"Serenity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... anxious irritability faded from Maecenas's face, and in restored serenity he walked with Horace from the dining-room, through the spacious, unroofed peristyle, where marble pillars and statues, flower-beds and fountains were blanched by the winter moon to one tone of silver, and through the magnificent atrium, where the images of noble ancestors kept their silent watch ...
— Roads from Rome • Anne C. E. Allinson
... this would not have materially disturbed the serenity of his mind had he had only himself and his wife to care for; but there was his daughter gradually growing to maturity; and all the world knows when daughters begin to ripen no fruit or flower requires so much looking after. I have no talent ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... length she had recovered all her customary serenity. With the quiet dignity peculiar to her, she passed up the garden path, leaving the thrush still singing, singing, ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... little Rose too, but she was by no means so unchanged as her mother, and certainly no longer little, surprisingly tall on the contrary, with her golden hair grown brown and braided in a pig-tail, actually a pig-tail. She had the same bloom and serenity, however, and the same sedate, investigating look in her eyes. There was Mr. Browne too, but he was a brief joy, for there was only time to shake hands and exchange dates and promises of return, before the train started and bore him away ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge
... easily—generous, companionable, enthusiastic; living, as it were, from day to day, in a place where the luxuries of life were had without effort; in a city that offered to consideration the restlessness of a New York, without its earnestness; the serenity of a Naples, without its languor; the romance of a Seville, without ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... clear, apparently, was now the political atmosphere, that men could not avoid accusing themselves of having judged rashly the mighty conqueror, who, by a word, could restore serenity as easily as he had disturbed it. It was not yet known by what power he was restrained. In compliance with the requirements of the treaty of Villafranca, Piedmont, indeed, withdrew her commissioners from Central Italy. The public, ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... something in the accent which told of effort and repression. Mrs. Romaine admired her for that little piece of acting more than she had ever admired her upon the stage. She was too anxious for her brother's prosperity to say a word to disturb Ethel's serenity, whether ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... his serenity of temper when he was out of the housekeeper's sight. One important discovery he had made, in spite of the difficulties placed in his way. A compromising circumstance had unquestionably occurred in Stella's past life; and, in all probability, ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... Tale. All the plays of this period end happily and are wholly free from the bitterness of the Third Period comedy. Nevertheless, they have little of the rollicking, uproarious fun of the earlier comedies. Their charm lies rather in a subdued cheerfulness, a quiet, pure, sympathetic serenity of tone, less strenuous, but even more poetic, than what had gone before. In some ways they are hardly equal to the great tragedies just mentioned, for the poet is growing older now, and the fiery vigor of Macbeth is fading out of his verse. ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken
... scarcely disturbed it by their murmured talk. Many of them indeed said nothing, but rested like lotus-eaters in graceful attitudes, with hanging hands, and eyes, soft as the eyes of gazelles, that regarded the shadowy paths and creeping waters with a grave serenity born of the inmost spirit ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... rhythmic measures, which, however elaborated and varied in later times, originated in the dim past, when singing and dancing moved hand in hand for the vivid utterance of feeling—in mirthful joy and in woe, love and hate, worshipful devotion and mortal defiance, the fierceness of battle and the serenity of peace. While through all and over all must breathe the informing spirit of Beauty—whether of the delicate or the sublime, whether of sweetness or of power—harmonizing both the interior essence and ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... impress their minds with the idea of a prison, or a place of punishment, and to make every thing conduce to their health and to their ease and comfort. The self-respect and complacency which may thus be produced in the insane, must have a salutary influence in restoring the mind to its wonted serenity. In the disposition of the grounds attached to the Asylum, everything has been done with reference to the amusement, agreeable occupation, and salutary ...
— A Psychiatric Milestone - Bloomingdale Hospital Centenary, 1821-1921 • Various
... nothing, but in everything withholding his opinion, as nothing in itself is good or shameful, just or unjust.[1] He was not a victim of false pride, but sold animals in the market place, and, if necessary, washed the utensils himself.[2] He lived in equality of spirit, and practised his teachings with serenity. If one went out while he was talking he paid no attention, but went calmly on with his remarks.[3] He liked to live alone, and to travel alone, and on one occasion, being knocked about in a vessel by a storm at sea, he did not lose ...
— Sextus Empiricus and Greek Scepticism • Mary Mills Patrick
... the Nore mutiny deal to credit that 3 per cent. Consols, which did not fall below 50 at the Bank crisis, sank to 48 in June, the lowest level ever touched in our history. After the collapse of the mutiny they rose to 55 1/2. The serenity of Pitt never failed during this terrible time. A remarkable proof of his self-possession was given by Spencer. Having to consult him hastily one night, he repaired to Downing Street and found that he was asleep. When awakened, he sat up in bed, heard ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... at once, as if undergoing the influence of an unspoken thought, the countenance of the cardinal, till then gloomy, cleared up by degrees, and recovered perfect serenity. ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... clamoured, for picturesque accessories, and when Daffingdon went to a costume ball he generally wore a ruff and carried a rapier. All these things had their effect, and when people said, "How much?" and Daffingdon with unblinking serenity said, "So much," they quailed sometimes, but they never tried ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... its serenity. The little four-footed woods folks doubtless prowled all around the boys' camp, eyeing the glimmering fire with wonder and distrust, for it could not be a familiar sight to any of them, since mankind seldom visited this inaccessible region so far removed from the track of ordinary travel. ...
— At Whispering Pine Lodge • Lawrence J. Leslie
... him. He laid his hands upon their heads, and in a brief and fervent prayer blessed them. Both were sobbing. Tears ran down his cheeks also; but his countenance was bright in its uplifted serenity, wearing a strange expression of ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... passed on this occasion. I remarked that the utmost deference was paid to my companion, on whom his entrance into this company appeared to operate like magic. His eyes sparkled; his features expanded into a benign serenity; and his wonted reserve gave place to a torrent-like and ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... German scholar to take the problem of religion seriously; his whole profession (and as I have said, his whole workmanlike laboriousness, to which he is compelled by his modern conscience) inclines him to a lofty and almost charitable serenity as regards religion, with which is occasionally mingled a slight disdain for the "uncleanliness" of spirit which he takes for granted wherever any one still professes to belong to the Church. It is only with ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... He inform'd me, That in this new Country they had very seldom any Clouds at all, and consequently no extraordinary Storms, but a constant Serenity, moderate Breezes cooled the Air, and constant Evening Exhalations kept the Earth moist and fruitful; and as the Winds they had were various and strong enough to assist their Navigation, so they were without the Terrors, Dangers, Ship-wrecks and Destructions, which he knew we were troubled ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe
... to her feet. She was radiant with a new serenity, now that her quick-wittedness had discovered a method for baffling the mesh of evidence that had been woven about her and Dick through no fault of their own. Her eyes were glowing with even more than their usual lusters. Her voice ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... struggle. They would ignore it, he knew, and yet it shone in their eyes, quivered in their voices, and trembled in their divided hands; and to them both its presence was alive and evident in the space between them. He saw her bosom rise and fall, her lips part slightly, and a tremor disturb the high serenity of her self-control, and there came to him the memory of their first meeting at the cross-roads and of the mystery and the rapture of his boyish love. He had found her then the lady of his dreams, and now, after all the violence of ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... less favored sister. All she could do, however, was to drop her head to her bosom, and assume in her attitude some of that devotion in which her stubborn spirit refused to unite. When Hetty rose from her knees, her countenance had a glow and serenity that rendered a face that was always agreeable, positively handsome. Her mind was at peace, and her conscience acquitted her of ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... conception of that character, was complicated with the sense of sin, as it never had been in a Florentine or a Neapolitan. He had not grasped the meaning of the Machiavellian conscience, in its cold serenity and disengagement from the dread of moral consequence. Not only are his villains stealthy, frigid, quick to evil, merciless, and void of honour; but they brood upon their crimes and analyse their motives. In the midst of their audacity they are ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... know you and it's the first time I've seen you," Alyosha went on with the same serenity, "yet I must have done something to you—you wouldn't have hurt me like this for nothing. So what have I done? How have I wronged you, ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... the call he heard! Ringing in his ears, it disturbed the clearness and serenity of his mind, and instead of calmly reflecting on the matter, memories of his boyhood, which he had imagined were buried long ago, raised their voices, and incoherent flashes of thought ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... So in serenity and sunshine the days of my youth went past. I still maintained my character as a drone and a dreamer. I used my time tramping the moorland with a gun, whipping the foamy pools of the burn for trout, or reading voraciously in the library. Mostly I read ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... laboring under that hallucination, not infrequent with maiden ladies rather advanced, that her own spring-time was perennial; and though by no means disposed to displace the hero of her youth from his supremacy in her heart, she yet accepted, with the ordinary feminine serenity, gallant attentions from youths over whose infant slumbers she had, in times of domestic disturbance, often presided. Hence it happened that the "Variety Store" often afforded the first introduction to Warren society; indeed, so sharp ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... Fairy, "They call them the Slaughter-house Quartette, auntie, because whenever they are sober enough to walk without police assistance, they wander through the streets slaughtering the peace and serenity of the quiet town with their rendition of all the late, disgraceful sentimental ditties. They are in many ways striking characters. I do not wholly misunderstand their attraction for romantic Carol. They are ...
— Prudence Says So • Ethel Hueston
... as bright, as calm, as natural, as the June day itself. She insisted on fastening "her Captain's" straps on his shoulders, purloined his cumbrous pin-ball and put it out of sight, and kept even Mrs. Bowen's sobs in subjection by the intense serenity of her manner. The minutes seemed to go like beats of a fever-pulse; ten o'clock smote on a distant bell; Josephine had retreated, as if accidentally, to a little parlor of her own, opening from our common sitting-room. Frank shook hands with Mr. Bowen; kissed Mrs. Bowen dutifully, and cordially ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... abstention from injury, are said to constitute the penance of the body. The speech which causeth no agitation, which is true, which is agreeable and beneficial, and the diligent study of the Vedas, are said to be the penance of speech. Serenity of the mind, gentleness, taciturnity, self-restraint, and purity of the disposition,—these are said to be the penance of the mind. This three-fold penance performed with perfect faith, by men without desire of fruit, and with devotion, is said to be of the quality of goodness. That penance ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... the world-worship of "the Hidden One"; not Amun, god of the dead, fused with Ra, with Amsu, or with Khnum: but that other "Hidden One," who is God of the happy hunting-ground of savages, with whom the Buddhist strives to merge his strange serenity of soul; who is adored in the "Holy Places" by the Moslem, and lifted mystically above the heads of kneeling Catholics in cathedrals dim with incense, and merrily praised with the banjo and the trumpet in the streets of black English cities; who is ...
— The Spell of Egypt • Robert Hichens
... Chandler Darlington, did sit together in the high seat and talk in the congregation of the people. There, too, we met Hannah Darlington and Dinah Mendenhall,—names long known in every good work,—and, for the space of one day, did enjoy the blissful serenity of that earthly paradise. The women of Kennett Square were celebrated not only for their model housekeeping but also for their rare cultivation on all subjects ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... illustrating them on a slate, singing to him, acting Blondin, exhibiting whatever he could lay his hands on, including the twins, whom he bore down one after the other, to the great wrath of Sibby, not to say of little Stella herself, while Theodore took the exhibition with perfect serenity. ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... on the afternoon of a beautiful day towards the close of autumn, that charming but brief season which, in consequence of its unbroken serenity, has been styled the Indian summer. The men had all been dispatched into the mountains in various directions, some to fish, others to shoot; and none were left at the fort except its commandant with his wife and child, and Oolibuck the Esquimau. Stanley was seated ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... happened somewhere between the time we boarded the basha on the yestereen and the hour of departure that morning, and an exhaustive but vain hunt for the same, first in the vehicle and then at the stables, nothing marred the serenity of our first half hour. The sky was dreamy; a delicate blue seen through a golden gauze. I fancy it was such a sky with which Danae fell in love. We rose slowly up the Shiwojiri pass, which a new road enabled even the basha to do quite comfortably; and the ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... your fun,' the father says, once more putting his hands on Dick's shoulders. 'Let me look at you again, Dick. There is such a serenity ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie
... keen ear these sounds were all they should have been, betokening an unchanged serenity of forestland. He was glad, for he had expected to hear the clipclop of white men's horses—which to hear up in those fastnesses was hateful to him. He and the Indian were friends. That fierce foe had no enmity toward the lone hunter. But ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... that very cottage. She was wearing the same dress; her hair was done in the same way; she had on the same bangles and necklaces as in The Happy Princess; and her lovely face, with its rosy cheeks and laughing eyes, bore the same look of joy and serenity. ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... after Maximilian's death, the struggle became closer and the issue nearer, the inequality between the forces and chances of the two rivals became quite manifest, and Francis I. could no longer affect the same serenity. He had intrusted the management of his affairs in Germany to a favorite comrade of his early youth, Admiral de Bonnivet, a soldier and a courtier, witty, rash, sumptuous, eager to display his master's power and ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... her father, adding that, in the meantime, she should do nothing to aggravate her sin. And then, as she impudently smiled at him, he pictured hell, where wicked women burn in torment. And afterwards he left her, his duty done, his soul once more full of the serenity which enabled him to pass undisturbed athwart the corruptions of ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... closely with our own ego, are not looked at but are merely felt. Unknown forces are within us, pulling us this way and that, until sometimes we who should be masters are helpless slaves. One great help toward mastery and one long step toward serenity is a working-knowledge of the causes and an impersonal interest in the phenomena going on within. Introspection is a morbid, emotional fixation on self, until it takes on this quality of objectivity. What Cabot calls the "sin of impersonality" is a grievous ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury
... strangeness and her natural timidity. In spite of this timidity—which the child herself, in the oddest way in the world, had been perfectly frank and brave about, allowing it, without a sign of uncomfortable consciousness, with the deep, sweet serenity indeed of one of Raphael's holy infants, to be discussed, to be imputed to her, and to determine us—I feel quite sure she would presently like me. It was part of what I already liked Mrs. Grose herself for, the pleasure I could see her feel in my admiration and wonder as I sat at supper with four ...
— The Turn of the Screw • Henry James
... found that deceptive air of serenity which made the history of less than three months ago seem paradoxical and fantastically unreal. Only about the court-house square where numerous small holes in frame walls told of fusillades, and in the interior of the building itself ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... palace. Immediately upon the withdrawal of the king, the troops in the Carrousel, who were then retreating into the court-yard of the Tuileries, retired through the palace into the garden. The princess, a very heroic woman, had entirely recovered her self-possession, and awaited her doom with the serenity of a martyr. As the shouting mob rushed into the Carrousel, and the windows of the palace were rattling from the explosions of the artillery, M. Dupin, president of the Chamber of Deputies, entered the room, and, much agitated with both fear ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... expresses it, of "chopping up life into small sins with a hatchet" is, of course, to be avoided: but the purpose of self-examination and self-knowledge is not to encourage morbid introspection, but by frank acknowledgment and repentance to get rid of the past and with recovered hope and serenity to reach forward towards the future. A man cannot "walk in the Spirit" unless he ...
— Religious Reality • A.E.J. Rawlinson
... the strange scene from the window above, of prisoners and warders amicably chatting together, others squatting in groups over a harmless game, a horrible voice disturbed the serenity of the picture. Then at a closely barred window a face appeared, with matted hair and long unkempt beard. It was the face of a madman; with terrible curses he filled the air, and we looked inquiringly ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... always impressed," she gurgles on, "by the calm serenity in the eyes of these little ones. It is as ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... busy just now on a book of my own, but all these things force me to put my work aside, day after day. Even when I have some leisure hours which I might devote to my own work, I cannot attain the requisite serenity for doing it—cannot get these vexatious matters out of my head; and there are other matters, too, of the same kind which I need ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... the plan I am revolving in my mind. I would provide for Anthony and for others a place of rest and peace and refreshment, where they can regain health of body and serenity of spirit. And where better than at the old manor near to Poghley, where we have spent so many happy days of yore? But I would have my wife with me there—not as guest, but as mistress of the house. And Freda would have ...
— For the Faith • Evelyn Everett-Green
... therefrom; but he felt sure that amid new and more inspiring surroundings he could pull himself together and become once more his old self of former days. Hence the new Major Kahle felt happy, and no cloud disturbed his serenity. He was going to a large and lively city, and both he and his wife would reap the advantages of that. There was quartered there a considerable body of troops of various branches of the service, and his intercourse would, in consequence, greatly widen, and so would that of his wife. ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... a distance I had wondered at the Reverend Gregory Goodloe, wondered at his freedom from all resentment because of his ministerial and spiritual failures and at his loving serenity and enjoyment of us all. He partook of the joy in almost all of our adventures in pleasure, and when we did things that in the nature of the case would seem to merit his disapproval, he never administered it; he simply was not with us, but was serenely about his business ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... owned. None recognised him who stood there worn, shabby and tired. He even caught the direct glance of a girl who once had thought him worth winning, who had set herself to stir his heart and—had been successful. To-day she looked him straight in the eyes, apparently, with undisturbed serenity, then as calmly looked over and through and beyond him. Her limousine hurried her on, enthroned impregnably above ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... I have fitted and filled the Single Cane, I can say in the general, That I have not yet found any such infallible Prognostick of these changes of weather, which do follow a long serenity, or setled weather. And perchance in brighter Climats it may be constantly infallible. In these Northern Islands, the Clouds are so short, and narrow, and by fickle changes are sometimes emptied upon us, ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various
... Brown to me, of the wood hyacinths of Scotland in the spring. Yes, that is so,—each bud more beautiful, itself, than perfectest jewel—this, indeed, jewel "of purest ray serene;" but, observe you, the glory is in the purity, the serenity, the radiance,—not in the ...
— Proserpina, Volume 1 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... merely the avoidance of all obvious sins against man and society, but a tuning-up, a transmuting of the whole nature to high and noble endeavour. Wordsworth found his reward, in a settled state of calm serenity, "consummate happiness," "wide-spreading, steady, calm, contemplative," and, as he tells us in the fourth book of the Prelude, on one ...
— Mysticism in English Literature • Caroline F. E. Spurgeon
... wronged, but whose condition, in particular and in general, allows the utterance of his mind. In old persons, when thus fully expressed, we often observe a fair, plump, perennial, waxen complexion, which indicates that all the ferment of earlier days has subsided into serenity of thought ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... me, instead of now being in a state to console you and to reassure you against yourself, you would see me at the present moment partaking your inquietudes, and augmenting in your mind the lugubrious ideas with which I perceive you to be tormented. Thanks to Reason and Philosophy, an unruffled serenity long ago irradiated my understanding, and banished the terrors with which I was formerly agitated. What happiness for me if the peace which I enjoy should put it in my power to break the charm which yet binds you with ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach
... risen for Ben. It was his moment of renunciation, glorious past any moment of his life. He had renounced his last, little fighting chance that the girl might live. And Ezram, watching high and afar, and with infinite serenity knowing at last the true balance of all things one with another, gave him his ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall
... have been in the transcendently firm and clear-eyed intelligence of Goethe that Mr. Carlyle first found a responsive encouragement to the profoundly positive impulses of his own spirit.[6] There is, indeed, a whole heaven betwixt the serenity, balance, and bright composure of the one, and the vehemence, passion, masterful wrath, of the other; and the vast, incessant, exact inquisitiveness of Goethe finds nothing corresponding to it in Mr. Carlyle's multitudinous contempt and ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. I - Essay 2: Carlyle • John Morley
... from Him, He will not give me anything; not because He will not, but because He cannot. Take the old Psalmist's words, 'I have quieted myself as a weaned child,' and nestle on the great bosom, and its warmth, its fragrance, its serenity will be granted to you. Keep hold of God's hand in expectation, in submission, in close union, and the contact will communicate something of His own power. 'In quietness and in confidence shall be your strength.' ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... tendencies of this child's mind—ever toward the melancholy and the beautiful united. Quietly pensive as her disposition was, she had no young companions to rouse her into mirth. But there was a serenity even in her sadness; and no one could have looked in her face without feeling that her nature was formed to suit her apparent fate, and that if less fitted to enjoy, she was the more fitted for the solemnity of that ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... fresh attack of the harassing demon I rebuked myself with the stern command, "Quit your Worrying." Little by little I succeeded in obeying my own orders. A measurable degree of serenity has since blessed my life. It has been no freer than other men's lives from the ordinary—and a few extraordinary—causes of worry, but I have learned the lesson. I have Quit Worrying. To help others to attain the same ...
— Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James
... milder natures, and more free— Whom an unblamed serenity Hath freed from passions, and the state Of struggle these necessitate; Whom schooling of the stubborn mind Hath made, or birth hath found, resign'd— These mourn not, that their goings pay Obedience to the passing day. These ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... matter of moment, and therefore we should be careful to fix them upon right objects, to confine them within proper bounds, and never permit them to exceed the limits assigned by nature. It is the part of reason to sooth the passions, and to keep the soul in a pleasing serenity and calm: if reason rules, all is quiet, composed, and benign: if reason rules, all the passions, like a musical concert, are in unison. In short, our passions, when moderate, are accompanied with a sense of fitness and rectitude; but, when excessive, inflame the mind, and hurry ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... wind might double him up and turn him over. He was a burning young socialist, in the first throes of enthusiasm and ripe for martyrdom. As platform speaker or chairman he had taken an active and dangerous part in the many indoor and outdoor pro-Boer meetings which have vexed the serenity of Merry England these several years back. Little items he had been imparting to me as he walked along; of being mobbed in parks and on tram-cars; of climbing on the platform to lead the forlorn hope, when brother speaker after brother ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... satisfied, lay it by and tak' yer tea." And Hester smilingly laid it by and took her tea, for Mary Ballard had said nothing on the first page to startle her friend's serenity. ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... a soul under a cloud. He gives one no feeling of radiance, no sense of a living serenity. What serenity he possesses at the centre of his being does not shine in his face nor sound in his voice. He has the look of one whose head has long been thrust out of a window gloomily expecting an accident to happen at the street corner. FitzGerald once admirably ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... it no concern of his whether it was nobody's or somebody's. He preserved his perfect serenity of manner on all occasions, as if the possibility of Clennam's presuming to have debated the great question were too distant and ridiculous to be imagined. He had always an affability to bestow on Clennam and an ease to treat him with, which might ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... when he observed a crowd on the platform opposite the brake-van at the rear end of the train. Making his way to the spot and looking over the heads of the crowd, what was his amazement to see Gum seated on the coupling apparatus, and looking about him with perfect serenity. One hand held an iron rod, and with the other he scratched his head; and, but for a great splash of brown earth on one side, the monkey seemed wholly untouched by his adventure. A single word in Gaelic from Donald made the monkey spring from its perch, and over the ...
— The Monkey That Would Not Kill • Henry Drummond
... that they knew he was about to achieve. In the morning they departed, and the Prince as he sat, saw flowers spring up and blossom all around him with miraculous swiftness. The air seemed purer than ever before, the sun was wonderfully bright and a peaceful serenity seemed to enfold the entire earth. And when night came and the stars awoke, the truth for which the Prince had been seeking flowed into his soul. He had indeed become ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards
... all, but for the enjoyment of the present; and the gods themselves set the example of an immoral life. Even Zeus, "the Father of gods and men," to whom absolute supremacy was ascribed, the work of creation, and all majesty and serenity, took but little interest in human affairs, and lived on Olympian heights like a sovereign surrounded with the instruments of his will, freely indulging in those pleasures which all lofty moral codes have forbidden, and taking part in the quarrels, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... recovered her serenity and sat down on an old stone seat, near which stood a weather-beaten statue of Venus. Seeing that she kept silent in spite of his broad hint, Lucian—to bring matters to a crisis—resolved to approach the subject in a mythological way through ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... banks of a smooth-flowing river in whose level bosom rests a mirrored image of that which lies beyond its farther bank—a great town with glistering walls and gleaming spires reaching tower above tower and height above height into the blazing blue, the awful serenity of a heavenly sky. One can know that toward that town the poor man who had sinned and repented would in the evenings gaze and wonder until his soul, now ploughed clean for new seed, might learn the laws ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... children had previously united. He was extremely fond of meeting with old friends, and of narrating incidents of the Revolution in which he had actively participated, and for its success freely contributed of his substance. In the serenity of a good old age, protracted beyond the usual boundaries of life, he cared but little for things of this world, and took great delight in reading his Bible, and deriving from its sacred pages those Christian consolations which alone can yield true ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... at the upturned face of the dead woman with startled incredulity. Between thirty and thirty-four years old! That tiny, lovely—But she was not quite so lovely in death, in spite of the serenity it had brought to those once-vivacious features. Peering more closely, he could see—without those luminous, wide eyes to center his attention—numerous fine lines on the waxen face, the slackness of a little pouch of soft flesh beneath her round chin, an occasional white hair among the shoulder-length ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... appearance, shine with the same undiminished splendour, and rise and set with the same regularity. So that from time immemorial the stars have been regarded by mankind as the embodiment of all that is eternal and unchangeable. Yet, the serenity of the celestial regions does not always remain undisturbed—at occasional times a 'Nova,' or new star, blazes forth unexpectedly in the heavens, and perplexes astronomers; and, after shining with a varying degree of brilliancy for a few weeks or months, ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard
... air, so I declined, as courteously as possible, with the answer I have always ready for similar requests, 'that I keep my window open to preserve the lives of the people in the car.' 'That's peculiar!' I heard her murmur; but her serenity was no wise discomposed by my refusal, or her sickness. Surely the imperturbable good-nature of our people ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... morning of Friday with Colonel Bowman, a modest and capable gentleman, when the serenity of our converse was disturbed by a sergeant, who rode into camp with orders for a prompt advance in light marching order. In a twinkling all the camps in the vicinity were deserted, and the roads were so blocked with soldiers on my return, that I was obliged ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... know him think that he was dull and stupid. Few there were who could discern, hidden in the depths of his soul, his glorious and lion-like character. Soon, however, as time went on, and he began to take part in public affairs, he proved that his apparent want of energy was really due to serenity of intellect, that he was cautious because he weighed matters well beforehand, and that while he was never eager or easily moved, yet he was always steady and trustworthy. Observing the immense extent of the empire, and the numerous wars in which it was engaged, he exercised ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... the first volume cited below. Petre's monograph contains apparent earmarks of impartiality, but in reality it is nothing but a bitter attack on the reputation of Bolvar. Its translator, a distinguished Venezuelan writer, is to be thanked for the serenity with which he has destroyed his imputations. We find nothing to add in defense ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell
... that alone was sufficient to make a sultry and stifling atmosphere, and in addition to that he had the burden of his anxiety about his wife. Here came an extra sting, for in common humanity he had, by appearing to be friends with Michael, to secure her serenity, and this could only be done by the continued profanation of his own highly proper and necessary attitude towards his son. He had to address friendly words to Michael that really almost choked him; he had to ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... latest observations were made was particularly fine. Before reaching Dungeness, the smoothness of the sea and the serenity of the air caused me to test the echoing power of the atmosphere. A single ship lay about half a mile distant between us and the land. The result of the proposed experiment was clearly foreseen. It was this. ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... were nearly driven out of sight of land; we were therefore obliged again to anchor, and wait the change of tide. Trusting to a sea breeze that had just set in, it being slack water, we again weighed: the serenity of the weather did not long continue, but soon increased to a brisk gale, accompanied by thunder, lightning and rain; we were driven with great impetuosity through the narrow channel between the bar and the shore, and from the shallowness of the water, the rollers continually ...
— Observations Upon The Windward Coast Of Africa • Joseph Corry
... frames and limbs and flowing lines. But we must look deeper if we would not be slaves to superficial prettiness, or even superficial correctness; we must try to go into the spirit of a painting and value it more in proportion as it teaches art's noblest lesson—the divinity of the divine, the serenity of utmost ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... de Lisle. There were no limits to his vast sympathies. He did not attempt to criticise the thing he loved—understanding was already in his heart. Perhaps he was right; and perhaps there was more trouble in the depths of his heart than the valiant serenity of its surface would lead ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... really spring. It was strange and wonderful to behold this universal serenity. Not a single cloud marred the lately flecked sky. The wind did not blow anywhere. The sea had become quite tranquil, and was of a pale, even blue tint. The sun shone with glaring white brilliancy, and the rough Breton land seemed bathed in its light, as in a rare, delicate ether; it seemed ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti
... intense and happy consciousness of community with all living things, as subjects of one all-embracing and unchanging law, the law of perfect love. Magic and portents, apparitions and visions, the raptures of "infused contemplation" and their dark Nemesis of Satanic delusions, can no more trouble the serenity of him who has learnt to see the same God in nature whom he has found in the holy ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... his courage, and we may see in him a direct precursor of the revolution which took a little more than a hundred years to gather before it broke on France. He describes the great of the earth with a savage serenity, and then he adds, "Such people are neither relatives, nor friends, nor citizens, nor Christians, nor perhaps even men. They have money." There are many such maxims in the chapter "De l'homme" which must have set people's thoughts running in ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse
... of your sporting propensities, and, more especially, the circle of acquaintances you have formed in London.' 'Blackguardedly Bucks and cursed Corinthians!' snarls my uncle, the Captain, flapping his empty sleeve at me. 'That, sirs, I deeply regret,' says I, preserving a polite serenity, 'but the match is made, and a man must needs form some circle of acquaintance when he lives in London.' 'Then,' says my honored Roman, with that lack of reasonableness peculiar to fathers, 'don't live in London, and as for the horse match give it up.' ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... pomegranates vie with each other in unattended profusion. The iguana sports among the old stone walls of the great garden, and humming-birds and butterflies hover in the subtle atmosphere. The tropic sunset throws a peaceful glamour and serenity over all. The cocoanut palms, with feathery grace above and slender column upward rearing, stir not against their ethereal setting as we watch, and the passing water in the old aqueduct scarce breaks the tropic silence, or if, perchance, it whisper, murmurs ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... Marie Antoinette, whose hair had gone white in a night, was tried as "the widow Capet," going to the guillotine with majestic serenity on the 16th of October 1793. The Girondist deputies followed; also the despicable Egalite Orleans, who went to his doom as the dandy he was, blotting out his many sins in a final dignity. Amongst the ...
— Vigee Le Brun • Haldane MacFall
... Cos," laughed Chandos, to avert the stormy element which seemed to threaten the serenity of his breakfast-party. "Trevenna will beat us all with his tongue, if we tempt him to try conclusions. He should be a Chancellor of the Exchequer or a Cheap John; I am not quite clear which ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... beautiful, smiling countenance was not for a moment expressed either surprise or concern at this unexpected meeting with uninvited strangers. She was so accustomed to see curiosity-seekers in her lovely Trianon, and to meet them, disturbed not in the least her unaffected serenity. A moment only she stood still, to allow her followers, the Duchesses de Polignac, the Princess de Lamballe, and the two Counts de Coigny, to draw near; then lightly and smilingly she walked toward the house near which Josephine bewildered and blushing stood, whilst the ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... disconcerted by the heat and turbulence to which, in former parliaments, some of those whose experience might have taught them the necessity of decency, have been too often hurried by the eagerness of controversy. That he must add to his perpetual serenity, such a firmness of mind, as may enable him to repress petulance and subdue contumacy, and support the orders of the house, in whatever contrariety of counsels, or commotion of debate, against all attempts of infraction or deviation. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson
... the sick, indeed, nature is sick, but to the well, a fountain of health. To him who contemplates a trait of natural beauty no harm nor disappointment can come. The doctrines of despair, of spiritual or political tyranny or servitude, were never taught by such as shared the serenity of nature. Surely good courage will not flag here on the Atlantic border, as long as we are flanked by the Fur Countries. There is enough in that sound to cheer one under any circumstances. The spruce, ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... a loose white dress with a black lace scarf draped about her head and form. Her look hardly suggested youth, and there was certainly no touch of age in it. Ripeness, maturity, serenity—these were the chief ideas which seemed to rise in the mind ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... he gave a sheep and wine to the people, which, with the smoothness of the sea, and the serenity of the sky, so enlivened them that they ...
— The Moravians in Georgia - 1735-1740 • Adelaide L. Fries
... brow and heart fled all perturbation and once more into her eyes came their wonted serenity—with a tinge of exultation—while the strings sounded again, ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... where the air is temperate, serene, quiet, free from bogs, fens, mists, all manner of putrefaction, contagious and filthy noisome smells. The [3144]Egyptians by all geographers are commended to be hilares, a conceited and merry nation: which I can ascribe to no other cause than the serenity of their air. They that live in the Orcades are registered by [3145]Hector Boethius and [3146]Cardan, to be of fair complexion, long-lived, most healthful, free from all manner of infirmities of ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... indignantly addressed contemplated his questioner with the serenity of one conscious of freedom from geologic responsibility. He was a man of about the professor's age,—say, sixty years,—but not like him in appearance. His figure was stately and massive,—that of one who in his youth must have possessed ...
— The Golden Fleece • Julian Hawthorne |
