the other girls. A high color burned in her cheeks, and her bright eyes were not soft. She looked ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... power, he next morning summoned the fifty principal persons, with their wives and children, to his apartment. When they came, he addressed them, reminding them once again of his kindness and gentleness towards them, and of the good terms on which they had hitherto lived together. He reproached them with their ingratitude in refusing him the only favour he had ever asked of them, but firmly declared he would not give way to their obstinacy. "Wherefore," said he, "for ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... white cats, Melindy and Jim, and placed them in the arms of old Billy Smith, where they settled themselves, looking about with an air of sleepy wisdom. From smallest kittenhood the smell of a homespun shirt had stood to them for every kind of gentleness and shelter, so they saw no reason to find fault with the arms of Billy Smith. By this time old Butters, the woodchuck, disturbed at the scattering of the Family, had retired in a huff to the depths of his little barrel by the doorstep. The Boy clapped an oat-bag over the end of the ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... I must confess that I took to myself the counsel he was giving to another; a young gentleman who, from his pale face, his abstinence at table, his cough, his taciturnity, and his gentleness, seemed already more than half poet. To him did Doctor Glaston urge, with all his zeal and judgment, many arguments against the vocation; telling him that, even in college, he had few applauders, being the first, and not ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor
... throne in 628, and his favourite minister, St. Eloy, goldsmith and bishop (founder of the convent in Paris which long bore his name), are enshrined in the hearts of the people in many a song and ballad: St. Eloy, with his good humour, his ruddy countenance, his eloquence, gentleness, modesty, wit, and wide charity, singing in the church processions a haute gamme jubilant et trepudiant like David of old before the ark: Dagobert, the Solomon of the Franks, the terror of the oppressor, the darling of the poor. The great king was fond of Paris and established himself ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... was soft and gentle. So that, when they happened to be all together, her moods changed so rapidly that she seemed a creature of unaccountable caprice. One minute her small, white, dry face quivered with softness and gentleness, and the next it stiffened, or twitched with the inimical, disapproving look it had for ...
— The Tree of Heaven • May Sinclair
... from Bellamont, and went immediately to his dressing-room. A few minutes before dinner the duchess knocked at his door and entered. She seemed disconcerted, and reminded him, though with great gentleness, that he had gone out to-day without first bidding her adieu; she really believed it was the only time he had done so since their marriage. The duke, who, when she entered, anticipated something about their son, was relieved by her remark, embraced her, and would have affected a gaiety which ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... letters to Dr. Conolly, with the kindness and gentleness of whose manners we were much struck. He conducted us over the several wards of the Asylum. We found in it a thousand persons of both sexes, not one of whom was in seclusion, that is to say confined because it was dangerous to allow him to go at large; nor ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant
... over the sandy city square the fame of Saba in Medinet grew with each hour and, even as all fame, began to have its disagreeable side, for it drew a whole swarm of Arabian children. In the beginning they kept at a distance; afterwards, however, emboldened by the gentleness of the "monster," they approached more and more closely, and in the end sat around the tent so that no one could move about with any freedom. Besides, as every Arabian child sucks sugar-cane from morning to night, the children always attract after them ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... shapely head was balanced upon a fair, round neck. There was an alertness in her erect ear, and open nostril, and pointed brows which indicated keen perception and comprehension; yet even more than this generic quickness, without which she could not have been French, the gentleness of Suzette was manifest. ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... the beauty of the Christ Child, The gentleness, the grace, The smiling, loving tenderness, The infantile embrace! All babyhood he holdeth, All motherhood enfoldeth— Yet who ...
— The Posy Ring - A Book of Verse for Children • Various
... child had doubtless perished in the wilderness; but in yielding her proud and arrogant temper, she secured the future blessing to her race, and insured the safety of her child, while her submission and gentleness must have won back Sarah to a kinder temper, to a more ...
— Notable Women of Olden Time • Anonymous
... He had whirled gently around in one direction for some time, but now the motion ceased, and he began to revolve with equal gentleness in the other direction, like the body of a ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... believe me, my dear Barry, that the arms with which the ill dispositions of the world are to be combated, and the qualities by which it is to be reconciled to us, and we reconciled to it, are moderation, gentleness, a little indulgence to others, and a great deal of mistrust of ourselves; which are not qualities of a mean spirit, as some may possibly think them; but virtues of a great and noble kind, and such as dignify our nature as much as they contribute to ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... for sound wind, limb, and eyesight, with all the gentleness of a lamb, that a child might ride him with safety, should afterwards break the purchaser's neck, the seller has nothing to do with it, provided he has received the bit,{1} but laughs at the do.{2} ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... The gentleness and benignity of the Emperor Aurelius, have been celebrated in story and song. History says of him, 'Nothing could quench his desire of being a blessing to mankind;' and Pope's eulogy of him is in the mouth ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... peace, and gentleness, and justice?" cried Dolly, springing up and hastening to console her cow. "Is this the way the lofty French redress the wrongs of England? What had poor Dewlips done, I should like to know? Kiss me, ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... large, ruddy rock showing a huge profile, with another, resembling a pappoose, below it. When the Tahawi ruled this region their sachem lived here at "the Dark Cup," as they called this lake, a man renowned for virtue and remarkable, in his age, for gentleness. When his children had died and his manly grandson, who was the old man's hope, had followed them to the land of the cloud mountains, Adota's heart withered within him, and standing beneath this rock, he addressed his people, recounting what he had done for them, ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... There was a softness in her voice which he had not noted in those bygone days; she seemed more resigned and yet more poised; the strange wizardry of suffering had worked new wonders in her soul. Suddenly, as he looked upon her, he became aware of a new quality in Phyllis Bruce—the quality of gentleness. She had added this to her unique self-confidence, and it had toned down the angularities of her character. To Grant, straight from his long exile from fine womanly domesticity, she ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... and searched the whole dark bay minutely, but found nothing. Then with rough gentleness they bore the body to the boat and laid it ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham
... a gesture he ordered the twelve men to break ranks. Francoise was stupefied. Pere Merlier, who had been smoking his pipe and looking at the platoon simply with an air of curiosity, took her by the arm with paternal gentleness. He led ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... was, too, that more people did not care for her. I knew that she was not popular, that she was considered proud and reserved and cold. As she sat there now, motionless, her hands on her lap, her whole being seemed to me to radiate goodness and gentleness and a loving heart. I knew that she could be impatient with stupid people, and irritated by sentimentality, and infuriated by meanness and cruelty, but the whole size and grandeur of her nobility seemed to me to shine all about her and set her apart from ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... one of the pupils of Luca, Agostino di Duccio, 1418-81(?), something more remains than these fragile and yet hardy works in terra-cotta. He has carved in marble with something of Luca's gentleness at Perugia and Rimini. He left Florence, it is said, in 1446, after an accusation of theft, returning there to carve the lovely tabernacle of the Ognissanti. It is said that he had tried unsuccessfully to deal with that block of marble which stood in the ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... preferring private to public education was, that he scarce observed a boy who was not cowed for life at Eton; that a public school might suit a boy of a turbulent forward disposition, but would not do where there was any gentleness.' ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... more attractive figure than that of Andrew Henry, now arrived at its full manliness. The Quaker costume became him as no other would, though the Continental attire was distinctive and well calculated to show off a man. Fair and fresh and strong, yet with well-bred gentleness and a cultivated mind, he was often singled out at the receptions, and more than one admiring girl would have gladly enacted ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... Christ His only-begotten Son, whether at home or abroad. All of you have mothers, whether on earth or in heaven; I might call on you to thank God for them, and for every good and true woman who, since the making of the world, has raised the coarseness and tamed the fierceness of men into gentleness and reverence, purity, and chivalry. I might do this: but to-day I will ask you to ...
— Discipline and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... draws out all the good qualities in his pupils, and his gentleness prevents them from being afraid of him. Each boy then shows himself just as he is, and the teacher is able to see the line best suited to him and to help him to follow it. To such a teacher a boy will come with all his difficulties, knowing that he will be met with sympathy and kindness, and, instead ...
— Education as Service • J. Krishnamurti
... the power has been in advance of the consciousness, the resources more abundant than the knowledge—the energy irresistible, the discipline imperfect. The light that led was narrow and dim—streakings of dawn—but it fell with kindly gentleness on eyes newly awakened out of sleep. But we are now aroused suddenly in the light of an intolerable day—our limbs fail under the sunstroke—we are walled in by the great buildings of elder times, and their fierce reverberation falls ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... lead outwardly a gentle, pleasing, lovely behaviour,—not merely that we should sympathize one with another, as a father and mother for their child, but also that we should walk in love and gentleness one with another.[4] There are some men rough and knotty, like a tree full of knots,—so uncivil, that no one will readily have anything to do with them. Hence it happens that they are usually full of suspicion, and become soon angry; with whom ...
— The Epistles of St. Peter and St. Jude Preached and Explained • Martin Luther
... Michel Menko, she was invincibly attracted toward him by something proud, brave, and chivalrous, which was characteristic of the manly beauty of the young Hungarian. She was then twenty, very ignorant of life, her great Oriental eyes seeing nothing of stern reality; but, with all her gentleness, there was a species of Muscovite firmness which was betrayed in the contour of her red lips. It was in vain that sorrow had early made her a woman; Marsa remained ignorant of the world, without any other guide than Vogotzine; ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... his young master's advances, until by the end of six weeks he had learned to answer to the name of Leo, to come at Dick's call or whistle, and, in short, had become as tame as a dog. This result, and the gentleness of disposition which Leo manifested, Dick attributed largely to the fact that the animal was never allowed to taste blood, or raw flesh of any kind, his food—after a milk diet for the first three weeks of his captivity—consisting entirely of well- ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... box, her bonnet, her carriage, her own personality absorbed her entirely. My merciless knowledge thoroughly tore away all my illusions. If good breeding consists in self-forgetfulness and consideration for others, in constantly showing gentleness in voice and bearing, in pleasing others, and in making them content in themselves, all traces of her plebeian origin were not yet obliterated in Foedora, in spite of her cleverness. Her self-forgetfulness ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... As she went on with her simple narrative the muscles of Mr. Gaythorne's face insensibly relaxed; hesitation, nervousness, a touch of self-consciousness even, would have repelled him; but her gentleness and childlike directness seemed to soothe him in spite of himself. And as she repeated Mrs. Broderick's message, though he shrugged his shoulders and muttered "Pshaw," she could see that he was gratified; and even his remark—"that Mrs. Broderick must ...
— Doctor Luttrell's First Patient • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... resist. She loves me, or at least she lets me think so; she has a certain smile which she keeps for me alone; for me, her voice grows softer still. Oh, yes! she loves me! But she adores her father; she tells me of his kindness, his gentleness, his excellent qualities. Those praises are so many dagger-thrusts with which she ...
— The Red Inn • Honore de Balzac
... states-general interfered between them: they were summoned to appear before the council of state; and grave politicians listened for hours to the dispute. Arminius obtained the advantage, by the apparent reasonableness of his creed, and the gentleness and moderation of his conduct. He was meek, while Gomar was furious; and many of the listeners declared that they would rather die with the charity of the former than in the faith of the latter. A second ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... prosecuted by the attorney-general for these offences. He was accordingly sued in the court of king's bench, and paid a fine of one thousand pounds, for having committed frauds by which he had gained forty times that sum; but he was treated with such gentleness as remarkably denoted ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... struck with the orderly demeanor of the people. They seemed merry and lively, but their mirth was of a quiet kind; and there was, everywhere, an air of decorum and gentleness, in strong contrast to ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... me," said Mr. Belamour, in a voice that added to her undefined alarm by what seemed to her imperious displeasure as uncalled for as it was unusual; but the usual fatherly gentleness immediately prevailed, "My child, I should never have entertained the thought for a moment but for—but for Lady Belamour. This sounds like no compliment," he added, catching himself up, and manifesting a certain embarrassment and confusion very unlike his usual ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Cuv.), in the Maypure tongue, chacharo; while they give the name of apida to a species of pig which they say has no pouch, is larger, and of a dark brown colour, with the belly and lower jaw white. The chacharo, reared in the houses, becomes tame like our sheep and goats. It reminds us, by the gentleness of its manners, of the curious analogies which anatomists have observed between the peccaries and the ruminating animals. The apida, which is domesticated like our swine in Europe, wanders in large herds composed of several hundreds. The presence ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... I wanted to arrest you, I had only to do it, and I am rid of you at once; but gentleness and persuasion are ...
— The Queen's Necklace • Alexandre Dumas pere
... small shop, that she may be able to maintain an elder brother who is every moment expected home from a prison to which in his youth he had been condemned unjustly, and in the silent solitude of which he has kept some lineaments of gentleness while his hair has grown white, and a sense of beauty while his brain has become disordered and his heart has been crushed and all present influences of beauty have been quite shut out. The House of Seven Gables is the purest piece of imagination ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... breath sharply. The sound of that one word "water" gave a definite touch to the situation, and thereby trebly increased its tragedy, but the gentleness of the voice gave her increased ...
— Betty Trevor • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... in a soft voice. Everything about her expressed gentleness. She was, indeed, a beautiful woman; somewhat with an air of indolence, with great eyes seemingly black and blue—amorous eyes. Was she happy with her crabbed, rheumatic husband? The scene at which we had once ...
— The Mystery of the Yellow Room • Gaston Leroux
... the one hand and the necessity for pleasing the rabble on the other. When any man is awake to the fact that the public is a vile patron, when he is conscious also that his bread and his fame are in their gift—it is a stern passage for his soul, a touchstone for the strength and gentleness of his spirit. Jonson, whose splendid scorn took to itself lyric wings in the two great Odes to Himself, sang high and aloof for a while, then the frenzy caught him, and he flung away his lyre to gird himself for deeds of mischief ...
— Style • Walter Raleigh
... character in the South-western States which have ever been published. The character of Tempest is drawn with all that spirit and energy which characterize the high toned female spirit of the South, while Sunshine possesses the loveliness and gentleness of the sweetest of her sex. The Planter is sketched to the life, and in his strongly marked, passionate, and generous nature, the reader will recognize one of the truest sons of ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... poniard," she said, with unnatural gentleness. "I have a right to examine the proofs brought ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens
... have guessed it, sir, by your gentleness in coming to visit me here. I ask your pardon.' Thus the ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... painful to both of us. You overrate my capacity for love. I don't possess half the warmth of nature you believe me to have. An unprotected childhood in a cold world has beaten gentleness out of me." ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... it is necessary to make a psychological study of them, and to consider their peculiar temperament. They are keenly appreciative of kindness, but, like children, they will impose upon a weak or vacillating person. A blending of gentleness and firmness is the only effective method. The fundamental point in all my dealings with them has been always to mean just what I say and to have things done exactly as ordered. For instance, if I tell an Eskimo that if he does a certain thing properly ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary
... inimitable. Observe with what art, or rather with what nature, it is worked up, so as to interest the feelings of the captain. First let us take a view of the speaker; a woman, and her breast diskivered: she begins with, "Kind sir," which shows the gentleness of her disposition, and that she forgave the captain though he had pressed her true-love: she proceeds, "I be kim for to seek my true-love," who could resist this affecting narration? A lady braving the dangers of ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 6, June 1810 • Various
... their Company, and to have them ready at his Command. For he is very ambitious of the Service of these Men, and winks at many of their failings, more than he uses to do towards his Natural Subjects. [The King's gentleness towards his white Soldiers.] As may appear from a Company of White Soldiers he hath, who upon their Watch used to be very negligent, one lying Drunk here and another there. Which remisness in his own Soldiers ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox
... hell are you doing here?" he demanded hotly. "Who asked you to tag around after me? Get out!" Whereupon he bundled Bland out without ceremony or gentleness, and the three scribes with him; slammed the door shut and turned the key which the clerk had left in the lock. "Now," he stated truculently, "I want that marriage license and I want ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... in the sun. A young Negress was employed on the steps of the house; that she was a slave made her an object of interest to us. She was the first slave we had ever spoken to, and I believe we all felt that we could hardly address her with sufficient gentleness. She little dreamed, poor girl, what deep sympathy she excited; she answered us civilly and gaily, and seemed amused at our fancying there was something unusual in red pepper pods; she gave us several of them, and I felt fearful lest a hard mistress might blame her ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... was, he pursued with obstinacy a single aim: to reestablish the domain of Casentino that his father, Prince Carlo, an officer of Victor Emmanuel, had left devoured by usurers. His affected gentleness concealed his stubbornness. He had only useful vices. It was to become a great Tuscan landowner that he had dealt in pictures, sold the famous ceilings of his palace, made love to rich old women, and, finally, sought the hand ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... the penalty of human thought, which in its justest statements always wounds some truth less clear or mutilates some tender sentiment. Radically, Augustin is right. The child is wicked as man is. We know it. But against the relentlessness of the theologian we place the divine gentleness of Christ: "Suffer little children to come unto Me, for of such is the Kingdom ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... running the entire length of the floor; separated by carpeted aisles, and containing all the articles of furniture needed by each occupant. On the ceiling directly over every bed, was inscribed in gilt letters, some text from the Bible, exhorting to patience, diligence, frugality, humility, gentleness, obedience, cheerfulness, honesty, truthfulness and purity; and mid-way the central aisle, where a chandelier swung, two steps led to a raised desk, whence at night issued the voice of the reader, who made audible ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... affect or persuade anything that he took to heart"—that is, with his equals. It is well to study this man, and to remember that he was not always vile. The Prince of Cond, had these manners and a generous, great heart as well. Gentleness really belongs to virtue, and a sycophant can hardly imitate it well. The perfect gentleman is he who has a strong heart under the silken doublet ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... midst of the picturesque life of Florence. She is seen smiling and weeping, walking with stately maidenly decorum in the street, praying at the church, merry at festivals, mourning at funerals; and her smiles and tears, her gentleness, her reserve, all the sweet qualities of her life, and the peace of her death, are told of with such tenderness and refinement, such pathetic melancholy, such delicate purity, and such passionate vehemence, that she remains and will always remain the loveliest and most womanly woman of the Middle ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... The effect was as if she had before her two widely different characters making themselves present at the same time in one person. Unquestionably, though rarely, there is a duality of nature in men, by which, to put it extremely, a seeming incapable may be vastly capable, outward gentleness a mask for a spirit of Neronian violence, dulness a low-lying cloud surcharged with genius. What shall be done with such a nature? When may it be relied upon? Who shall ever come to ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... that men like him were never brutal to their wives and daughters, sisters, mothers, as the mountaineers too often are; she was certain that they did not craze themselves with whisky and terrify and beat their families; she was sure that when one loved a girl the courtship must be all sweet gentleness and happiness and joy, not like the quick succession of mad love-making and fierce quarrels which had characterized the heart-affairs that she had watched, ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... less 350 To exhilarate in Priam's royal town Men and robed matrons, who shall seek the Gods For me, with pious ceremonial due. But come. We will exchange, or ere we part, Some princely gift, that Greece and Troy may say 355 Hereafter, with soul-wasting rage they fought, But parted with the gentleness of friends. So saying, he with his sheath and belt a sword Presented bright-emboss'd, and a bright belt Purpureal[11] took from Ajax in return. 360 Thus separated, one the Grecians sought, And one ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... tormented with an insatiate thirst of human blood. [16] Instead of employing her influence to insinuate the mild counsels of prudence and humanity, she exasperated the fierce passions of her husband; and as she retained the vanity, though she had renounced, the gentleness of her sex, a pearl necklace was esteemed an equivalent price for the murder of an innocent and virtuous nobleman. [17] The cruelty of Gallus was sometimes displayed in the undissembled violence of popular or military executions; and was sometimes ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... I brooded over her. Why had I ever brought her on that journey? Would that I had kept her, with all her love and gentleness, ...
— Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert
... been talking together about his blessed Troubadours. (It was wonderful the interest Mrs. Norman took in them!) Suddenly his gentleness and sadness fell from him, a flame sprang up behind his spectacles, and the something that slept or dreamed in Wilkinson awoke. He was away with Mrs. Norman in a lovely land, in Provence of the thirteenth century. A strange chant broke from him; it startled Evey, where she sat at the other end ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... sat down. His pale, haggard face expressed weariness and vexation; it was evident that he was exhausted, and only his gentleness and the delicacy of his soul prevented him from ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... about the trembling church, which seemed too weak with age to resist such an onslaught; but when at length the skin began to grow soft and yield to my gentle efforts at removal, I became far too much absorbed in the simple operation, which had to be performed with all the gentleness and nicety of a surgical one, to heed the uproar about me. Slowly the glutinous adhesion gave way, and slowly the writing revealed itself. In mingled hope and doubt I restrained my curiosity; and as one teases oneself sometimes by dallying with a letter of the greatest interest, ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... hurt. Also their mercy is known by many and oft examples: for they spare them that lie on the ground, and suffer them to pass homeward that were prisoners and come out of thraldom, and eat not a man or slay him but in great hunger. Pliny saith that the lion is in most gentleness and nobility, when his neck and shoulders be heled with hair and main. And he that is gendered of the pard, lacketh that nobility. The lion knoweth by smell, if the pard gendereth with the lioness, and reseth against the lioness that breaketh spousehood, and punisheth ...
— Mediaeval Lore from Bartholomew Anglicus • Robert Steele
... is, that I think you would be more successful if you would lay aside daggers and revolvers, and try to win her affection by patience and gentleness. Maggie was talking to me about it no later than last night, and I could see clearly that you frighten her with bluster. I am sure there are times when she dreads you; it must be a positive terror to her to sit with you alone—so it would ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... dwarfs should be able to make a chain strong enough to bind him, which the gods had failed to do, is a puzzle. May it mean that subtlety can compass ends which force has to relinquish, or possibly a better thing than subtlety, gentleness?" And the final need of a hero willing to take extreme risks for some good greater than himself is amply and admirably satisfied in the brave Tyr. The version of the story used here is from Miss E. M. Wilmot-Buxton's ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... of his Majesty, his crown and dignity," and condemn the said forgery to be burnt on the 8th at Westminster, and three days later at the Exchange? How could they sentence King to less than six months of Newgate and a fine of L50, though, in their gentleness or fickleness, they ultimately released him from some of the former and all the latter penalty? Happy those who possess this political curiosity, and can compare it with the speech which the King really did make on the same day, and which, perhaps, did ...
— Books Condemned to be Burnt • James Anson Farrer
... is a peaceful man; He tries in every way he can To live a life of gentleness And patience all the while. He says that needless fretting's vain, That it's absurd to be profane, That nearly every wrong can be Adjusted with a smile. Yet try no matter how he will, There's one thing that annoys him still, One thing that robs him of his calm And ...
— The Path to Home • Edgar A. Guest
... of whispered calumnies, such as those she refers to in the first of the two letters given. She despised them then, as those who loved and valued her did, though the sensitive womanly gentleness of her nature made it a pain to her that any fellow-creature, however ignorant and far away from her, should so think of her. And my disgust at a secret attempt to stab has impelled me to say what ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... you, and you shall tell me all." Miss Vandaleur hailed a passing hansom and jumped in, followed by Eily, white, shivering, and limp. "Now tell me all," she said, as they were driven at a rapid pace through the streets. Eily, won by her gentleness, told her the pitiful story of her love; told her of her simple mountain home, of the handsome stranger who had promised to return and carry her to a land where she would be fairest of the fair; told ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... "With the utmost gentleness and moderation, noble sir," answered the abbot; "indeed it appeared to me, at first, that he might be a troublesome guest, since the amount of his benevolence to the convent was such as to encourage, and, in some degree, to authorise, his demanding accommodation of a kind superior ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... austere woman, ceased scolding her after the first time, and, though she no more comprehended sensibility than she did capital Algebra, gave all masters and teachers particular orders to treat Miss Sedley with the utmost gentleness, as harsh treatment was ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... a connoisseur as regards all women, and he was immediately impressed by a certain quality in that face: a mingling of sweetness and power, of extreme gentleness and extreme determination. There was a lofty expression in the eyes, too, and round the mouth, which further appealed to him; and the hands of the lady were perfect—they were white, somewhat long, ...
— The School Queens • L. T. Meade
... town noble for its antiquity, pleasing in its site, superb for its walls, smiling for the fertility of its soil, charming for the gentleness of its inhabitants, magnificent for its palace, beautiful in its broad streets, marvellous in the construction of its bridge, rich because of its commerce, and known ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... Authority, which was the fount of all evil, was to him the greatest enemy; it must be destroyed, but men must be created who were capable of living without masters, priests or soldiers. The natural gentleness of his character, and the horror of violence with which his three years' campaigning had filled him, caused him rather to draw back from his new companions, who, dreaming of hecatombs from dynamite and the dagger to reform the world, obliged him to accept these new doctrines through ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... affection that was intertwined with it. However this be, Philip had formerly appeared the more spoiled and favoured of the two: and now Sidney seemed all in all. Thus, beneath the younger son's caressing gentleness, there grew up a certain regard for self; it was latent, it took amiable colours; it had even a certain charm and grace in so sweet a child, but selfishness it was not the less. In this he differed from his brother. Philip was ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... him. Not for the first time, now, did his sweet temper and gentleness vaguely irritate her—string her nerves a little tighter until they began to vibrate with an indefinable longing to say something to arouse this man—startle him—awaken him to a physical tensity and strength.... Such as ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... the bridle-lines—the same she wore when she came to me at Malvern Hill—lay unlifted on the pommel of the saddle. Never before had I seen her so grandly herself. Never before had the fire and energy, the grace and gentleness, of her blood so revealed themselves. This was the day and the event she needed. And all the royalty of her ancestral breed—a race of equine kings—flowing as without taint or cross from him that was the pride and wealth of the whole tribe of desert rangers, ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... Corney, who, arms akimbo, was laughing at the frolic and fun around her. Sylvia started a little when Philip spoke, and kept her soft eyes averted from him after the first glance; she answered him shortly, but with unaccustomed gentleness. He had only asked her when she would like him to take her home; and she, a little surprised at the idea of going home when to her the evening ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... all. A pleasanter and saner woman than Mary Datchet was never seen within a committee-room. She seemed a compound of the autumn leaves and the winter sunshine; less poetically speaking, she showed both gentleness and strength, an indefinable promise of soft maternity blending with her evident fitness for honest labor. Nevertheless, she had great difficulty in reducing her mind to obedience; and her reading lacked conviction, as if, as was indeed the case, she had lost the power of visualizing what ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... She looked as if she had seen much of the world, but had illy learned the lessons of her experience. This combination of strength and simplicity had wrought a curious effect upon her manner. There was no timidity about her, but much gentleness. She was modest and clothed with repose, and yet the outlines of her face plainly informed you that in the presence of a sufficient emergency she was quite prepared to go anywhere ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... the hour for his assassination had arrived. He, however, passed safely through, and was ushered into the chamber of his brother-in-law and former playfellow, the dying king. Charles IX., subdued by remorse and appalled by approaching death, received him with gentleness and affection, and weeping profusely, embraced him as ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... fleur-de-lises, as they worked together for the decoration of the great church and a hundred other [66] places beside. And yet a darkness had grown upon him. The kind creature had lost something of his gentleness. Strange motiveless misdeeds had happened; and, at a loss for other causes, not the envious only would fain have traced the blame to Denys. He was making the younger world mad. Would he make himself Count of Auxerre? The lady Ariane, deserted by her former lover, had looked kindly upon him; was ready ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Horatio Pater
... present ferment, when a vein of bitterness has been opened in England which will not close so soon, and when the hoarse voice of religious acrimony is filling the atmosphere with its dismal sounds. With the peculiar gentleness of your disposition you will have to encounter the fierce attacks of the [Greek: Ellaenes], as well as of the [Greek: Hioudaioi], I mean of those to whom the Church is a [Greek: skandalon], as well ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... a glimpse of the face of my conductor—a thin, wonderfully hollow-cheeked lay brother. He began, with great gentleness, to assist me out of my black ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... the grand parlor, and dance to the music of the band until nine o'clock. This was a privilege we older ones talked of continually, and looked forward to all day. We were so dainty, genteel, and good-mannered for an hour, that it impressed even ourselves; and boys and girls became models of gentleness and polite behavior, and the effect of those delightful evenings has given growth and direction to many graces in ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... her profile that character of antique beauty which is vanishing day by day from the earth. A calm and serene smile, one of those smiles that have already left the soul and not yet reached the lips, lifted the corners of her mouth with a pure expression of infinite beatitude and gentleness. Nothing could be more perfect than the chin that completed the faultless oval of this radiant countenance; her neck of a dead white, joined her bosom in a delicious curve, and supported her head gracefully like the ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - NISIDA—1825 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... contribution to Alexandria cannot be overrated, for in their personal lives and public service, they set an example of chivalry and courage. They have been distinguished by handsome men and beautiful women, by gentleness and courtly bearing. They have had great wealth and used it generously; have lost great wealth and borne it nobly. The family is represented in England today by Thomas Brian, Thirteenth Lord Fairfax, great-great-grandson ...
— Seaport in Virginia - George Washington's Alexandria • Gay Montague Moore
... the proper regulation of the conduct of all classes. (c) The foundation of the instruction rests upon Christ. (d) Proper attitude of the Christian community toward the Pagan world; magistrates and those who have not yet believed in Christ. Kindness and gentleness and the avoidance of foolish questions best reveal the spirit of Christ by those who profess His name. (e) ...
— Bible Studies in the Life of Paul - Historical and Constructive • Henry T. Sell
... was very successful on that evening and the following day. Never had Johnny and Alie found their uncle so agreeable. His manner almost approached to gentleness,—it was a calm after ...
— False Friends, and The Sailor's Resolve • Unknown
... the gentleness of thy sweet youth Hast never trodden on a worm, or bruised A living flower, but thou hast pitied it With ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... its pearly whiteness, lived a soul like that of a man of noble nature; but no one, not even a close observer, would have suspected it from the gentle countenance and rounded features which, when seen in profile, bore some slight resemblance to those of a lamb. This extreme gentleness, though noble, had something of the stupidity of the little animal. "I look like a dreamy sheep," she would say, smiling. Laurence, who talked little, seemed not so much dreamy as dormant. But, did any important ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... war; the spirit of military glory and the spirit of revolution are weakened at the same time and by the same causes. The ever-increasing numbers of men of property—lovers of peace, the growth of personal wealth which war so rapidly consumes, the mildness of manners, the gentleness of heart, those tendencies to pity which are engendered by the equality of conditions, that coolness of understanding which renders men comparatively insensible to the violent and poetical excitement of arms—all these causes concur to quench the military spirit. I think ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... the publication of his Voyage and his charts in 1814 showed the measure of his shining merits—his thoroughness, his accuracy, his diligence, the beauty of his drawings, the vast extent of the entirely new work which he had done, and the manliness, gentleness, courage, and fairness of ...
— Terre Napoleon - A history of French explorations and projects in Australia • Ernest Scott
... never cut out for one another," he remarked at last. "It was a daft-like marriage." And then, with a most unusual gentleness of tone, "Puir bitch," said he, "puir bitch!" ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... judged her, and acquitted her. Out of the abundance of her heart her mouth had spoken. By her words she was justified. By those few words she proved her utter faith in our Lord's power and goodness—perhaps her faith in His godhead. By those words she proved the gentleness and humility, the graciousness and gracefulness of her own character. By those words she proved, too,—and oh, you that are mothers, is that nothing?—the perfect disinterestedness of her mother's love. And so she conquered—as ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... and possibly too, because he is told that knowledge will help him to win money and influence. However great his proficiency, he is in truth but a barbarian, without wisdom, without reverence, without gentleness. He has been brought only in a vague way into communion with the conscious life of the race; he has no true conception of the dignity of souls, no sense of the beauty of modest and unselfish action. He mistakes rudeness for strength, boastfulness for ability, disrespect for independence, ...
— Education and the Higher Life • J. L. Spalding
... thoughts, and had Ruth but taken them to God, praying that they might be made the means of drawing her into a closer union with Him, what a wonderful change would have passed over her. As it was, they gave such a softness to her tone, and such gentleness to her manner, that Martha, quite encouraged, ventured to express her admiration of the dress, of the giver, and of the receiver, in such a mixed up way, that Ruth ...
— 'Our guy' - or, The elder brother • Mrs. E. E. Boyd
... gifts as are given us, we must do the best we can for ourselves and our fellow-men; must do it with faith and courage, do it with gentleness and in truth, and with a purpose so high that we shall never fear anything except to do ...
— The Wedge of Gold • C. C. Goodwin
... of Desdemona is perfectly right, but it must be carried back and united with the earlier before we can see what Shakespeare imagined. Evidently, we are to understand, innocence, gentleness, sweetness, lovingness were the salient and, in a sense, the principal traits in Desdemona's character. She was, as her ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... exceptional cases, he believes the rigors of the so-called third degree to be greatly exaggerated. Frequently in dealing with rough men rough methods are used, but considering the multitude of offenders, and the thousands of police officers, none of whom have been trained in a school of gentleness, it is surprising that severer treatment is not generally met with on the part of those who run afoul of the criminal law. The ordinary "cop" tries to do his duty as effectively as he can. With the average ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train
... have worn the singing robes of the poet": a description of one who chose to be a jester when he might have been serious, and hardly applicable to Locker, who is never a professed "funny man." Mr Kernahan is far more just when he claims for "London Lyrics" a kind of sober gentleness which moves neither to laugh nor to weep: "his sad scenes may touch us to tender melancholy, but never to tears; his gay ones to smile, but seldom to laughter." Locker's Muse is not the Muse of high spirits. He does not start with the intention of jesting. ...
— London Lyrics • Frederick Locker
... black Chantilly lace, bought it and ordered it altered to her figure. For this they charged her two pounds ten in addition to that frightful price for about an hour's work about the collar. Mrs. Jimmie seldom resents anything, and in her gentleness is easily governed, so this time I persuaded her to protest, and dictated a furious letter of remonstrance to the proprietor, citing only this one case of extortion. Jimmie sat by, smoking and encouraging ...
— Abroad with the Jimmies • Lilian Bell
... first to read it through, and afterwards to recommend Mr. Johnson and his writings to the publick. After this they were profess'd friends; tho' I don't know whether the other ever made him an equal return of gentleness and sincerity. Ben was naturally proud and insolent, and in the days of his reputation did so far take upon him the supremacy in wit, that he could not but look with an evil eye upon any one that seem'd to stand in competition ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... little, secure, artificial haven of La Tour de Peil. A forest of latine yards and low masts lay before them, but, by giving the bark a rank sheer, Maso brought her to her berth, by the side of another lake craft, with a gentleness of collision that, as the mariners have it, would not have ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... referring to him; maybe they knew nothing of John in Edinburgh; maybe he had been foolishly suspeecious. A subtle yet baffling check was put upon his anger. Madman as he was in wrath, he never struck without direct provocation; there was none in this pulpy gentleness. And he was too dull of wit to get round the common ruse and find a means of ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... to him. The square forehead, the square jaw, the tense lines of the mouth, the deep, flashing dark eyes, the impression of something more than strength he gave you, an impression of sincerity, of solid force, of immovability, yet with the gentleness arising from the serene consciousness of his strength—all this belonged to Huxley, and to him alone. The first glance magnetized his audience. The eyes were those of one accustomed to command, of one having authority, and not fearing on occasion ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley - A Character Sketch • Leonard Huxley
... know that I did love her: to this present My full-orb'd love hath waned not. Did I love her, And could I look upon her tearful eyes? Tears wept for me; for me—weep at my grief? What had she done to weep—let my heart Break rather—whom the gentlest airs of heaven Should kiss with an unwonted gentleness. Her love did murder mine; what then? she deem'd I wore a brother's mind: she call'd me brother: She told me all her love: she shall ...
— The Suppressed Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... a drink in a minute; but one thing at a time, old pal, that's my motto. Always merry and bright, as the perisher said in the play." Back in the trench, pulled in from the wire where the work goes on, an officer's electric torch shines on the stretcher bearers working with clumsy gentleness on the quivering body. "Now, then, mate, we can't get the blinking stretcher along this 'ere trench, so we'll 'ave to ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... sweet gentleness] I, too, I know you again. Your father is a potter. You were brought up and taught by us. In the crowd of neophytes I singled you out by your gentleness, your great intelligence; and I saw you destined for the highest dignities. I esteemed you, I was fond of you. We took you from wretchedness. What you know, for the most part, you owe to us. This thing that you have done should ...
— Woman on Her Own, False Gods & The Red Robe - Three Plays By Brieux • Eugene Brieux
... gentleness like thine. Thy sight is death to me; and yet 'tis dear. The gaudy trappings of assumptive state Drop at the voice of nature to the earth, Before thy feet—I cannot force myself To hate thee, to renounce thee; yet—Covilla! Yet—oh distracting thought! 'tis hard ...
— Count Julian • Walter Savage Landor
... in his, and began to talk with her. He did not allude to the subject which he knew was uppermost in her mind, except that by a more than ordinary gentleness and kindness he perhaps caused her to understand that her thoughts were ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... but it seems to me, that in the whale the sense of touch is concentrated in the tail; for in this respect there is a delicacy in it only equalled by the daintiness of the elephant's trunk. This delicacy is chiefly evinced in the action of sweeping, when in maidenly gentleness the whale with a certain soft slowness moves his immense flukes from side to side upon the surface of the sea; and if he feel but a sailor's whisker, woe to that sailor, whiskers and all. What tenderness there is in that preliminary touch! Had this ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... the qualities that are attractive in a sovereign: affability, gentleness, kindliness, generosity. She had a way of convincing every one of her personal interest. She had an excellent memory, and surprised those with whom she talked by the exactness with which she recalled ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... reflected that this recent gentleness of his friends most certainly arose from some plan formed by D'Artagnan. Unwilling to injure them by praising them too highly, he replied: "They? They are two hotheads—the one a Gascon, the other from ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... violent character, sulky, because of his not being accustomed to slavery, for he is still green; but he can be broken in by using at different times gentleness, severity ...
— The Brass Bell - or, The Chariot of Death • Eugene Sue
... This gentleness only served to increase the audacity of his persecutors, who now, momently augmenting, presented a formidable obstacle to further progress. Perceiving that he could not advance without offensive measures on his own part, the poor ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... night; but when he came to breakfast, all noticed an unusual gentleness and benignity of manner, and Mary, she knew not why, saw tears rising in his eyes ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... till he has come to rely wholly on himself, and feels like some of those rocky reefs which stand out in the sea on our New England coast, and have borne the onset of a thousand storms. Yet at last he is softened. We see it, we feel it. There is a strange softness in his tone, a gentleness in his manner, a suspicion of moisture in his eye. The good God has been moving in his heart; perhaps it was by some trial or disappointment, or the loss of some curly-headed darling, who went up to heaven, and left the doors open behind, so that the joyful ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... mothers guilty of incalculable harm by fostering such inclinations in their sons. They think (the thought is a natural one) that such perversions of taste indicate gentleness and kindliness, and induce their sons to continue in the practice of them, thus assisting atavism in its ...
— Religion and Lust - or, The Psychical Correlation of Religious Emotion and Sexual Desire • James Weir
... prince she heard and saw no more. There were times when she fancied, from oblique and obscure hints, that the Dominican had been aware of Don Juan's disguise and visit. But, if so, that knowledge appeared only to increase the gentleness, almost the respect, which Torquemada manifested towards her. Certainly, since that day, from some cause or other the priest's manner had been softened when he addressed her; and he who seldom had recourse to other arts than those ...
— Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book V. • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... their children painted by the great master's hand on the opposite wall. The Dominican historian, Padre Pino, writing in the last century, says that the convent retained a life-sized portrait of that most excellent and famous lady, Duchess Beatrice, in which the sweet gentleness of her nature and majesty of her bearing were faithfully reproduced; and Padre Gattico, a very accurate and careful writer of the sixteenth century who wrote the history of the convent from its foundation, describes how Leonardo da Vinci was employed ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... constantly into the company of the Creole. Despite his very evident admiration, he did not join the ranks of her more or less avowed lovers; a fact that in turn piqued and oddly comforted Kate. For at times this new life of hers seemed a strange dream, in which Benoix, with his gentleness, his punctilious courtesy, his rather formal friendliness of aspect, was the only fixed reality. She felt, vaguely, that she was safe with him; safer than with her husband. She thought of him more as a ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... had hailed with delight the opportunity of taking to himself the young orphan cousin of kindred blood, of congenial tastes, and home-like speech, whom he might treat at once as a younger brother and friend, and mould by and by into a trusty counsellor and assistant. That peculiar wistfulness and gentleness of Malcolm's look and manner, together with the refinement and intellect apparent to all who conversed with him without alarming him, had won the King's heart, and made him long to keep the boy with him. As to ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge |
