"Nobleness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... your lordship sent him thither: There shall he practise tilts and tournaments, 30 Hear sweet discourse, converse with noblemen, And be in eye of every exercise Worthy his youth and nobleness of birth. ...
— Two Gentlemen of Verona - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... college was within his reach, had he only been wise enough to understand and possess it as his own. In his father he had a pattern of things in the heavens; a life in which law and freedom meant the same thing; in which the harmony between his own will and the will of God gave unity, harmony, and nobleness to life and life's work. The teaching of the old Loyalist's life was the eternal teaching of ...
— The Tribune of Nova Scotia - A Chronicle of Joseph Howe • W. L. (William Lawson) Grant
... Scotland was Barclay of Ury, an old and distinguished soldier, who had fought under Gustavus Adolphus, in Germany. As a Quaker, he became the object of persecution and abuse at the hands of the magistrates and the populace. None bore the indignities of the mob with greater patience and nobleness of soul than this once proud gentleman and soldier. One of his friends, on an occasion of uncommon rudeness, lamented that he should be treated so harshly in his old age who had been so honored before. "I find more satisfaction," said Barclay, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... steady his voice to answer her. Would any other girl have taken it in this way? He felt there were depths in her nature that he had not fathomed yet. The nobleness of the action seemed to lift her up out of her grief. The heroic death was a fit ending to that brave life, short as ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... the prejudices of De Vaux against the nation of his new acquaintance, and though we undertake not to deny that some of these were excited by its proverbial poverty, he had too much nobleness of disposition to enjoy the mortification of a brave individual thus compelled to make known wants which his pride ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... encouraged by Alfonso. To please his royal master, the Cid consented to an alliance with them, and the marriage of both his daughters was celebrated with much pomp. In the "Chronicle of the Cid," compiled from all the ancient ballads, these festivities are recorded thus: "Who can tell the great nobleness which the Cid displayed at that wedding! the feasts and the bullfights, and the throwing at the target, and the throwing canes, and how many joculars were there, and all the sports which are proper ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... sufferings. See them in thought such as they ought to be when you must act upon them; but see them as they are when you are tempted to act for them. Seek to owe their suffrage to their dignity; but to make them happy keep an account of their unworthiness; thus, on the one hand, the nobleness of your heart will kindle theirs, and, on the other, your end will not be reduced to nothingness by their unworthiness. The gravity of your principles will keep them off from you, but in play they will still endure them. Their taste is purer than their heart, and it is by their taste ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... part of his worth; his nobleness of mind, his generosity, his tenderness," she said ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... we hear from men who owe to their wives not only all that is comfortable or graceful, but all that is wise, in the arrangement of their lives, the frequent remark, "You cannot reason with a woman,"—when from those of delicacy, nobleness, and poetic culture, falls the contemptuous phrase "women and children," and that in no light sally of the hour, but in works intended to give a permanent statement of the best experiences,—when not one man, in the million, ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... appeared, rendered it all the more charming. In the bold yet beautiful contour of those features, in the full red lips, in the high pale forehead and, above all, in those dark and haunting eyes lay a depth of feeling and profundity and nobleness of thought, which to a reflective mind have a charm infinitely more irresistible than that which belongs to mere youthful perfection. There was a bland beauty in the smile which slept upon her lips, a delicacy of sentiment ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg
... gentle ladies sent to ask me to send them some of these rhymed words of mine; wherefore I, thinking on their nobleness, resolved to send to them and to make a new thing which I would send to them with these, in order that I might fulfill their prayers with the more honor. And I devised then a sonnet which relates my condition, and ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... self-sacrifice and purity and heroism and love are the loveliest and the most desirable possessions—the sources of the highest and most lasting joy. But I feel sure that most of us, with all our faults, have in our better moments the desire and the admiration—aye, and the effort, too, after nobleness of life, and therefore we can understand this highest joy of Heaven. We have had experience sometimes, however rarely, of lovely deeds, and the sweet, pure joy that follows in their train. Well, whenever you have conquered some craving temptation or borne ...
— The Gospel of the Hereafter • J. Paterson-Smyth
... Gustavus Adolphus in Germany, and one of the earliest converts to the principles of the Friends in Scotland. As a Quaker, he became an object of hatred and abuse at the hands of the magistracy and populace; but he endured all these insults and injuries with the greatest patience and nobleness of soul. ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... The beauty and nobleness of the stallion could not fail to excite envy wherever and by whomever seen. His owner believed that Amokeat would steal him if he had the chance, but it need not be explained that the circumstances rendered that impossible. In venturing upon this raid, the Nez Perces were sure to come in collision ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... swiftly across the room, and grasping her arm until the girl cried out with pain, she put her hand over those relentless young lips. "Hush!" she cried, in a terrible voice; "do not dare to speak so to me! If I hear such words again, I shall leave this house. You may not be able to see my husband's nobleness, but at ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... that government, and the characteristic kindness of its representative in Charleston, the appeal was promptly responded to. The consul attended him in person, and even provided from his own purse things necessary to make him comfortable. We could not but admire the nobleness of many acts bestowed upon this humble citizen through the consul, showing the attachment and faith of a government to its humblest subject. The question now was, would the Executive release him? Mr. Grimshaw had interposed strong objections, and made unwarrantable statements ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... at the top of her lungs that a "pur-r-r-se of gold" would be the fair guerdon of the minion who should start on the spot to do her bidding at some desperate crisis that I forget. I forget Huon the serf, whom I yet recall immensely admiring for his nobleness; I forget everyone but Miss Mestayer, who gave form to my conception of the tragic actress at her highest. She had a hooked nose, a great play of nostril, a vast protuberance of bosom and always the "crop" of close moist ringlets; ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... eyes; Time can but make it easier to be wise, Though now it's hard, till trouble is at an end; And so be patient, be wise and patient, friend." But, heart, there is no comfort, not a grain; Time can but make her beauty over again, Because of that great nobleness of hers; The fire that stirs about her, when she stirs Burns but more clearly. O she had not these ways, When all the wild summer was in her gaze. O heart! O heart! if she'd but turn her head, You'd know ...
— Poems of To-Day: an Anthology • Various
... the foundation of Christianity, under the pretense of placing it on a philosophical basis. His opinions are considered strictly evangelical, though doubtless embodied in a modified form. In regard to the extent and soundness of his learning, the clearness of his perceptions, and the purity and nobleness of his character, there can be but one feeling among those who are qualified to pronounce a ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 8 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 19, 1850 • Various
... frequently evince a pride and greatness of mind which would not have disgraced the heroes of ancient Greece and Rome. "The greatest part of them," says Charlevoix, "have truly a nobleness and an equality of soul which we cannot arrive at with all the helps we can obtain from philosophy and religion." Always master of themselves, in the most sudden misfortunes, we cannot perceive the least alteration in their countenances. A prisoner ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... ladies of my acquaintance," replied Mr. Ingram. "Beatrice owes a great deal of her nobleness of heart and singleness of purpose to her mother. Mrs. Bertram, I have never heard that woman say an unkind word. I have heard calumny of her, but never from her. Then, of course, Meadowsweet was quite ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... make me do anything—he would say he can make me love him; and so, perhaps, he could—I believe he would—if I had not seen this other man." And then Eleanor drew the contrast between one person and the other; the high, pure, spiritual nobleness of the one, and the social and personal graces and intellectual power of the other, all used for selfish ends. It was a very unprofitable speculation for Eleanor; it left her further than ever from the conclusion, and distressed her bitterly. From her mother she knew sadly there ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume I • Susan Warner
... soul with hot indignation, came back insidiously. She shuddered. Was she to lose all—brother, lover, father—in this unnatural strife? She had been so loyal to her father. She had been so proud of him when others reviled. She had felt so serenely confident of the nobleness of his heart, the generosity of his impulses. She had always been able to mold him, as she thought. Could it be possible that he was human to her, inhuman to the rest of the world? Then her mind, tortured by newly awakened doubts, ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... thoughts would have suggested themselves spontaneously to Epictetus—whether there was an inborn wisdom and nobleness in the mind of this slave which would have enabled him to elaborate such views from his own consciousness, we cannot tell; they do not, however, express his sentiments only, but belong in fact to the moral teaching of the ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... a misanthrope, willing to live in seclusion, fond of being in Coventry, and in love with the enmity of his fellow-creatures. There are such men, but they are regarded as lepers by those around them. All this adds to the nobleness of the noble sport, and makes it worthy of ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... In her torn heart could she find a nobleness sufficient for this occasion? Seymour's eyes, the terrible eyes of affection, which require so much and which sometimes, because of that, seem to be endowed with creative power, forcing into life that which they long to see, were surely upon her, watching for her nobility, asking ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... where it is advisable for him to take and keep all that he can; but that he is one of a great fellowship of emotions and interests, and that his happiness depends upon his becoming aware of this, while his usefulness and nobleness must depend upon his disinterestedness, and upon the extent to which he is willing to share his advantages. The teaching of civics, as it is called, may be of some use in this direction, as showing a boy his points of ...
— Cambridge Essays on Education • Various
... They brought us, for our dearth, Holiness, lacked so long, and Love and Pain. Honour has come back, as a king, to earth, And paid his subjects with a royal wage; And Nobleness walks in our ways again; And we have come into ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... satisfaction. He had sinned against them, but they were about to make him pay the highest human penalty for his sin. Yet to Ulm his demeanour was suggestive. There was something eloquent of singleness of heart and nobleness that seemed to buoy up this man with his broken honour. There was no parade of outraged innocence, nothing but ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... would not come to terms, showed their recognition of his merit by avoiding in their attacks the posts in which he happened to be. Thus there grew up round Gordon in the Soudan a sublime reputation for nobleness and goodness that will linger on as a tradition, and that, when these remote regions along the Equator fall under civilized authority, will simplify the task of government, provided it be of the same pattern as that dispensed by ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... the son of the knight, while he is a squire, should know how to take care of a horse; and it is fitting that he should serve before and be subject to his lord; for otherwise he will not know the nobleness of his lordship when he shall be a knight; and to this end every knight shall put his son in the service of another knight, to the end that he may learn to carve at table and to serve, and to arm and apparel a knight in his youth. According ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... deportment or conduct. If this girl was changed at all by her great good fortune, she was changed for the better. She had never been more modest, gentle, affable, and sensible than she was now. The fact shows a clearness of mind and a nobleness of heart which place her very high among the wise and good. Such behavior under such circumstances is equal to heroism. We are conscious that in saying these things of Clara we are drawing largely upon the reader's faith. But either her present trial of ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... of improvement, dooming themselves to ignorance, if not to vice, for a vain show. Is this evil without remedy? Is human nature always to be sacrificed to outward decoration? Is the outward always to triumph over the inward man? Is nobleness of sentiment never to spring up among us? May not a reform in this particular begin in the laboring class, since it seems so desperate among the more prosperous? Cannot the laborer, whose condition calls him so loudly to simplicity of taste and habits, ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... to nurse him, but, though her constitution was superb, she had much to bear from her disordered nerves. At times the old irritability was hard to vanquish; there were still dark moods of restlessness when her companionship was trying; but it was now that Herbert proved the nobleness ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... sister's love," said she, "never forgets, never wearies, never despairs." They had friends too powerful to be withstood, even by Bigot, and the Intendant would be compelled to loosen his hold upon Le Gardeur. She would rely upon the inherent nobleness of the nature of Le Gardeur himself to wash itself pure of all stain, could they only withdraw him from the seductions of the Palace. "We will win him from them by counter charms, Amelie, and it will be seen that virtue ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... prison had once been the chapel of the convent; and though the desecration had taken place a hundred years before, and the revolutionary spoil had spared but little of the remaining ornaments, the original massiveness of the building, and the nobleness of the architecture, had withstood the assaults of both time and plunder. The roofs of the aisles could not be reached except by flame, and the monuments of the ancient priors and prelates, when they had once been stripped of their crosses, were too solid for the passing fury of the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... three things to which man is born[A]—labor, and sorrow, and joy. Each of these three things has its baseness and its nobleness. There is base labor, and noble labor. There is base sorrow, and noble sorrow. There is base joy, and noble joy. But you must not think to avoid the corruption of these things by doing without the ...
— Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne - Twenty-five Letters to a Working Man of Sunderland on the Laws of Work • John Ruskin
... Maggie; the nobleness has been yours in waiting so patiently. And your brothers would insist on it at any rate. They're watching me like cats ...
— What Every Woman Knows • James M. Barrie
... chiffon, with illusive shimmerings of silver in its folds that came and went with every one of her graceful movements. She was a tall and slender girl, with a beautiful long white throat, smooth and round, that took on entrancing curves of pride and gentleness, of humility and nobleness. She had splendid rippling hair of a deep bronze, that had been red a few years earlier; and dark blue dreamy eyes under broad dark eyebrows; a long sweep of cool fair cheek, and a rather wide mouth with a little tender, pathetic ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... was a man who was drawn into the movement, almost in spite of himself, by the attraction of the character of the leaders, the greatness of its object, and the purity and nobleness of the motives which prompted it. He was naturally a man of metaphysical mind, given almost from a child to abstract and indeed abstruse thought.[31] He had been a student of S.T. Coleridge, whom the Oriel men disliked as a misty thinker. He used to discuss Coleridge with a ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... John's hands moving over the key-board, and his soul went out in worship of that soul, divided from the world's pleasure, self-sufficing, alone; seeking God only in his home of organ fugue and legended pane. He understood the nobleness and purity which was now about him—it seemed impossible to him ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... true is all this in the case of the moral sense? When the heart is still young and tender, how spontaneously and sweetly and urgently does every vision of goodness and nobleness in the conduct of another awaken the impulse to go and do likewise! And if that impulse is not obeyed, how certainly does the first approving perception of the beauty of goodness become duller, until at last we may even ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... Preachers, Chaplains, and Godly Persons; "Owen, Goodwin, Sterry, with a company of others, in an adjoining room"; in Whitehall, and elsewhere over religious London and England, fervent outpourings of many a loyal heart. For there were hearts to whom the nobleness of this man was known; and his worth to the Puritan Cause was evident. Prayers,—strange enough to us; in a dialect fallen obsolete, forgotten now. Authentic wrestlings of ancient Human Souls,—who ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... seminaries of Eton, Winchester, and Westminster, and that little master should be enjoined by his mama, in case of an affront, to resort to his master for redress and protection. To the custom, indeed, as it now prevails, the English youth are, in a great measure indebted for their nobleness and manliness of character. Two boys quarrel, they agree to box it out—they begin and they end by shaking hands; the enmity terminates with the contest—And what is this but a lesson of courage, magnanimity, and forgiveness? the principles ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... chronic. It was almost as unnecessary to cultivate doubt of one's self as to cultivate doubt of one's best friend: one should try to be one's own best friend and to give one's self, in this manner, distinguished company. The girl had a certain nobleness of imagination which rendered her a good many services and played her a great many tricks. She spent half her time in thinking of beauty and bravery and magnanimity; she had a fixed determination to regard the world as a place of brightness, of free expansion, of ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... Degraded; Wisdom in discourse with her Loses, discountenanced, and like Folly shows; Authority and Reason on her wait, As one intended first, not after made Occasionally; and, to consummate all, Greatness of mind and nobleness their seat Build in her loveliest, and create an awe About her, ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... cones of mountain purple into the pale arch of the sky; for these and other glories more than these refuse not to connect themselves in his thoughts with the work of his own hand; the grey cliff loses not its nobleness when it reminds us of some Cyclopoan waste of mural stone; the pinnacles of the rocky promontory arrange themselves, undegraded, into fantastic semblances of fortress towns; and even the awful cone of the far-off mountain has a melancholy mixed with that of its own ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes
... affection; but to all landsmen, from youth upwards, the boat remains a piece of enchantment; at least unless we entangle our vanity in it, and refine it away into mere lath, giving up all its protective nobleness for pace. With those in whose eyes the perfection of a boat is swift fragility, I have no sympathy. The glory of a boat is, first its steadiness of poise—its assured standing on the clear softness of the abyss; and, after that, so much capacity ...
— The Harbours of England • John Ruskin
... Sergeant Jasper is the better known. This brave man possessed remarkable talents for a scout. He could wear all disguises with admirable ease and dexterity. Garden styles him "a perfect Proteus".* He was equally remarkable for his strategy as for his bravery; and his nobleness and generosity were, quite as much as these, the distinguishing traits of his character. Such was the confidence in his fidelity and skill that a roving commission was granted him, with liberty to pick his associates from the Brigade. Of these he ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... at this disaster of which he was the cause, while many families were clothing themselves in mourning for the brave men of whom he was the murderer, he repaired to Whitehall; and there, doubtless with all that grace, that nobleness, that suavity, under which lay, hidden from all common observers, a seared conscience and a remorseless heart, he professed himself the most devoted, the most loyal, of all the subjects of William and Mary, and expressed a hope that he might, in this emergency, be permitted to ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... sad, In sin and beauty, our beloved Earth Has need of all her sons to make her glad; Has need of martyrs to re-fire the hearth Of her quenched altars,—of heroic men With Freedom's sword, or Truth's supernal pen, To shape the worn-out mould of nobleness again. And she has need of Poets who can string Their harps with steel to catch the lightning's fire, And pour her thunders from the clanging wire, To cheer the hero, mingling with his cheer, Arouse ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... father; at the same time, in him the relics are more abundant and the ruins more easy to trace out. And little Honest was such a well-born child. For, Stupidity and all, there was a real inborn and inbred integrity, uprightness, straightforwardness, and nobleness about this little and not over-clever man-child. And, on the principle of "to him that hath shall be given," there was something like a special providence that hedged this boy about from the beginning. "I girded thee though thou hast not known Me" was never out ...
— Bunyan Characters (Second Series) • Alexander Whyte
... shall succor men; 'Tis nobleness to serve; Help them who cannot help again Beware ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... with his companions and their customs, which otherwise would take more time, and subject the stranger to much greater inconvenience. Bernard underwent all the initiatory school ceremonies and 26 humiliations with great coolness, but not without some display of that personal courage and true nobleness of mind, which advances the new comer in the estimation of his school-fellows. First impressions are almost always indelible: there was a frankness and sincerity in his manner, and an archness and vivacity in his countenance and conversation, that imperceptibly attached me to the young stranger. ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... Tecle and her daughter found in his courteous reply a gleam of nobleness which inspired them with a shadow of confidence. Above all, they were proud, and more averse to noisy scenes than women usually are. They received him coldly, then, but calmly. On his part, he displayed toward them in his ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... been honest and open. The business is now all ended; you have done your duty; and though you reported a little larger number than you would, if you had been disposed to conceal, yet you go away from school with a quiet conscience. On the other hand, how miserable must any boy feel, if he has any nobleness of mind whatever, to go away from school, to-day, thinking that he has not been honest; that he has been trying to conceal his faults, and thus to obtain a credit which he did not justly deserve. Always be honest, let the consequence be what ...
— The Teacher - Or, Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and - Government of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... not outwardly arrested by some hostile agent, seems capable of endless progress without ever exhausting either its own capacity or the perfections of infinitude.18 There are before it unlimited truth, beauty, power, nobleness, to be contemplated, mastered, acquired. With indefatigable alacrity, insatiable faculty and desire, it responds to the infinite call. The obvious inference is that its destiny is unending advancement. Annihilation ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... would have dissuaded a further prosecution of the Trojan success, has been repeated by many of the most devoted patriots the world ever saw. We, who defy augury in these matters, can yet add nothing to the nobleness of the ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... how far more bright and hopeful it is than the verdict which Mr. Ruskin finds Shakspere to have returned. Man is no longer "a pipe for fortune's fingers to sound what stop she please." The evil elements still exist in the world, and are numerous and formidable; but man, by nobleness of life and word, by patience and self-mastery, can master them, bring them into subjection, and make them tend to eventual good. Caliban, the gross, sensual, earthly element—though somewhat raised—would run riot, and is therefore compelled to menial ...
— Elizabethan Demonology • Thomas Alfred Spalding
... met upon the most friendly terms. The Moslem warriors were full of courtesy to the Christian knights, and had no other regret than to think that such fine fellows were not Mahomedans. The Christians, with a feeling precisely similar, extolled to the skies the nobleness of the Saracens, and sighed to think that such generosity and valour should be sullied by disbelief in the Gospel of Jesus. But when the strife began, all these feelings disappeared, and ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... from such conferences the Czar passed only to those on other topics more immediately useful to him. No man, perhaps, had a larger share of the mere human frailties than Peter the Great; yet I do confess that when I saw the nobleness of mind with which he flung aside his rank as a robe, and repaired from man to man, the humblest or the highest, the artisan or the prince,—the prosperity of his subjects his only object, and the acquisition of knowledge ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... oh, exalted soul! oh, creature full of nobleness! think not to find a forgiving moment return. Beauty itself is thy shield ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... disappointment when he had himself requested the king to resist the popular will no longer; and they infer from it that he was not sincere in the request, but supposed that the king would regard it as an act of nobleness and generosity on his part, that would render him more unwilling than ever to consent to his destruction, and that he was accordingly surprised and disappointed when he found that the king had taken him at his word. It is said, however, by some historians, that this letter was a forgery, ...
— Charles I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... most serious duties of a novelist—the description of Jem's toilette. I had forgotten to say that a black pilot coat with velvet collar, red silk handkerchief, etc., was a veritable Nessus shirt to Jem. So passionately fond of work was he, and so high an idea had he conceived on the sacredness and nobleness of work, that integuments savoring of Sabbath indolence were particularly intolerable to him. He moved about stiffly in them, was glad to shake them off, and resume his white, lime-stained, patched, and torn, but oh! such luxuriously ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... whole happiness and power of energetic action depend upon our being able to breathe and live in the cloud; content to see it opening here, and closing there; rejoicing to catch through the thinnest films of it, glimpses of stable and substantial things; but yet perceiving a nobleness even in the concealment, and rejoicing that the kindly veil is spread where the untempered light might have scorched us, or the infinite clearness wearied. And I believe that the resentment of this interference of the ...
— Frondes Agrestes - Readings in 'Modern Painters' • John Ruskin
... the first, and equally powerful with it. How unlovely is this in the case of selfishness, even where there are, besides, fine and striking features in the general character, and how lovely in the case of unselfishness, even when, as too frequently happens, there is little comparative strength or nobleness in its intellectual ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... gate to the Acropolis, was built at about the same time as the Parthenon, between the years 436 and 431 B.C. It combines the Doric and Ionic orders, but both are most skilfully used with equal grace and nobleness of proportion. ...
— The Brochure Series of Architectural Illustration, Volume 01, No. 08, August 1895 - Fragments of Greek Detail • Various
... mother of the children in the burning tower is heroine. In "By Order of the King," Dea is heroic, and spotless as "Elaine, the lily maid of Astolat;" and Ursus, a vagabond, is fatherhood in its sweet nobleness; and Gwynplaine, disfigured and deserted—a little lad set ashore upon a night of hurricane and snow, who, finding in his wanderings a babe on her dead mother's breast, rescues this bit of winter storm-drift, ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... always been her husband, now, ever since the night of Jim Thorpe's going, he was rarely out of her thoughts. Now, even more than at the time when she first understood the sacrifice he was about to make for her. And the nobleness of it appealed to her simple woman's mind as something sublime. He was a branded man before, but now, so long as he remained in Barnriff, or wherever he met a man who had lived in Barnriff at this time, so long as Will escaped capture, the pointing finger would be ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... impossibility of limiting mutability, if he once admitted so much of the thin end of the wedge as that a horse and an ass might be related. It is plain, therefore, that he is not speaking "au reel" here, and we accordingly find him talking clap-trap about the nobleness of the lion in having no species immediately allied to it. A few lines lower on he reminds us in a casual way that the ass and ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... restriction the handsomest person I had ever seen give change for a five-franc piece. She was a large quiet woman, who would never see forty again; of an intensely feminine type, yet wonderfully rich and robust, and full of a certain physical nobleness. Tho she was not really old, she was antique, and she was very grave, even a little sad. She had the dignity of a Roman empress, and she handled coppers as if they had been stamped with ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... there which are called "mausur,"[25-4] and of all these they took specimens. Some of the timbers were so large that they were used in building. Leif found men upon a wreck, and took them home with him, and procured quarters for them all during the winter. In this wise he showed his nobleness and goodness, since he introduced Christianity into the country, and saved the men from the wreck; and he was called Leif the Lucky ever after. Leif landed in Ericsfirth, and then went home to Brattahlid; ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various
... of course, often, they think they understand, they think they sympathise. Then it is they're most dangerous. Their idea is that you shall do a great lot and get a great lot of money. Their great nobleness and virtue, their exemplary conscientiousness as British females, is in keeping you up to that. My wife makes all my bargains with my publishers for me, and has done so for twenty years. She does it consummately well—that's why I'm really pretty well off. Aren't you the father of their innocent ...
— The Lesson of the Master • Henry James
... old; he had been esteemed an excellent student. His appearance was manly, open and free. His eye indicated a nobleness of soul; although his aspect was tinged with melancholy, yet he was naturally cheerful. His disposition was of ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.
... excluded all foreign ingredients, however intimately they might be mixed with it. Out of acids, alkalis, or saline solutions, the crystal came sweet and pure. By some such natural process in the formation of this man, beauty and nobleness coalesced, to the exclusion of everything vulgar and low. He did not learn his gentleness in the world, for he withdrew himself from its culture; and still this land of England contained no truer gentleman than he. Not ...
— Faraday As A Discoverer • John Tyndall
... speculative manner, how it was possible that she was bearing this sorrow; as she often before had wondered, when slight things vexed her overmuch, how people had such sorrows and lived, and almost doubted if the pain was so much greater in great sorrows than in small troubles, or whether the nobleness only was greater, the pain not ...
— The World of Romance - being Contributions to The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine, 1856 • William Morris
... his love of the myriad English flowers is perhaps the fondest part of it. He draws them with a rare perfection, and always—little definite, delicate, tremulous things as they are—with a certain nobleness. This latter quality, indeed. I am prone to find in all his work, and I should insist on it still more if I might refer to his important paintings. So composite are the parts of which any distinguished talent is made up that we have to feel our way as we enumerate them; and yet that ...
— Picture and Text - 1893 • Henry James
... and exalted sense be not so USEFUL as common sense, their rarity, their novelty, and the nobleness of their objects make some compensation, and render them the admiration of mankind: As gold, though less serviceable than iron, acquires from its scarcity a ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume
... to see this clearer by an illustration drawn from the treatment of a single great idea which has profoundly engaged the human spirit, and has given it eminent opportunities for showing its nobleness and energy. It surely must be perceived that the idea of the immortality of the soul, as this idea rises in its generality before the human spirit, is something grander, truer, and more satisfying, than it is in the particular forms by which St. Paul, in the famous fifteenth chapter of the ...
— Culture and Anarchy • Matthew Arnold
... as President of the Royal Geographical Society, after a copious notice of his life, summed it up in these words: "As a whole, the work of his life will surely be held up in ages to come as one of singular nobleness of design, and of unflinching energy and self-sacrifice in execution. It will be long ere any one man will be able to open so large an extent of unknown land to civilized mankind. Yet longer, perhaps, ere we find a brighter example of a ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... lead thousands to peaceful conquests, and upon whom, in great measure, depends the happiness of large masses of mankind. As Mr. Carlyle says, "The Leaders of Industry, if Industry is ever to be led, are virtually the Captains of the World; if there be no nobleness in them, there will never be an Aristocracy more." Can a man, who has this destiny entrusted to him, imagine that his vocation consists merely in getting together a large lump of gold, and then being off with it, to enjoy it, as he fancies, in some other place: as if that which is but a small part ...
— The Claims of Labour - an essay on the duties of the employers to the employed • Arthur Helps
... Emmy. I am not speaking of reproaches, or of unreasonable self-assertion, or of ill-temper,—you could not use any of these forces, if you would, you poor little chick! I am speaking now of the highest duty we owe our friends, the noblest, the most sacred,—that of keeping their own nobleness, goodness, pure and incorrupt. Thoughtless, instinctive, unreasoning love and self-sacrifice, such as many women long to bestow on husband and children, soil and lower the very objects of their ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... he nor Reine Allix could see that a man's duty might lie from home, but in that home both were alike ready to dare anything and to suffer everything. It was a narrow form of patriotism, yet it had nobleness, endurance, and patience in it; in song it has been oftentimes deified as heroism, but in modern warfare it is punished as ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... nobleness of our blood! If thou makest folk glory in thee down here, where our affection languishes, it will nevermore be a marvel to me; for there, where appetite is not perverted, I mean in Heaven, I myself gloried in thee. Truly art thou a cloak which quickly shortens, ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 3, Paradise [Paradiso] • Dante Alighieri
... to ascertain the height of your brow? Yes; I see unshaken courage in that forehead, as clearly as I do steadfast friendship, fidelity, love of God and man, in those lips. What a nobleness in the whole! Thy face is the physiognomy of an extraordinary man, who thinks deeply, who holds fast to whatever he undertakes, works, flies, triumphs, finds few men in whom he will confide, but many who will rely ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger
... her had done nothing unworthy of them. And the Athenians erected to her memory a bronze lioness without a tongue, and placed it near the entrance to the Acropolis, signifying her dauntless courage by the nobleness of that animal, and by its being without a tongue her silence and fidelity. For no spoken word has done as much good as many unspoken ones. For at some future day we can give utterance if we like to what has been ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... your eagle glance at once detects falsehood wherewith it has no affinity, and you judge of others according to the standard of your own nobleness, but I am persuaded the attempt would be in vain. The case stands thus: there is really but witness against witness, for what know I of what occurred at the death-bed of Eveline's father, except what she herself has told me? ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... to improve—it is to make better the mind—the heart—but of this has Mr. 'Arry no need. Is not, Sir Kildene? I call you always Sir as title to nobleness of character. We have, in our country, to inherit title, but here to make it of such character. It is well, ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... his father. I seem to see him now, rising from his chair, standing in front of the chimneypiece, and in strains of fervid eloquence dwelling on the grandeur, the breadth and depth of his character, his generosity, his nobleness, last and greatest of all—his loving nature. His eyes filled with tears as he exclaimed: "None but his children can know what torrents of ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... majority of the people in any direction they choose, he will lose his position as Governor. Now, while this is not so much in itself, it will be a bar to his future advancement—for preferment does not often seek the men who fail, even when they fail from having superior wisdom and nobleness to the multitude." ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson
... one of the noblest cavaliers of Venice—but nobleness, as we know, is not always, perhaps not often, the credential in behalf of him who seeks a maiden from her parents. He certainly was not the choice of Francesca's sire. The poor girl was doomed to the embraces of one Ulric Barberigo, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 5 November 1848 • Various
... only into a disdain of subjection, but also into the most lofty acts of magnanimity: his blind confidence in fortune seems almost warranted by the resources which he finds in his own fearlessness and imperturbable presence of mind. His ambition participates in the nobleness of his other qualities; he is less anxious that his rivals should yield to him in power than in generosity and greatness of character, attributes of which power is with him but the symbol and the fit employment. Ambition in Fiesco ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... of antagonism. How compare a sonata and a sea-bath or measure the Sistine Madonna against a gallop across country? The best thanksgiving for each is to enjoy the other also, and educate the mind to ampler nobleness. After all, the best verdict on athletic exercises was that of the great Sully, when he said, "I was always of the same opinion with Henry IV. concerning them: he often asserted that they were the most solid foundation, not only of discipline and other military ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... disdain; That, without concert with him, and alone He dared to plight his daughter, whom he fain Would marry to the Grecian emperor's son; And not to him that has no kingly reign, Nay has not ought that he can call his own; And should not know, how little nobleness Is valued without ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... consequences of so doing, and news also reached Luther of the troubles and distress of his other friends, he repeatedly sent to them at Augsburg fresh words of encouragement, comfort, and counsel, which remain to attest, more than anything else, the nobleness of his mind and character. He speaks, as from a height of confident, clear, and proud conviction, to those who are struggling in the whirl and vortex of earthly schemes and counsels. He has gained this height, and maintains it in the implicit faith ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... either do so against their consciences, or feel left out and forlorn; pretty girls would get overheated, tumbled, and torn, and carry about the marks of black arms on their delicate waists; and youths, unsurpassed in the natural nobleness of their port and presence, would make ridiculous faces in their well-founded anxiety lest they should lose the time or meet with collisions. But I give them, to make such amends as I can, plenty of room, pure air, neither hot nor cold, and flowers ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... the little hut, in a glow of patriotism and enthusiasm. "Manuela," she cried, "did you ever see such nobleness, such lofty yet gracious courtesy? Ah! I knew he was a man to die for. How happy we are, to be here at last, after dreaming of it so long! I thrill; I burn with sacred fire—what is the matter, Manuela? you look the spirit of gloom. What ...
— Rita • Laura E. Richards
... reasons, which he would listen to with great patience, and openness to conviction. Indeed, it was evident that the firmest opposition, so long as it rested upon assignable grounds and principles, won upon his regard; whilst his own nobleness of character still moved him to habitual contempt for timorous and partial acquiescence in his opinions, even when his infirmities made him most anxious ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... be the same As those I stooped to kiss And heard my harrowing half-spoken name, A little ere the one who bowed above her, Our father and her very constant lover, Rose stoical, and we knew that she was dead. Then I, who could not understand or share His antique nobleness, Being unapt to bear The insults which time flings us for our proof, Fled from the horrible roof Into the alien sunshine merciless, The shrill satiric fields ghastly with day, Raging to front God in his pride of sway And hurl across the lifted swords of fate That ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... and weapons and arrows and energy and allies and dominions and fame and strength. Those are always difficult of acquisition, however much they may be desired. Learned men of repute always praise in good society nobleness of descent. But nothing is equal to might. Indeed, O monarch, there is nothing I like more than prowess. Born in a race noted for its valour, one that is without valour is scarcely worthy of regard. One, however, possessed of valour, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... entombed lie, Understand what I shall say, As at this time, speake I may. Such as thou art, sometime was I. Such as I am, shalt thou be. I little thought on th' oure of death, So long as I enjoyed breath. Great riches here did I possess, Whereof I made great nobleness; I had gold, silver, wardrobes, and Great treasure, horses, houses, land. But now a caitife poore am I, Deepe in the ground, lo! here I lie; My beautie great is all quite gone, My flesh is wasted to the bone. My house ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... him with these thy gracious eyes; Howe'er so many kings have ruled in Spain, Not one compares with him in nobleness. Old age, in truth, is all too wont to blame, And I am old and cavil much and oft; And when confuted in the council-hall I secret wrath have ofttimes nursed—not long, Forsooth—that royal word should weigh so much; And sought some evil witness 'gainst my ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... welfare of the state, had resolved to separate himself from his most dear consort. Josephine then appeared among them, and, not without tears, expressed her acquiescence in the decree. The council, after haranguing the imperial spouses on the nobleness of their mutual sacrifice, accepted and ratified the dissolution of the marriage. The title of Empress was to continue with Josephine for life, and a pension of two millions of francs (to which Napoleon afterwards ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... considerable annual income. Carl Beck had lost none of his attractiveness as he grew older. His curling black hair had now an early sprinkling of grey in it, but was always arranged to the very best effect; and there was, people said, such a nobleness about him (his cleverness was undisputed) that when he rose to propose or reply to a toast, there was not a lady at the table who was not in a flutter of inward admiration. With his social advantages he could not, of ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie
... infatuated and deprived of her senses was exquisitely beautiful, but more charming than all her physical beauties were the nobleness of her presence and the sweetness of her disposition. I was already madly in love with her, and I repented not having taken possession of her on the first day of our journey. If I had taken her at her word I should have been a steadfast lover, and I do ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... and to us, Mr. Mill has a right to claim an attentive audience for every word he has ever written; and this collection of his miscellaneous writings, covering a period of thirty years, has a special interest as showing the successive steps by which he has risen to this high attitude of nobleness. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... purpose to print, by the grace of God, the book of the tales of Canterbury, in which I find many a noble history of every state and degree; first rehearsing the conditions and the array of each of them as properly as possible is to be said. And after their tales which be of nobleness, wisdom, gentleness, mirth and also of very holiness and virtue, wherein he finisheth this said book, which book I have diligently overseen and duly examined, to that end it be made according unto his own making. For I find many of the said books which writers ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... sign. He drew his camp-stool beside her. Suddenly she asked him what time it was. The haggard nobleness of her pale face amid the folds of black veil, the absent passion of the eye, thrilled to his heart. ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... 'No Nobleness of soul have I, Like some that in this Age are found!' (Paul blushed in sheer humility, And cast his eyes upon the ground) 'This debt will simply swallow all, And make my life a life of woe!' 'Nay, nay, nay Peter!' answered Paul. 'You must not ...
— Sylvie and Bruno • Lewis Carroll
... trembled so long. The knights around him broke out at the tidings in a passionate burst of fury, and clamoured for the blood of Richard of Cornwall and his son, who were prisoners in the castle. But Simon had enough nobleness left to interpose. "To God and him alone was it owing" Richard owned afterwards, "that I was snatched from death." The captives were not only saved, but set free. A Parliament had been called at Winchester at the opening of September, and its mere assembly promised an ...
— History of the English People, Volume II (of 8) - The Charter, 1216-1307; The Parliament, 1307-1400 • John Richard Green
... Mankind was always in his mind, and perhaps there is no better demonstration of his fulfilment of the character of the monk than this constant solicitude to benefit others by every bit of investigation that he carried out. For him, with medieval nobleness of spirit, "the first part of every work must be the invocation of God, and the last, though no less important than the first, must be the utility and fruit for mankind that can ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... most difficult to deal with, let him join with them in some manly game, and let him assuredly know that whatever true manhood he has will stand him in good stead, and nothing else: nothing but real vital religion, real nobleness of character will be of any use in the cricket-field or the row-boat; and this will hold its own ...
— A Lecture on Physical Development, and its Relations to Mental and Spiritual Development, delivered before the American Institute of Instruction, at their Twenty-Ninth Annual Meeting, in Norwich, Conn • S.R. Calthrop
... standard; for that standard is not the agent's own greatest happiness, but the greatest amount of happiness altogether; and if it may possibly be doubted whether a noble character is always the happier for its nobleness, there can be no doubt that it makes other people happier, and that the world in general is immensely a gainer by it. Utilitarianism, therefore, could only attain its end by the general cultivation of nobleness of ...
— Utilitarianism • John Stuart Mill
... Christians in his own palace, from which they returned, their tongues laden with praises of the noble infidel. Richard and Saladin never met, but each admired the prowess and nobleness of soul of ...
— Ten Great Events in History • James Johonnot
... saith Lancelot, "She hath in her such beauty and worth and wisdom and courtesy and nobleness that never ought she to be forgotten of any ...
— High History of the Holy Graal • Unknown
... everything contradicts the idea. Every man in seeking his material interests becomes the rival and antagonist of every other man. To gain his bread he must sacrifice friendship, generosity and even honor. He must keep his convictions of nobleness and justice for a beautiful and holiday idea; he must consign them to the keeping of religion; and she, like the gentle wife at home, has careful instructions not to show her beautiful face in the market place. It is hard; since in the market place ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... special efforts are being made to enlist the world's sympathies in behalf of the millions of our robbed, outraged, crushed countrymen—how great the sin, of seizing on such a time to attempt to neutralize those efforts, by ascribing to the oppressors of these millions a characteristic "nobleness"—"enthusiastic attachment to personal right"—"disinterestedness which has always marked the southern character"—and a superiority to all others "in making any sacrifice for the public good!" It is this sin—this heinous ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... himself from the command of fifty horse to his present grandeur entirely by his superior valour, integrity, and strength of mind. Experience and abilities have supplied the want of letters and education, and the native nobleness and goodness of his heart have amply made amends for the defect of his birth and family. He is now about sixty years of age, borne down by fatigue and sickness." (Mr. Verelst, to the Court of Directors, ...
— The Fall of the Moghul Empire of Hindustan • H. G. Keene
... exhibited most conspicuously by Burns, has given a tone to the poetry of that century which is better explained by reference to its historical origin than by naming it, in the common criticism of our day, artificial. There is again, a nobleness of thought, a courageous aim at high and, in a strict sense manly, excellence in many of the writers:—nor can that period be justly termed tame and wanting in originality, which produced poems such as Pope's Satires, Gray's Odes and Elegy, the ballads of Gay and Carey, the songs of Burns and ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... will tell you all its nobleness," says Marco, "for without doubt it is the largest city in the world. The city is one hundred miles in circumference and has twelve thousand stone bridges, and beneath the greater part of these a large ship might pass. And you need ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge |
