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More "Serene" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... only a boy, but before me lie Life's paths untrod, and a sunny sky Bends o'er the paths, and smiles on me. And under its blue serene, I see Two ways stretch out, one, narrow and straight; The other, broad, and an open gate Beckons me on, and smiling and sweet Are the Heavens fair, and down at my feet Fair flowers bloom, and the grasses ...
— Nestlings - A Collection of Poems • Ella Fraser Weller
... that gloomy pit to stand, unfearing, Where Fantasy self-damned in its own torment lies, Still onward to that pass-way steering, Around whose narrow mouth hell-flames forever rise; Calmly to dare the step, serene, unshrinking, Though into nothingness the hour should see thee sinking. Now, then, come down from thy old case, I bid thee, Where thou, forgotten, many a year hast hid thee, Into thy master's hand, pure, crystal glass! The joy-feasts of the ...
— Faust • Goethe
... which betrays a hesitating intention. The story rolls on and on, and it is long before the reader can begin to question its direction. Tolstoy seems to know precisely where he is going, and why; there is nothing at any moment to suggest that he is not in perfect and serene control of his idea. Only at last, perhaps, we turn back and wonder what it was. What is the subject of War and Peace, what is the novel about? There is no very ready answer; but if we are to discover what is wrong with the form, this ...
— The Craft of Fiction • Percy Lubbock
... last page, scrawled evidently much later, in an unsteady hand, may be regarded as the exposition of a method. It was very simple, and at the end of that moving appeal to every altruistic sentiment it blazed at you, luminous and terrifying, like a flash of lightning in a serene sky: 'Exterminate all the brutes!' The curious part was that he had apparently forgotten all about that valuable postscriptum, because, later on, when he in a sense came to himself, he repeatedly entreated me to take good care of 'my pamphlet' (he called it), as it ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... bees as bustling go, — One might depart at option From enterprise below! 'T is sweet to know that stocks will stand When we with daisies lie, That commerce will continue, And trades as briskly fly. It makes the parting tranquil And keeps the soul serene, That gentlemen so ...
— Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson
... Blake, who recalled how she had expressed her certainty that he would find the sermon helpful. The text was apt, to say the least. His hard-set face momentarily softened with a smile that caused her to settle back, in serene contentment. He assumed what Lord James would have termed his "poker face" and leaned up in the corner of the pew, to gaze at the preacher, as impassive ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet
... a serene faith, and you shall acquire wonderful power and insight; its results are sure and illimitable, moulding and moving to its purposes equally spirit, mind, and matter. It is the power-endowing essential ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. I, No. 6 - Of Literature, Art, And Science, New York, August 5, 1850 • Various
... my Blessed Lord, By surging waters pressed, But Thou didst speak th' almighty word And laidst them still at rest; And 'gainst Thy soul the wrath of sin Its tempest fury cast, But Thou didst stand, serene within, Till all the ...
— Hymns from the Morningland - Being Translations, Centos and Suggestions from the Service - Books of the Holy Eastern Church • Various
... eternal and overruling principles, is unintelligible to many, and disagreeable to more;—to leave this species of converse—if converse it deserves to be called—and pass an entire day with Coleridge, was a marvellous change indeed. It was a Sabbath past expression deep, and tranquil, and serene. You came to a man who had travelled in many countries and in critical times; who had seen and felt the world in most of its ranks and in many of its vicissitudes and weaknesses; one to whom all literature ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... Through a vast mad phantasmagoria of suffering and toil he and Labiskwee struggled on, with McCan somehow stumbling along in the rear, babbling of San Francisco, his everlasting dream. Great peaks, pitiless and serene in the chill blue, towered about them. They fled down black canyons with walls so precipitous that the rock frowned naked, or wallowed across glacial valleys where frozen lakes lay far beneath their feet. And one night, between two storms, a distant ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... gleaned that being poor as church mice, for these five titled girls, meant merely an effort in keeping up with the things they felt should be theirs by right divine. And as Billy listened, feeling the force of the girl's attraction, the charm of her serene confidence and the pleasant air of security and well-being that hedged her in, he stole a covert glance at Falconer's unrevealing countenance and reflected that it was rather a stormy day for that young man when he became entangled with the ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... of sophomore year there were a half-dozen very positive young Positivists in our class. The pride of intellect which we felt in our new enlightenment was intoxicating. To be able to look down from a serene height, with compassion frequently tempered by contempt, upon the rest of the world still groping in the mists of childish superstition, was prodigiously to the taste of youths of eighteen and twenty. How, to be sure, we did turn up our noses at ...
— A Positive Romance - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... triumph was at the first performance of Electra, when the author was carried home on the shoulders of his admirers. La de San Quintn and El abuelo were not far behind. But neither success nor failure made the dramatist swerve a hair's breadth in his methods. Firmly serene in his consciousness of artistic right, he kept on his way with characteristic stubbornness and impassivity. Only on two occasions did he allow the criticisms of the press to goad him into a reply. In the prefaces to Los condenados and Alma y ...
— Heath's Modern Language Series: Mariucha • Benito Perez Galdos
... way; inspiration has been sought not only in literature, but in archaeology, and even in anthropology; it is these which have proved the shifting sand. You see your scepticism is not even original." He smiled a little, serene in the largeness of his faith. His complacency grated upon her. She jumped up. "We always seem to get into religion, you and I," she said. "I wonder why. It is certain we shall never agree. Mosaism is magnificent, no doubt, but I cannot help feeling ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... westerly, light airs attended with heavy showers of snow in the morning; but as the day advanced, the weather became fair, clear, and serene. Still continuing to steer east, at noon we observed in latitude 58 deg. 11', longitude at the same time 7 deg. 55' west. Thermometer 34-2/3. In the afternoon we had two hours calm; after which we had faint breezes between the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... not being free, of having gained everything but freedom that was at times galling in the extreme: this sense of living with a woman for whom I had long ceased to care, a woman with a baffling will concealed beneath an unruffled and serene exterior. At moments I looked at her across the table; she did not seem to have aged much: her complexion was as fresh, apparently, as the day when I had first walked with her in the garden at Elkington; her hair the same wonderful colour; perhaps she ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... husband and the wife to take. That was the time in which you ought to have made your objections: but then every thing was just, every thing was rational; and from your ready acquiescence to my proposals and the admiration with which you seemed to receive them, I had no doubt of enjoying that serene that delightful state of connubial happiness, so often desired and ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... exhalations damp the spirits choke, That feed on ether temp'rate and serene; No yellow fogs, or murky clouds of smoke, Obscure the ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... Outside the station, round a quiet corner, my steps were arrested by the surprising sight of—Beauty!—the very identical devil himself! There stood the unhangable, undrownable, hurricane-creating beast, looking as serene as a newly-born black cherub, washing his fiendish face! I approached on tiptoe, breathlessly, with the basket behind my back and the half chicken extended as a peaceable card of introduction. He scented it instantly—my aunt always keeping Beauty's tit-bits until ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various
... serene self-satisfaction.] Oh, that's a cinch [Rises; crosses to table, looking in dresser mirror at herself, and giving her hat and hair little touches.], but I like to leave well enough alone, and if I had to make a change right now it would require a whole lot of thought and ...
— The Easiest Way - Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911 • Eugene Walter
... back. The guns having been fired with due pomp and circumstance, the gunners went back to those pipe-smoking and postcard-writing pursuits of theirs and everything was as before— peaceful and entirely serene. Only the telephone man remained in his bed in the straw with his ear at his telephone. He was still couched there, spraddling ridiculously on his stomach, with his legs outstretched in a sawbuck pattern, as we ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... so clear all light. His love embraceth, too, what He moveth To other homes in His house, so bright. Let fogs not blind thee, Thou spirit childly! Once shall find thee That hour, when mildly The Father calls thee. But, in the mean, Endure and labor, with faith serene! ...
— The Angel of Death • Johan Olof Wallin
... possibility could she see forty again. So far as propriety went, she might roam alone from one end of the world to the other. If she lived in the largest block of flats that was ever erected, her neighbours would regard her comings and goings with serene indifference. Admirable woman! She did not "take the eye". I met her spectacled glance ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... the ambitious yet commonplace girls who wish to shine, without knowing the difference between the glitter of a candle which attracts moths, and the serene light of a star, or the cheery glow of a fire round which all love to gather. Her mother's aims were not high, and the two pretty daughters knew that she desired good matches for them, educated them for that end, and ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... Ann was calm and serene as usual, happy in her brother's prospects, and deeply interested in the grey stone house which the congregation at Penmorien ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine
... Deering, too, ready to take up a good deal of his thought. And now it seemed cruel that this man should have come amongst them to disturb the current of a serene and peaceful life. ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn
... long? I knew it was a long while; but my vague remorse had kept no date! It behoves me now to write again without delay; to certify with all distinctness that I have safely received your Letter of the 30th October, safely the Bill for L25 it contained;—that you are a brave, friendly man, of most serene, beneficient way of life; and ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... his testimony to the admirable combination of energy and mildness, by which Miss Brown's whole air and manner were distinguished amid these hours of tumult. He said: "Such serene strength comes only from religious principle and life. I know not how it may have been with nerves and pulses—there was no apparent tremor. But of this I am assured, whatever disturbance there ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... in an unbroken series through all medieval Jewish literature. But if the Jewish wife was held in honor by the Jewish husband, it was because of the very practical virtues of the Jewish way of living. The home life was everywhere serene and lovely, and if the Jew retained any virtue at all, he displayed it in the home. The father was the religious teacher of his family, and this duty necessarily increased his domesticity. He took greater interest in his children because it was his task to teach them the ...
— Women's Wild Oats - Essays on the Re-fixing of Moral Standards • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... people's cheerfulness, had each their suitable effect on a temper naturally prone to be glad. Perhaps, too, he was magnetically conscious of a presence that formerly sufficed to make him happy. Be the cause what it might, Donatello's eyes shone with a serene and hopeful expression while looking upward at the bronze pope, to whose widely diffused blessing, it may be, he attributed ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... their distempers. If you have not slept, or if you have slept, or if you have headache, or sciatica, or leprosy, or thunder-stroke, I beseech you, by all angels, to hold your peace, and not pollute the morning, to which all the housemates bring serene and pleasant thoughts, by corruption and groans. Come out in the azure. Love the day. Do not leave the sky out of your landscape. The oldest and the most deserving person should come very modestly into any newly awaked company, respecting the divine ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... many a gem of purest ray serene The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear; Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... scoff at the drover's bird, and to bet on the English Game; They hied them off to the drover's camp, while Saltbush rode before — Old Rooster Hall was a blithesome man, when he thought of the treat in store. They reached the camp, where the drover's cook, with countenance all serene, Was boiling beef in an iron pot, but never ...
— Rio Grande's Last Race and Other Verses • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... calm and serene, and yet to be full of energy and hope of higher things,—this comes to him whose ...
— Heart's-ease • Phillips Brooks
... had reached our journey's end. On the platform my father shook hands with a straight, brisk old gentleman whose face was very serene and rosy. He had on a white hat and a long swallow-tailed coat, the collar of which came clear up above his cars. He didn't look unlike a Pilgrim Father. This, of course, was Grandfather Nutter, at whose house I was born. My mother ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... white-horsed Day Chases Night her mares away; When the Gates of Dawn (they say) Phobus opes: And I gather that the Queen May be uniformly seen, Should the weather be serene, ...
— Fly Leaves • C. S. Calverley
... seat serene, and Virtue's self approves:— Here come the griev'd, a change of thought to find; The curious here, to feed a craving mind: Here the devout, their peaceful temple chuse; And here, the poet meets his ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... remark made by anybody following upon this reading. The circle broke up. With dissatisfied faces the ladies and Judy and Norton withdrew their several ways. David presently went off too, but Matilda had noticed that his face was as serene as summer moonlight. She was gathering up her books to go too like all the rest, when to her great surprise Mrs. Lloyd came beside her and drawing her into her arms bestowed an earnest kiss upon her uplifted wondering face. Then they both went ...
— Trading • Susan Warner
... some of her own jewels, rubies and diamonds, to match the scarlet, black and white. I have since found the scene mentioned in Mademoiselle's own memoirs, but she did not see a quarter of the humour of it. She was serene in the certainty that her aunt was paying court to her, and the assurance that her cousin was doing the same, though she explains that, having hopes of the Emperor, and thinking the Prince a mere landless exile, she only pitied him. Little did she guess how he laughed at her, his mother, ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... affords amusement to the colonists as well as natives, who chase it, according to Dr Horsfield, "during the moonlight nights, which, in the latitude of Java, are uncommonly serene. He is watched in his descent to the fruit-trees, and a discharge of small shot readily brings him to the ground. By this means I frequently obtained four or five individuals in the course of an hour." The natives of ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... ere Bernard slowly emerged from his serene slumber and looked at the child beside him. Some invisible influence—or perhaps some bond of sympathy between them—had awakened her at the same moment, for her eyes were fixed upon him. They shone intensely, mysteriously blue in the subdued light, wistful, ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... stray, Emerging thence more widely spread It foams along its craggy bed, And shatter'd with the mighty shock Rushes from the giddy rock— Hurl'd headlong o'er the dangerous steep On runs the current to the deep, And gathering waters as it goes Serene and calm the river flows, Diffuses plenty o'er the smiling coast, Rolls on its stately waves and is in ...
— Poems • Robert Southey
... by neither living nor dead: he accepted or rejected communications as they appealed to his reason: he kept his literature and his hallucinations separate from his business, and never did a thing which did not gibe with his reason. In this way he lived to be eighty, earnest, yet composed, serene, steering safely clear from Bedlam, by making his commonsense the court ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... is all serene and fair, Full many a brighter gem we meet; 'Tis when the tempest hovers there, Thy ...
— The Culprit Fay - and Other Poems • Joseph Rodman Drake
... the sublime repose of its great dome, and, indeed, of all its massive height and breadth. Other edifices may crowd close to its foundation, and people may tramp as they like about it; but still the great cathedral is as quiet and serene as if it stood in the middle of Salisbury Plain. There cannot be anything else in its way so good in the world as just this effect of St. Paul's in the very heart and densest tumult of London. I do not know whether the church is built of marble, or of whatever ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the bullets as they hiss by him, interspersed with the agonizing screams of the wounded, or the death shrieks of comrades falling in dying convulsions right in the face of the living,—these things are not conducive to that serene and judicial mental equipoise which the historian enjoys ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell
... And hissing comets scorch the brow of space The Universe keeps its eternal calm. Through patient preparation, year on year, The earth endures the travail of the Spring And Winter's desolation. So our souls In grand submission to a higher law Should move serene through all the ills of ...
— Custer, and Other Poems. • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... the brown eyes stepped forward, laid down his little book, picked up the frock-coat and pulled it on, the fat man squealing expostulation. With serene disregard of this protest Farr buttoned the coat, smoothed it down, and then straightened ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... wide-awake, smoothed his soft, slightly curly russet-coloured hair with his hand. These adjustments, and the assurance they induced that his personal appearance was all which it should be, completed his moral restoration. He stepped down on to the platform, into the serene light and freshness, as engaging and hopeful a youth of three and twenty as any ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... the chimney-corner. He had sprung forward with a loud cry when, in listening as the magistrate read, he heard of a corpse being discovered among the vines. But what could a blind man, and one so long absent from Argenteuil, have to communicate? Laurence Bigot regarded with a kind of respect the serene and venerable ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various
... joy: frivolous, we run after giddy excitement because we do not believe in peace: with hearts corrupt, we abandon ourselves to the devouring flame of the passions, because we do not believe in the serene light of true felicity. But the more the thought of God's love enters our mind, the more will faith in happiness issue from our soul as a blessed flower. Happiness is the end of our being; it is the will ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... these Europeans. She cut out that poor imbecile of an Edward—and I pray God that he is really at peace, clasped close in the arms of that poor, poor girl! And, no doubt, Maisie Maidan will find her young husband again, and Leonora will burn, clear and serene, a northern light and one of the archangels of God. And me.... Well, perhaps, they will find me an elevator ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford
... once incensed and overawed; and then, coiling himself up in a thick and sulphurous vapor, he disappeared from his place. I did not till that moment feel the influence of fright, but then it seized me. I rushed into the open air, where the tempest had passed away, and all was pure and serene." Shall I dare confess, that I could fain have passed some stormy night all alone in this solitary cell, were it but to enjoy the luxury of listening, amid the darkness, to the clashing rain and the roar of the wind high among the cliffs, ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... out, twinkling sharp and clear, in that half tropical sky: yet still the fight raged. The hum of the day had now subsided, and the cicada was heard trilling its note on the night-air: all was quiet and serene in the city: yet still the fight raged. The dull, heavy reports of the distant artillery boomed louder across the water, and the dark curtain of smoke that nearly concealed the ships and fort, grew luminous ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... sweetly reasonable, and devoutly confident that the tale of hideous wrong will right itself without his stir. No figure is more essential for social intercourse, or moves round the cultivated or political circle of his life with more serene success. ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... time. She is the acme of histrionic dexterity; all that she does upon the stage is, in sheer effectiveness, superb. But in her work she has no soul; she lacks the sensitive sweet lure of Duse, the serene and starlit poetry of Modjeska. Three things she does supremely well. She can be seductive, with a cooing voice; she can be vindictive, with a cawing voice; and, voiceless, she can die. Hence the formula of ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton
... refrain of a song or the intense situation in a play which we live over again. This shows how powerful impressions are; how important it is never to retire to rest in a fit of temper, or in an ugly, unpleasant mood. We should get ourselves into mental harmony, should become serene and quiet before retiring, and, if possible, lie down smiling, no matter how long it may take to secure this condition. Never retire with a frown on your brow; with a perplexed, troubled, vexed expression. Smooth out the wrinkles; drive away all the enemies of your ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... vision of death which we were constantly meeting wherever women were congregated, we might have been happy in the fair land of rose blossoms and magnolias where we now sojourned. The air was soft and balmy, and the atmosphere filled us with a serene, restful languor quite new to those who had been accustomed to the brisker habits of a colder clime. Besides the birds there were many human visitors from the North spending the winter months here. Some sought ...
— Dickey Downy - The Autobiography of a Bird • Virginia Sharpe Patterson
... conventional grandeur, the daughter of the physician eclipsed all that by her beauty, by the loftiness of her sentiments, by the delicacy she gave to their enjoyments. Thus these two white doves flew with one wing beneath their pure blue heaven; Etienne loved, he was loved, the present was serene, the future cloudless; he was sovereign lord; the castle was his, the sea belonged to both of them; no vexing thought troubled the harmonious concert of their canticle; virginity of mind and senses enlarged for them the world, their thoughts rose in their minds without effort; ...
— The Hated Son • Honore de Balzac
... the loftiest moment in the reign of Lewis XVI. He had stood there, with the red cap of liberty on his powdered head, not only fearless, but cheerful and serene. He had been in the power of his enemies and had patiently defied them. He made no surrender and no concession while his life was threatened. The Girondins were not recalled, and the movement failed. ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... weather was in any degree clear or serene, they had scarcely any night; for, being in the middle of January, 1722, the summer was then in its height, and the days at their ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... be talking with some of these pretty young women. Shall we say Miss Molly Crenshawe, who is certainly looking most beautiful this evening? or perhaps the dashing Miss Peggy?" He glanced keenly at the youth, who retained all his serene indifference of manner, only blushing slightly and ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... water, and water which pierces the secret valleys of the mountains, worked its spell upon our travellers, and freed them from themselves for a while. For awhile they were as singleminded as the boys, content to live and breathe that wine-tinctured air, and watch out those flawless days and serene grey nights. London had sophisticated some of them almost beyond redemption: Francis Lingen was less man than sensitive gelatine; James was the offspring of a tradition and a looking-glass. But the zest and high spirits of Urquhart were catching, and ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... courage than men. Man hears the bursting thunders, views the destructive bolt with serene aspect, and stands erect amid the fearful majesty of the torrent. But woman trembles at the lightning and thunder, and seeks refuge in ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various
... down into all that wasp-nest or bee-hive," have we heard him say, "and witness their wax-laying and honey-making, and poison-brewing, and choking by sulphur. From the Palace esplanade, where music plays while Serene Highness is pleased to eat his victuals, down to the low lane, where in her door-sill the aged widow, knitting for a thin livelihood, sits to feel the afternoon sun, I see it all; for, except the Schlosskirche weathercock, no biped ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... a gem of purest ray serene, The dark, unfathomed caves of ocean bear, And full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness ...
— Gathering Jewels - The Secret of a Beautiful Life: In Memoriam of Mr. & Mrs. James Knowles. Selected from Their Diaries. • James Knowles and Matilda Darroch Knowles
... a super-eminent breed; and, in part, seem to have strangely forgotten that salutary lesson which Napoleon and his captains taught them, in the days when a republican brigadier, or an imperial aid-de-camp, though the son of a tailor, treated their "Serene Highnesses" and "High Mightinesses" with as little ceremony as the thoroughly beaten deserved from the conquerors. In the present instance, the little king did not choose to receive the gallant soldier, whom, in days of difficulty, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... little, and the silence and quietude of a perfectly serene and ordered household had returned to Seagate Hall. The Coroner's jury had viewed the dead, and then had gone off to the best public-house in the village to hold their inquest. The dead themselves had been laid in ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... our noble Queen, Likewise her Ministers serene; And may they ever steer a course To make things better 'stead of worse, And England's flag triumphant fly, The dread ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... unconquered King of England, a prince adorned with all the virtues that become a great monarch, having some differences of no small consequence with Charles the most serene prince of Castile, sent me into Flanders, as his ambassador, for treating and composing matters between them. I was colleague and companion to that incomparable man Cuthbert Tonstal, whom the king with such universal applause lately made Master of the Rolls; ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... know them well—I know them well, Those hills of God, and they know me; When I go there they are serene, But when the stranger visits them Dark rain-clouds gather round their tops— Over the earth ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... glanced at EDE and LANGHEINRICH alternately with serene laughter.] You just be so good an' be more careful: we ain't so soft. We don't take jokes so easy, especially not from the ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... What a remarkable occurrence!" exclaims Cecil. "Now, what can have happened to ruffle so serene a ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... not understand the significance of the answers, were serene. When the reading was over, the justiciary asked the prosecutor what punishment he thought should ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... Lesley-Castle on the 28th of last Month, and arrived safely in London after a Journey of seven Days; I had the pleasure of finding your Letter here waiting my Arrival, for which you have my grateful Thanks. Ah! my dear Freind I every day more regret the serene and tranquil Pleasures of the Castle we have left, in exchange for the uncertain and unequal Amusements of this vaunted City. Not that I will pretend to assert that these uncertain and unequal Amusements are in the least Degree unpleasing to me; on the contrary ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... back to Aix, Fastrada died; and how the king Sat watching by her night and day, Till into one of the blue lakes, That water that delicious land, They cast the ring, drawn from her hand; And the great monarch sat serene And sad beside the fated shore, Nor left the ...
— The Golden Legend • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... the table, the Prime Minister was quietly looking over a book of butterflies, while waiting for the conference to begin. Beside him the Secretary for Ireland was fixing trout flies, while the Chancellor of the Exchequer kept his serene face bent over upon his needlework. At the Prime Minister's right, Sir John Elphinspoon, no longer agitated, but sustained and dignified by the responsibility of his ...
— Winsome Winnie and other New Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock
... sweet eyes looking up at him, and now he was walking the wet pavement of the great metropolis, with the clang and grind of cars all about him, on his way to meet a woman whose life was spent in simulating acts as destructive as Myra's had been serene and trustful. At the moment he saw his own life as a ...
— The Light of the Star - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... of my early life came to an end, when the comfortable commonplaces of my previous existence altered, when the placid current of my former life broke suddenly and without warning into the tumultuous rapids which hurried me from surprise to surprise and from peril to peril. The last hour of my serene youth was about the ninth of the day, nearly midafternoon, on the Nones of June in the 937th year of the city, [Footnote: A.D. 184. See Note C.] while Cossonius Marullus and Papirius Aelian were consuls, when Commodus had already been ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... have to confess that in this, as in all their art, the Greek taste is inimitable; yet we may profit by the lessons it teaches us. These are: variety without redundancy; grace without affectation; simplicity without poverty; the appropriate, the harmonious, and the serene, rather than that which is astonishing, painful, or awe-inspiring. These principles were carried into the smallest arts, and we can trace them in the shaping of a cup or the decoration of a mantle, as in the frieze ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... weird spectacle,—that frail, fading oval, gliding against the sky, floating in the serene azure, the little vessel swinging silently beneath, and a hundred thousand martial men watching the loss of their brother in arms, but powerless to relieve or recover him. Had Fitz John Porter been drifting down the rapids ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... she had been all along, as cool and collected, as suave and serene, as possible. In this respect she somewhat resembled Horner, her promising young friend—nothing could put her out—although her mental equilibrium resulted from habit and training; while Horner's, in ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... musical cronies—a white man—gave me a serenade the other evening. As it was quite cold, F. made them come inside the cabin. It was the richest thing possible, to see the patronizing and yet serene manner with which Ned directed his companion what marches, preludes, etc., to play for the amusement of that profound culinary and musical critic, ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... find them, but to offset the pernicious influence of Harry's "item." For many days he followed the most highly impossible clews, some of them intractable, to supply a rather unusual word of description. In other words, they reacted with a vigour that often found him unprepared but serene. Consequences bothered Anderson but little in those days ...
— The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon
... very strange effect upon Audrey. Roussel began to play. Musa held his bow aloft. Creeping steps in the doorway made Audrey look round. A lady smiled and bowed to her. It was Madame Piriac, resplendent and serene. ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... be covered with confusion. Ah! never was the Frenchman so deceived. As our friend the Cappuccino advanced, with folded arms, he looked straight into the visage of the little Frenchman, with a bland, serene, composed abstraction, not to be described. There was not the faintest trace of recognition or amusement on his features; not the smallest consciousness of bread and meat, wine, snuff, or cigars. 'C'est lui-meme,' ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... chamber lie the bodies of Jane and Esperance, the son of Monte-Cristo. How much beauty, youth and tenderness were to be swallowed up in Mother Earth! Jane, vailed in lace, had a tender smile upon her lips. Esperance, in his serene repose, was the image of ...
— The Son of Monte Cristo • Jules Lermina
... swept over the white foaming waters. His heart was suddenly flooded with memories of his boyhood, its dreams of heroic deeds; his mother's serene face; his father's high sense of honour; and the traditions of his boyhood that make character noble and worth while, traditions that created a race of free-men before a dollar became the measure of ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... for it, when words so different are spoken elsewhere. There are observers at a distance—impartial lookers-on, who predict (and I fear there are signs at home which indicate) that our position is far from secure—our prospects far other than serene. There are those who believe that we are in danger from other foes than the race of Oge; and facts have arisen—but enough. This is not the time and place for discussion of that point. Suffice it now that, as we all know, ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... swift as the flight of Time, I've come from a far and shadowy clime; With brow serene and a cloudless eye, Like the star that shines in the midnight sky; I check the sigh, and I dry the tear; Mortals! why turn from my path ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... a heap of old magazines somewhere about the place and is in the barn reading. Says her head aches too hard to work today," answered Hope, with an anxious pucker in her usually serene forehead. ...
— At the Little Brown House • Ruth Alberta Brown
... enhance feminine beauty; the thoughts it excites are soothing and serene, the gentle enthusiasm that is felt during this delightful occupation not only dissipates melancholy and morbid sensibility, but by developing the judgment and feeling, imparts a higher tone of character to the expression ...
— The Jewish Manual • Judith Cohen Montefiore
... natural temper very much disposed to mirth and pleasantry, and always appeared with a smiling and serene countenance. But Demosthenes had constant care and thoughtfulness in his look, and a serious anxiety, which he seldom, if ever, laid aside; and, therefore, was accounted by his enemies, as he ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... decadence, when traditional faiths were shaken, when systems clashed, when men's minds were disquieted, when the fabric of empire itself, once deemed eternal, began to show ominous rents and fissures, the serene figure of Isis with her spiritual calm, her gracious promise of immortality, should have appeared to many like a star in a stormy sky, and should have roused in their breasts a rapture of devotion ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... fixed to-night forever. He would remain the Ramuntcho of other times, the "son of Franchita," player of pelota and smuggler, free, freed from everything, owing nothing to and asking nothing from anybody. And he felt serene, without remorse, without fright, either, in this mortuary house, from which the shades had just disappeared, ...
— Ramuntcho • Pierre Loti
... Sherry's and wear wonderful gowns to the Metropolitan these were different eyes. Their color was elusive, as elusive as the vague tints upon the desert as dusk drifts over it; like that calm tone of the desert resolved into a deep, unfathomable gray, wonderfully soft, transcendently serene. And through the indescribable color as through untroubled skies at dawn there shone the light which made her, in some way which he could not entirely grasp, different from the women he had known. He merely felt that their light was softly eloquent ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory
... differed in no important particular from many others that littered the face of the world through which he had passed during the last twenty-four hours. It was a mere dot in the center of a flat grass country covering a vast area. It sat, serene in its isolation, as far from civilization as Genesis from Revelation. In the stifling heat of the lazy June afternoon it drowsed, seemingly deserted except for the ponies and the two wagons, and the few incurious cowboys who had rewarded the young man with their glances. Apparently whatever citizens ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer
... interesting letter. From the serene elevation of my old age I look down with amazement at your youth, vigour, and indomitable energy. With respect to Hooker and the axis of the earth, I suspect he is too much overworked to consider now any subject properly. His mind is so acute and critical that I always expect ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... of the pupil finally seized the teacher. Beethoven came to dote upon the large heart, the pure soul, and the serene mind of Therese. One night, as he extemporised as only he could, he sang a song of love to her. One day ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... that have been most serene and pure and truly fortunate? Those in which there has been no discipline, no restraint, no common faith, no mutual love? Or those in which sincere religion has swayed life to its stern and gracious laws, those ...
— Joy & Power • Henry van Dyke
... you.' Time had now streaked with grey the crisp, curly, brown hair of his youth, and traced lines of care on his ample forehead and strong clear face, bronzed with exposure to the tropical sun. His usual aspect was serene and quiet, and though at times a ruffling wave of constitutional impatience or indignation might pass over him, it did not disturb him long. The depth and largeness of Gordon's nature, which inspired so much confidence ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... "All serene, Vernon, I under-constubble," he softly whispered back to me, in our gunroom slang. "Do you think you can manage to climb up by yourself, or shall I come down ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... a look of serene happiness on Inza's face, while Elsie was positively rosy. After chatting a while, they sat some moments in silence, busy with their own thoughts. Finally their eyes ...
— Frank Merriwell's Son - A Chip Off the Old Block • Burt L. Standish
... but it was the soul. We linger a very little while, her old comrades. The hour comes, it is even now at the door, that God will open our eyes to see her as she is: the white-souled child of twelve years old ministering to want and sorrow; the ripe life, full of great influences; the serene old age, example and inspiration whose light will not soon go out. Farewell for a very little while. God keep us fit to join thee in that broader service on which thou ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 3 • Various
... sorrow upon himself. The social differences between men he found were equally arbitrary and illusive; caste bred hatred and selfishness; riches strife, envy and malice. So in founding his Faith he laid the bottom of its foundation-stones upon all this worldly dirt, and its dome in the clear serene of the world of Spirit. He who can mount to a clear conception of Nirvana will find his thought far away above the common joys and sorrows of petty men. As to one who ascends to the top of Chimborazo or the Himalayan crags, and sees men on the earth's surface crawling ...
— The Life of Buddha and Its Lessons • H.S. Olcott
... all know that if care is taken to keep the public stores full, no private man can want anything; for among them there is no unequal distribution, so that no man is poor, nor in any necessity, and though no man has anything, yet they are all rich; for what can make a man so rich as to lead a serene and cheerful life, free from anxieties, neither apprehending want himself, nor vexed with the endless complaints of his wife? He is not afraid of the misery of his children, nor is he contriving how to raise a portion for his daughters, but is secure in this, that both ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... deeply involved in the strifes and turmoils of mankind,—too thoroughly imbued with the spirit of the passing hour, with all its passions and prejudices—to be the philosophic guides of humanity, and to lay down, with the serene logic of truth, the bases of moral and political progress. The inevitable sympathy between the editor and his daily readers—the action and reaction which constantly take place and insensibly lead the journalist into the paths of popular opinion and passion—these are too apt to render him altogether ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... confused and finished up by a rather unfortunate comparison. Varvara Pavlovna took up a music-book and half-hiding behind it and bending towards Panshin, she observed in a whisper, as she nibbled a biscuit, with a serene smile on her lips and in her eyes, "Elle n'a pas invente la poudre, la bonne dame." Panshin was a little taken aback and amazed at Varvara Pavlovna's audacity; but he did not realise how much contempt for himself was concealed in this unexpected outbreak, ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... Reluctantly, with lofty form, Like strong oaks blasted by the storm But not bowed down, the captives came, Their dark brows flushed with grief and shame; And he, their sovereign, king no more, In mockery the purple wore. His the proud step, majestic mien, The lip compressed and look serene That mark a spirit strong and high, A soul that smiles on destiny. As surges breaking on the shore, Or like the distant torrents roar, The shouts of victory rolled afar. And shook the hills, as the ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... her lying dead, and her face was beautiful and serene. But it was the other room I entered first, and it was by my sister's side that I fell upon my knees. The rounded completeness of a woman's life that was my mother's had not been for her. She would not have it at the price. 'I'll never leave you, mother.' ...
— Margaret Ogilvy • James M. Barrie
... coffin, and the clergyman whose young voice had not lost its thrill of awe in the presence of death. He had no eyes for aught but the woman, who was bound to him by firmer ties than those whose dissolution the clergyman was recording. She stood serene, with head raised above theirs, revealing a face that sadness had made serious, grave, mature, but not sad. She displayed no affected sorrow, no nervous tremor, no stress of a reproachful mind. Unconscious of the others, even of the minister's solemn phrases, ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... author so celebrated, a philosopher so serene, and a man so extremely amiable, if not fortunate, that we may be surprised to meet his name inscribed in a catalogue of literary calamities. Look into his literary life, and you will discover that the greater portion was mortified and angried; and that the stoic ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... forfeited in battel. If he that in the field is slain, Be in the bed of Honour lain, He that is beaten, may be said To lie in Honour's truckle-bed. 1050 For as we see th' eclipsed sun By mortals is more gaz'd upon, Than when, adorn'd with all his light, He shines in serene sky most bright: So valour, in a low estate, 1055 Is most admir'd ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... build up a companionship for herself in church or amongst her neighbors; she may leave her husband and get a divorce; she may become unfaithful on the basis that turn about is fair play; she may devote herself with greater zeal to her home and children and build up a serene life against odds. ...
— The Nervous Housewife • Abraham Myerson
... ship or a respectable crew. His materials were always of the very poorest. His officers, with the exception of Richard Dale, were but little to boast of. What he accomplished, he accomplished by the exercise of his own indomitable will, his serene courage, his matchless skill as a sailor, and his devotion to the cause he had espoused. After his death, among his papers, the following little memorandum, written in ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... frequently, jotted down in his diary and then elaborated, revised, recopied and revised again. The vivid imagination and high-strung emotions that made Clay and Blaine great campaigners were lacking in Hayes. He was gentle, dignified, simple, systematic, thoughtful, serene, correct. In making his judgments on public questions he was sensitive to moral forces. The emancipation of the slaves was not merely wise and just to him—it was "Providential." He favored a single six-year ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... protection against suicide; it has no longer any use as a specific instinct of man, and it will disappear like every specific character which has become useless. This evil, also, will vanish with injustice from mankind; life spreads out full of serene joyousness before our successors, who, free from the crippling influence of pessimism, will spend their days in ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... of the Hounds, commander of the first cohort of the Legion of Honor, etc., etc. The most brilliant reception was prepared for him. Count Otto wrote to the Duke of Cadore, February 21, 1810: "As to the honors which I have considered due to His Most Serene Highness, the Prince of Neufchatel, Count Metternich assures me that he regarded him not merely as Ambassador Extraordinary, but as a Sovereign Prince, a great dignitary of the Empire, as a friend and fellow-soldier ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... and he knows that rebirth has been destroyed, the higher life has been led, what had to be done has been done. He has no more to do with this life. Just as if in a mountain fastness there were a pool of water, clear, translucent and serene and a man standing on the bank and with eyes to see should perceive the mussels and the shells, the gravel and pebbles and the shoals of fish as they move about or lie ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... racial antagonism are still there. Can we expect that man who has but lately begun to think of brotherhood can already feel it in his blood; that the age-long superstition against the Jew can be obliterated with a new geographical boundary—though that boundary be indeed serene as the all-washing, all-embracing Atlantic? Oh, that "reality does not correspond to our conceptions," ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... things she had seen, the spectacle of what seemed the end of everything, the Revolution, had so formed her character as to lead her to disdain human suffering. And this old woman, who had nothing left of life save breath, had risen to a serene philosophy, to a virile, haughty, almost satirical stoicism. Sometimes she would begin to declaim against a sorrow that seemed a little too keen; but, in the midst of her tirade, she would suddenly hurl an angry, mocking word ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... nation's financiers; for it was as if one of the ancient patriarchs had stepped down from the days of early Israel to discuss the financial problems of his people with a modern "captain of industry." He described a condition of society that was, to Wall Street, archaic. He spoke with a serene assurance that the order of affairs in Utah was constituted in the wisdom of the word of God. He was listened to, with the interest of curiosity, as the chief living exponent of the Mormon movement, its processes and its aims; and I was impressed by the fact that these men ...
— Under the Prophet in Utah - The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft • Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins
... seventieth-birthday breakfast, in Boston. But then his mind was like a splendid bridge with one span missing; he had—what is it you doctors call it?—aphasia, yes, that is it—he had to grope for his words. But what a serene, godlike air! He was like a plucked eagle tarrying in the midst of a group of lesser birds. He would sweep the assembly with that searching glance, as much as to say, 'What is all this buzzing and chirping about?' Holmes was as brilliant and scintillating as ever; sparks of wit would greet every ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... mountains and surrounded by tombs, still used as houses by individuals and even by, whole families. A finer occasion for expressing the passions of madness in all their violence, contrasted with the serene virtue and benevolence of Him who went about continually doing good, could hardly be chosen for the pencil of an artist; and a faithful delineation of the rugged and wild majesty of the mountain scenery on the one hand, with the still calm of the ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell
... are numbered— As the sunlight dawns serene Over yonder mountain ridges, Rimming round ...
— Along the Shore • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... gifts, but only on the way to perhaps becoming gifts—that is to say, still only where the power of the creature itself has been able to raise them: for of these last it may invariably be said that to-day we may feel serene security and to-morrow fall and fail—and this in the very ...
— The Romance of the Soul • Lilian Staveley
... were several good canoe trees near, and we had decided to build two rather small canoes. After dark the stars came out; but in the deep forest the glory of the stars in the night of the sky, the serene radiance of the moon, the splendor of sunrise and sunset, are never seen as they are seen on the ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt
... been settled completely to his satisfaction. The most expeditious mode of ending matters would, no doubt, have been to summon a couple of ciauses and make them lay the rascal's head at his own feet, but the political horizon was not yet sufficiently serene for such acts of daring. The bands of the insurgents were still encamping in the public square outside. First of all they must be hoodwinked and pacified, only after that would it be possible to proceed to extreme measures ...
— Halil the Pedlar - A Tale of Old Stambul • Mr Jkai
... like one of the overcrowded tapestries of the Middle Ages. At the top was the Noxon palace, majestic, serene, self-confident in the correctness of its architecture and not afraid even of the ocean ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... and serene enough; he wondered bitterly if she ever thought of the hours they had spent together, the times he had kissed her, the future they had planned. He ...
— The Second Honeymoon • Ruby M. Ayres
... you have seen the ravens flock Around the dying deer. He would not deign them word nor sign, But alone he bent the knee; And veil'd his face for Christ's dear grace Beneath the gallows-tree. Then radiant and serene he rose, And cast his cloak away: For he had ta'en his latest look Of earth, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... Vandyck, which has received warm praise. But none of his portraits is calculated to give greater pleasure than that of LEONARDO DA VINCI, which may vie in beauty even with the famous Pompone. Here is the beauty of years and of serene intelligence. Looking at that tranquil countenance, it is easy to imagine the large and various capacities which made him not only painter, but sculptor, architect, musician, poet, discoverer, philosopher, even predecessor of Galileo and Bacon. Such a character deserves ...
— The Best Portraits in Engraving • Charles Sumner
... National Portrait Gallery, or in the striking picture by Millais (now in the Duke of Norfolk's collection). There is one delightful earlier portrait too, which shows him with a peculiarly radiant face, full of charm and serene expectancy; and with it we may associate these lines of his—sincere expression of one who was in all his earthly and heavenly pilgrimage a truth-seeker, heart ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... a little. "No, you will not kill him," she said with her old serene air. "You will not have to kill him. He will never ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... drear, A stifled, drowsy, unimpassioned grief, Which finds no natural outlet, no relief, In word, or sigh, or tear— O Lady! in this wan and heartless mood, To other thoughts by yonder throstle woo'd, All this long eve, so balmy and serene, Have I been gazing on the western sky, And its peculiar tint of yellow green: And still I gaze—and with how blank an eye! And those thin clouds above, in flakes and bars, That give away their motion to the ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill
... But when the sun's bright orb had now declined, Each to his mansion, wheresoever built By the lame matchless Architect, withdrew.[39] Jove also, kindler of the fires of heaven, His couch ascending as at other times 750 When gentle sleep approach'd him, slept serene, With golden-sceptred Juno at ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... up the ascent was like treading burning marl. I had to cry halt half-a-dozen times before we reached the summit; and yet that marvellous guide, with the baggage of all three on his head, kept on with a springy step and serene smile, like the youth in "Excelsior." It was an alternation of wheezing and stumbling with me, with a continuous ooze of perspiration, till I arrived heaving and panting on the crown of the ridge, and flung myself ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... square forehead, the square jaw, the tense lines of the mouth, the deep flashing dark eyes, the impression of something more than strength he gave you, an impression of sincerity, of solid force, of immovability, yet with the gentleness arising from the serene consciousness of his strength—all this belonged to Huxley and to him alone. The first glance magnetised his audience. The eyes were those of one accustomed to command, of one having authority, and not fearing on occasion to use it. The hair swept carelessly away from the ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... solitary Guichard, when night fell, heard a specific GAUDEAMUS going on; and inquired what it was. 'A company of Professors, handselling a newly appointed Professor;'—appointed, as the next question taught, to the very Chair poor Quintus had come for! Serene Highness could not help himself; the Utrechters were so bent on the thing. Quintus lay awake, all night, in his truckle-bed; and gloomily resolved to have done with Professorships, and become a soldier. 'If your Serene Highness do still favor me,' said Quintus next day, 'I solicit, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... thirteen years of age, was beheaded for being a christian; as was Serene, the empress of Diocletian. Valentine, a priest, suffered the same fate at Rome; and Erasmus, a bishop, was martyred ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... urged as to the advisability of a proper amount of exercise, sleep, rest, food, breathing, cleanliness (internal and external), as well as and above all, pure, high-minded thoughts and serene temper—the outcome of the habit of viewing life philosophically. Care should be taken to protect the feet and body from sudden climatic changes, thus avoiding catarrhal troubles, especially of the ...
— Intestinal Ills • Alcinous Burton Jamison
... stifled, drowsy, unimpassioned grief, Which finds no natural outlet, no relief, In word, or sigh, or tear— O Lady! in this wan and heartless mood, To other thoughts by yonder throstle woo'd, All this long eve, so balmy and serene, Have I been gazing on the western sky, And its peculiar tint of yellow green: And still I gaze—and with how blank an eye! And those thin clouds above, in flakes and bars, That give away their motion to the stars; Those stars, that glide behind them or between, Now sparkling, ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill
... when he got up, he begun to talk someh'n' 'bout his shirt-buttons, an' I jes' shet him right up. Says I, 'Cato, when I's r'ally got cake to make for a great 'casion, I wants my mind jest as quiet an' jest as serene as ef I was a-goin' to de sacrament. I don't want no 'arthly cares on't. Now,' says I, 'Cato, de ole Doctor's gwine to be married, an' dis yer's his quiltin'-cake,—an' Miss Mary, she's gwine to be married, an' dis yer's her quiltin'-cake. An' dar'll be eberybody to dat ar quiltin'; ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... opened the shutters to clear the room of the tobacco smoke, and stood beside the sill, absorbing the keen night air and admiring the serene beauty of the picture which lay spread before him. The moon stood high and clear now, the tiled roofs shone mistily, and from some near-by garden came the perfume of boxwood and roses. All was silence; noisy Naples slept. He would see her face this ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... moved his hand back and forth, in a floatin' fashion, up in the air, as if it was a woman a flyin' up there, smooth and serene. It would have impressed some folks dretful, but it didn't me. ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... they entered the cathedral close, and they paused for a moment to look at the stately pile. The trim lawns that surrounded it, in a manner enhanced its serene majesty. They entered the nave. There was a vast and solemn stillness. And there was something subtly impressive in the naked space; it uplifted the heart, and one felt a kind of scorn for all that was mean and low. The soaring of the Gothic columns, ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... and added: "I guess you're right. I'm sure everything's all serene, but it'll do no harm to press a call. Well! I must fly upstairs for a while and ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... Officiel, where he could by-and-by insert in the margin, without too much exaggeration, "profound sensation" and "prolonged applause." Then, when quiet was re-established, sure of his success, he affected a serene majesty. He took up again his discourse, soaring like a goose, launching out ...
— Ten Tales • Francois Coppee
... did it inimitably. Standing there, tall and serene, in her pale-coloured gown and bewitching hat, instinct with the mysterious authority of beauty, she handed the prize to Desmond with a little gracious speech of congratulation, adding, "It was a close fight; but you ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... itself even in this court, it has not made the slightest impression on me. The highest flight of such clamorous birds is winged in an inferior region of the air. We hear them, and we look upon them, just as you, Gentlemen, when you enjoy the serene air on your lofty rocks, look down upon the gulls that skim the mud of your river, when it is exhausted ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... goodness in that bosom glow, What prudent care is throned upon her brow, What tender truth in all she does or says, What pleasantness and peace in all her ways! For ever blooming on that cheerful face Home's best affections grow divine in grace; Her eyes are ray'd with love, serene and bright; Charity wreathes her lips with smiles of light; Her kindly voice hath music in its notes; And heav'n's own atmosphere around ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... wistfully upon the ocean's changing wonders; on its far sails, whitening in the morning light; on its restless waves, rolling shoreward to break and die beneath the noonday sun; on the red clouds of evening, arching low to the horizon; on the serene and shining pathway of the stars. Let us think that his dying eyes read a mystic meaning which only the rapt and parting soul may know. Let us believe that in the silence of the receding world he heard the great waves breaking on a further shore, and felt already upon his ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... diamond king I fain would sing, And likewise his fair queen; But that the knave, A haughty slave, Must needs step in between: "Good diamond king, With hempen string This haughty knave destroy; Then may your queen, With mind serene, ...
— Aunt Kitty's Stories • Various
... can recall that parting hour, and the deep impression it made on my mind. There, beneath that sumptuous canopy, lay the young, the beautiful—still beautiful in death, with Heaven's own smile lighted upon her pale serene face. God had set his holy seal upon her brow. The Merciful, who delighteth in mercy, had marked her for ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie
... added work until, at about four in the afternoon, he felt sorely the need of air and went out from the White House alone, for a walk. His mind still ran on the events of the day before—the impressive, quiet multitude, the serene sky of November arched, in the hushed interregnum of the year, between the joy of summer and the war of winter, over those who had gone from earthly war to heavenly joy. The picture was deeply engraved in his memory; ...
— The Perfect Tribute • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... bien du vent," adjusting his spectacles and viewing the clear sky and the serene bosom of the Mediterranean. Then M. Ferraud turned round with: "Ah, Mr. Fitzgerald, this man Breitmann is what you call 'poor devil,' is it not? At dinner to-night I shall tell a story, at once marvelous past belief and pathetic. I shall tell this ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... there was silence now, an almost preternatural silence; and the lawn, lavishly bestrewn with huge heaps of driven snow, and broken, twisted branches, presented the appearance of a titanic battlefield. In marked contrast to the disturbed condition of the ground, the sky was singularly serene, and broad beams of phosphorescent light poured in through the diamond window-panes on to the bed, in which I was ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... before the bidding of the Almighty and apply thyself to gentle dealing with those of His creatures over whom He set thee and be assiduous as it besitteth thee in fulfilling their prayers unto thee. An thou be constant herein may thy days be serene and may Allah of His mercy pardon thee, and make thee loved and feared of all who look on thee; so shall thy foes be brought to naught, for the Omnipotent shall rout their hosts and thou shalt have acceptance with Him and of His creatures be dreaded ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... The social differences between men he found were equally arbitrary and illusive; caste bred hatred and selfishness; riches strife, envy and malice. So in founding his Faith he laid the bottom of its foundation-stones upon all this worldly dirt, and its dome in the clear serene of the world of Spirit. He who can mount to a clear conception of Nirvana will find his thought far away above the common joys and sorrows of petty men. As to one who ascends to the top of Chimborazo or the Himalayan crags, ...
— The Life of Buddha and Its Lessons • H.S. Olcott
... something as tremendous as divorce from all forms of smoking for five hours to make an impression on Bertie. He had the most serene insouciance that ever a man was blessed with; in worry he did not believe—he never let it come near him; and beyond a little difficulty sometimes in separating too many entangled rose-chins caught ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... when white-horsed Day Chases Night her mares away; When the Gates of Dawn (they say) Phobus opes: And I gather that the Queen May be uniformly seen, Should the weather be serene, On the slopes. ...
— Fly Leaves • C. S. Calverley
... the same road seventy years before in her own bridal hour. In the hollow below lay the Berceau de Dieu, with its red gables and its thatched roofs hidden beneath leaves, and its peaceful pastures smiling under the serene ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... too short, too dear! The laggard body lame behind the soul; Pain, that ne'er marr'd the mind's serene control; Breathing on earth heaven's aether atmosphere, God with thee, and the love that casts out fear! A soul in life's salt ocean guarding sure The freshness of youth's fountain sweet and pure, And to all natural impulse crystal-clear: To service or command, to low and high Equal at once in ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... This man who wears my semblance to your eyes, Is an imposter in a king's disguise. Do you not know me? does no voice within Answer my cry, and say we are akin?" The Pope in silence, but with troubled mien, Gazed at the Angel's countenance serene; The Emperor, laughing, said, "It is strange sport To keep a madman for thy Fool at court!" And the poor, baffled Jester in disgrace Was hustled ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... and compression of his language; the escape from epigrams and point (snap after snap, like a pack of fire-crackers), from a style which has made his every other line a proverb or current quotation—the escape from all this into Spenser's serene, leisurely manner, copious Homeric similes, and lingering detail must have seemed most restful. To go from Pope to Spenser was to exchange platitudes, packed away with great verbal cunning in neat formulas readily portable by the ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... lived through it himself, and was a good judge of what was expected in those days from men and ships. A brilliant frigate captain, a man of sound judgment, of dashing bravery and of serene mind, scrupulously concerned for the welfare and honour of the navy, he missed a larger fame only by the chances of the service. We may well quote on this day the words written of Nelson, in the decline of a well-spent life, by Sir T. ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... vice-queen; and she might well serve as a model for all women. I have been told an incident concerning this admirable princess which I take pleasure in relating here. One of her daughters, who was quite young, having spoken in a very harsh tone to her maid, her most serene highness the vice-queen was informed of it, and in order to give her daughter a lesson, forbade the servants to render the young princess any service, or to reply to any of her demands, from that time. The child at once complained to her mother, who told her gravely that ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... utmost lack of taste. They scrutinize one another, admire or disparage one another, exchange contemptuous, disdainful or inquisitive glances, which suddenly become fixed as some celebrity passes, the illustrious critic, for instance, whom we seem to see at this moment, serene and majestic, his powerful face framed in long hair, making the circuit of the exhibits of sculpture, followed by half a score of young disciples who hang breathlessly upon his kindly dicta. Although the sound of voices is lost in that ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... have strangely forgotten that salutary lesson which Napoleon and his captains taught them, in the days when a republican brigadier, or an imperial aid-de-camp, though the son of a tailor, treated their "Serene Highnesses" and "High Mightinesses" with as little ceremony as the thoroughly beaten deserved from the conquerors. In the present instance, the little king did not choose to receive the gallant soldier, whom, in days ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... stands revealed. When I watch the demeanours of Pilate and Jesus, I can see very clearly who it is who is on the throne; Pilate wears the outer trappings of royalty, but my Lord's is "the power and the glory." Pilate fusses about in a little "brief authority," but my Lord stands possessed of a serene dominion. Even at Pilate's judgment bar ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett
... cried, "there's the dear fellow, now"—and she advanced to meet him, her gentle countenance once more serene. ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... did not conclude with the marriage ceremony. Sheridan seems to have offered his wife as devoted an attachment after her marriage as he had shown in the days of duelling and disguising that preceded it. He wrote verses to her, and she wrote verses to him, long after they had settled down to serene domesticity, which breathe the most passionate expressions of mutual love. And yet there is a legend—it is to be hoped and believed that it is only a legend—which ends the romance very sadly. According to the legend young Lord Edward Fitzgerald, Sheridan's ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... ground is opening;—a blue light Mounts, gently waving,—noiseless;—thin and cold It seems, and like a rainbow tint, not flame; But by its luster, on the earth outstretched, Behold the lifeless child! his dress is singed, And, o'er his face serene, a darkened line Points out ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... four or five years younger, and was not less beautiful. Her complexion was charming; her hair, drawn back from her temples, showed to advantage the perfect oval of her face; two large blue eyes, calm and serene; a well-formed mouth, indicating great frankness of disposition; a nose that rivaled the Venus de Medicis; such was the other face which presented itself to the gaze ...
— The Queen's Necklace • Alexandre Dumas pere
... as thoroughly and as completely as possible. Never did he spare himself. What he had to exact from others, that he sternly imposed upon himself; and he fully shared with his men all the dangers and all the hardships of the war, with serene good temper and with a cheerful spirit. This fine disposition, which he himself had trained by self-discipline, ensured the prompt and willing obedience of his subordinates, and endeared him to all who were committed to his charge; it also secured ...
— Letters of Lt.-Col. George Brenton Laurie • George Brenton Laurie
... the sad moment arrives when that gentleman's party comes into power. It is precisely for that reason that we propose to lift that great and good law above the reach of political strife, beyond the reach of the plots and machinations of any party, and fix it in the serene sky, in the eternal firmament of the Constitution, where no storm of passion can shake it, and no cloud can obscure it. For this reason, and not because I believe the Civil Rights Bill unconstitutional, I am glad to ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... purest ray serene, Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears, Like angels' visits, few and far between, Deck the long vista of ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... would rest on the hillsides, in the swaying golden shadows, watching together the Titanic masses of snow-white clouds which floated slowly and vaguely through the sky, suggesting by their form, whiteness, and serene motion, despite the season, flotillas of icebergs upon Arctic seas. Like lazzaroni we basked in the quiet noons, sunk into the depths of reverie, or perhaps of yet more "charmed sleep." Or we smoked, conversing lazily between ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... our boots on and put ice down the back of some Serene Highness's neck. I suppose it is, but now and then I prefer to dispense with it. In my bath, for instance, and ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... But we had brought guns with us—great pieces of ordnance, to set against the city walls, and the Maid ordered these to be brought and placed in certain positions, never asking counsel, always acting on her own initiative, without hesitation and without haste, calm and serene; with that deep, farseeing gaze of hers turned from her own position to the city and back again, as though she saw in some miraculous vision what must be the end of ...
— A Heroine of France • Evelyn Everett-Green
... waters; yet still the fight raged. The stars came out, twinkling sharp and clear, in that half tropical sky: yet still the fight raged. The hum of the day had now subsided, and the cicada was heard trilling its note on the night-air: all was quiet and serene in the city: yet still the fight raged. The dull, heavy reports of the distant artillery boomed louder across the water, and the dark curtain of smoke that nearly concealed the ships and fort, grew luminous with incessant flashes. The fight still raged. At last the frequency of the discharges ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... would answer that he had rested well, or had eaten with an appetite. When she found she could no longer restrain her grief, but her tears were gushing out, she would leave the room, and, having given vent to her passion, return again with dry eyes and a serene countenance, as if she had dismissed every sentiment ...
— A Lie Never Justifiable • H. Clay Trumbull
... tried to restrain them. She wanted to fondle Liudmila, and wanted to speak about Yegor with words of love and grief. She looked through her tears at his swollen face, at his eyes calmly covered by his drooping eyelids as in sleep, and at his dark lips set in a light, serene smile. It was quiet, and a bleak brightness pervaded ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... name. But I am in reality, and always have been, in reality, something far more lowly than a churchwarden; I am, and always have been, at heart, a meek and humble follower of the holy Thomas a Kempis, whose life of serene and cloistered sanctity I have always wished to imitate. Now that I am myself, it is my ambition to be known, if it is not too presumptuous to say so, as Thomas the ...
— The Old Tobacco Shop - A True Account of What Befell a Little Boy in Search of Adventure • William Bowen
... hurrying about the house, busy preparing a meal for the visitors who had come in suddenly. This was a proper thing to do; it was needful that hospitality be shown. There is a word in the record, however, which tells us that Martha was not altogether serene as she went about her work. "Martha was cumbered about much serving." A marginal reading ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... was serene and quiet, clear and cold, with glimmering stars and no moon, and the wide circle of the hills was drowsy with night and darkness. All was at peace in the outer circle, but at the centre was travail and storm and outrage and death. What nature had made beautiful, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... sleeps, and his sleep appears serene, Whatever dreams it has brought him— [Looks at the plans.] If he knows what those hieroglyphics mean, He's wiser than one who taught him. Why does he number the Pole-star thus? Or the Pleiades why combine? And what is he doing ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... adapted her own wishes to the furtherance of her father's plans. Sorely tried by anxiety and suspense, she needed all that rest and tranquillity could do for her. The first week in the country produced an improvement in her health. Enjoying the serene beauty of woodland and field, breathing the delicious purity of the air—sometimes cultivating her own corner in the garden, and sometimes helping the women in the lighter labours of the dairy—her ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... of some severe trouble showing in his face. And this trouble his wife had shared, for, though she was still a young woman when she came to Gershom, there were streaks of white in her brown hair, and on her fair, serene face there was the look which "tells of sorrow meekly borne." The gloom and sternness which sometimes made people shrink from coming in contact with her husband ...
— David Fleming's Forgiveness • Margaret Murray Robertson
... right hand of the Duomo, is a vast square edifice. The walls are flat and even, pierced at regular intervals with windows, except upon the south-west side, where the rectangular design is broken by a noble double Loggiata, gallery rising above gallery—serene curves of arches, grandly proportioned columns, massive balustrades, a spacious corridor, a roomy vaulting—opening out upon the palace garden, and offering fair prospect over the wooded heights of Castiglione and Rocca d'Orcia, ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... oyster from the shell, Does stick to it, and is imprisoned in it. Its weight of shell doth keep it down and force it To stay upon its muddy bottom. So does Man's body hold his soul in these dark regions, Keeping it ever steadily from rising To those superior heights where are abodes More fitting its serene and noble nature." Good as a quarter-dollar lecture. Boy! fork over.' 'Another "doz." to this old gentleman; For I perceive he plainly hath it in him To swallow down two dozen oysters' souls. See what it is ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... Johnson's mind. His temper became unusually patient and gentle; he ceased to think with terror of death, and of that which lies beyond death; and he spoke much of the mercy of God, and of the propitiation of Christ. In this serene frame of mind he died on the 13th of December 1784. He was laid, a week later, in Westminster Abbey, among the eminent men of whom he had been the historian,—Cowley and Denham, Dryden and ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... whole vast extent of the chateau, seen through the long door-windows, wide open upon the broad seignorial porch, displayed its splendor to the admiration of the visitors, and reflected the beauty of that marvellous landscape, lying serene and peaceful in the setting sun, in the mirrors, the waxed or varnished wainscoting, with the same fidelity with which the poplars bowing gracefully to each other, and the swans, placidly swimming, were reproduced on the mirror-like ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... again at Luxmore Hall, and his visits to Beechwood became as regular as they had been in the old days at the Halifax home, when Muriel was alive. It was the society of Maud in which his lordship now delighted, though he never forgot the serene and happy days he had ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... that, while the men occasionally permitted themselves an outburst, the women never did, and she had schooled herself so rigorously that nowadays she seldom even raised her voice. Her bearing, as she approached the morning-room was calm and serene, but inwardly curiosity consumed her. It was unbelievable that Nesta could have come to try to effect a reconciliation, yet she could think of no other reason for ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... your lonely watch by night, We knew you faithful at the helm, Our thoughts went with you through the fight, That saved a soul,—or wrecked a realm Ah, how our hearts leapt forth to you, In pride and joy, when you prevailed, And when you died, serene and true: —We wept in silence when ...
— Last Poems • Laurence Hope
... The preoccupied faces of those people flashed up in her memory who, from day to day, without cease, in perfect confidence kindle the fire of thought and scatter the sparks over the whole earth. Her soul was flooded by the serene desire to give these people her entire force, and—doubly the love of a mother, awakened and animated by ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... gridiron we marched once, the band still clinging to "Traviata" and the fellows singing whatever pleased them, generally "Up the Street." Then we had a snake dance, a wonder of a snake dance! The band got lost in the shuffle, but later on we found him standing serene and undismayed under the shadow of the west stand spouting "Auld Lang Syne" ...
— The New Boy at Hilltop • Ralph Henry Barbour
... in answer to her complaining, there came a burst of song. The library door swung wide. And forward, with serene and uplifted faces, came the choir, singing the wedding-march. Each cotta ...
— Apron-Strings • Eleanor Gates
... opened. Juliet stood on the threshold. The evening light fell full upon her. She was dressed in cloudy grey that fell about her in soft folds. Her face was flushed, but quite serene. ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... the kingdom of Naples, the duchy of Milan, the magnificent republic of Florence, and the most serene republic of Venice. ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... families that have been most serene and pure and truly fortunate? Those in which there has been no discipline, no restraint, no common faith, no mutual love? Or those in which sincere religion has swayed life to its stern and gracious laws, those in which parents and ...
— Joy & Power • Henry van Dyke
... one! Well, now, mister, suppose I sneaks up round to the back premises and fixes the pretty things all serene and comfortable to one of the outhouses, then lights the fuses and retires. In a little while—bang! bang! What price that for fetchin' yer friend out at the back door just to see if something hasn't maybe dropped ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell
... one the up-stairs lights went out, and a deep silence fell on the old mansion. The ticking of the great clock on the stairs was the only sound. The serene peace of the starlit night settled over The Locusts like brooding wings. The clock struck one, then two, and the long hand was half-way around its face again before any other sound but the musical chime broke the ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... room, opening and answering letters. His demeanour was quite serene. Save that he paused now and then and leaned back in his chair to listen, there was nothing about him to indicate that anything unusual had ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... been a fool, and he paid the price of fools. Bella, slamming noisily about the room, never suspected the presence in the untidy place of a third person—a sturdy girl of twenty-two or -three, very wholesome to look at, and with honest, intelligent eyes and a serene brow. ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber
... of no less imposing appearance, dressed entirely like Andreas Hofer; only the long beard was wanting to him, and, instead of a black hat, he wore the pointed green Tyrolese hat, adorned with hunting ornaments. His face, less good-natured and serene than that of his friend, was expressive of energy and resolution; courage and shrewdness beamed from his black eyes, and a peculiar expression of defiance and scorn played around his full lips. This was Joseph Speckbacher, known by every inhabitant of ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... rather too great an interest had been permitted to go into a long, searching look. For Terry suddenly affected a look of supreme contempt while the old man jerked his eyes away, transferring his regard to the serene Guy Little. ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory
... days a deep sadness appears to have filled the soul of Jesus, which was generally so joyous and serene. The enormous weight of the mission he had accepted bore cruelly upon him. All these inward troubles were evidently a sealed chapter to his disciples. His divine nature, however, soon gained the supremacy, and henceforth we behold him entirely himself and with his ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... sat in order round, And beaming fires illumined all the ground. As when the moon, refulgent lamp of night,(198) O'er heaven's pure azure spreads her sacred light, When not a breath disturbs the deep serene, And not a cloud o'ercasts the solemn scene, Around her throne the vivid planets roll, And stars unnumber'd gild the glowing pole, O'er the dark trees a yellower verdure shed, And tip with silver every mountain's head: Then shine ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... just outside the reef, and near enough to hear that deep sound of the surf which, through the ever serene summer years girdles the Hawaiian Islands with perpetual thunder, before the pilot glided alongside, bringing the news which Mark Twain had prepared us to receive with interest, that "Prince Bill" had been unanimously elected to the throne. The surf ran white and pure over the ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... its great dome, and, indeed, of all its massive height and breadth. Other edifices may crowd close to its foundation, and people may tramp as they like about it; but still the great cathedral is as quiet and serene as if it stood in the middle of Salisbury Plain. There cannot be anything else in its way so good in the world as just this effect of St. Paul's in the very heart and densest tumult of London. I do not know whether the church is built of ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... master! how plainly I perceived this morning that you are really fond of us! While they were interrogating the others, he had no eyes for any one but us. He was troubled when we were uncertain in our replies; he grew serene when we gave a fine answer; he heard everything, and made us a thousand signs with his hand and head, to say to ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... in those same words, "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come;" and he has answered, with a flush of keenest joy, Yes. Whatever else is unholy, there is an Holy One, spotless and undefiled, serene and self-contained. Whatever else I cannot trust, there is One whom I can trust utterly. Whatever else I am dissatisfied with, there is One whom I can contemplate with utter satisfaction, and bathe my stained soul in that eternal fount of ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... sweet! O skies, serene and blue, That shut the velvet pastures in, that fold the mountain's crest! Sweet, sweet, sweet! What of the clouds ye knew? The vessels ride a golden tide, upon a sea ...
— Graded Memory Selections • Various
... then as to "misery" and the other dark ground on which you love to see genius paint itself,—alas! consider whether misery is not ill health too; also whether good fortune is not worse to bear than bad; and on the whole whether the glorious serene summer is not greater than the wildest hurricane,—as Light, the Naturalists say, is stronger a thousand times than Lightning. And so I appeal to Philip sober;—and indeed have hardly said as much about ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... perpetual, paradisical present, with no story to tell, and none that would ever be enacted. It was a world in which Nature seemed to hold herself aloof from man, refusing to be tamed by him, rejecting his caress, keeping herself serene, inviolate, making his ...
— The Letter of the Contract • Basil King
... she had grown so weary; the lighted walls of the London streets; the monstrous shadows of the eaves; the flare of lights; the moving figures—these came first; and then faces—Father Campion's, smiling, with white teeth and narrowed eyes, bright against the dark chimney-breast; Alice's serene features, framed in flaxen hair; and then, as sleep had all but conquered her, the imagination sent up one last idea, and a face came into being before her, so formless yet so full, so sinister, so fierce and so distorted, that she drew a sudden ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... dazed after this mazy effort. Mr. Crawford bowed, and Jasper the Parable looked serene, and ...
— In The Boyhood of Lincoln - A Tale of the Tunker Schoolmaster and the Times of Black Hawk • Hezekiah Butterworth
... threw it open, and leant forth and gasped for air. Heaven was serene and still, as morning came coldly forth amongst the waning stars; and the haunts of men, in their thoroughfare of idleness and of pleasure, were desolate and void. Nothing, save ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... standing before us, by its uprightness, its solidity, its durability, is no unfit emblem of his character. His public virtues and public principles were as firm as the earth on which it stands; his personal motives, as pure as the serene heaven in which its summit is lost. But, indeed, though a fit, it is an inadequate emblem. Towering high above the column which our hands have builded, beheld, not by the inhabitants of a single city or a single State, but by all the families of man, ascends the colossal grandeur of the character ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... Jews and their fellow citizens were cordial. The horizon seemed serene. But if one looked closer, one could see the gathering clouds slowly encroaching upon the calm sky, clouds which were soon to burst in a storm of bloody hate and murderous ferocity. Although the change came about imperceptibly and the Jews enjoyed the calm ...
— Rashi • Maurice Liber
... do. He did not hint that it was unseemly that she should kneel at his feet. Chivalry was the very substance of the soul of this son of New England, and no outward seeming could disturb his serene reverence for the woman he loved. He stooped over her, now stroking her hair, how holding her hands close against his heart, now whispering words that in their audible passion were new and strange to ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... copies, made By hand, or printed by the chromo art, As to be sold at prices not one fifth As high as the originals had cost. Hence her own genius winged the storm and lent The color to the cloud, that overhung Her prospect, late so hopeful and serene. ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent
... now because it did not go off all serene, I am to hear nothing but reproaches. Of course I never cared so very ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... to Judy, sorting a cabinet full of curiosities. There was no shadow of any sorrow on Babs' serene face—her full ...
— A Young Mutineer • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... ne'er so swiftly At early nightfall cleave the air serene, Nor, at the set of sun, the clouds ...
— Dante's Purgatory • Dante
... firmly to the raft, that nothing but its total dis- ruption could carry us away. Miss Herbey was bound by a rope passed round her waist to one of the uprights that had supported our tent, and by the glare of the lightning I could see that her countenance was as serene and ...
— The Survivors of the Chancellor • Jules Verne
... I was in good spirits. I was more—I was happy and grateful. I was returning, as I thought, delivered from a dreadful hallucination, to the scene of duties which I longed to enter upon. It was a beautiful sunny evening, everything looked serene and cheerful, and I was delighted. I remember looking out of the window to see the spire of my church at Kenlis among the trees, at the point where one has the earliest view of it. It is exactly where ...
— Green Tea; Mr. Justice Harbottle • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... little ones, if we would have them grow up capable of performing in the fullest degree the highest functions of life. Therefore give the children plenty of plain, wholesome food; their active systems will appropriate it. If they continue serene in temper, equable in disposition, and generally healthy,—if the eyes are bright, the skin clear, the sleep serene,—the diet is proper ...
— The Cooking Manual of Practical Directions for Economical Every-Day Cookery • Juliet Corson
... she said, looking straight into his eyes. He was conscious of a feeling of relief. He had been living in some dread of what he might detect in her eyes. But it was a serene, frank expression that he found ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... ancient divine ones of Hellas! Are ye Christian too? To convert and redeem and renew you, Will the brief form have sufficed, that a Pope has sat up on the apex Of the Egyptian stone that o'ertops you, the Christian symbol? And ye, silent, supreme in serene and victorious marble, Ye that encircle the walls of the stately Vatican chambers, Are ye also baptized; are ye of the Kingdom of Heaven? Utter, O some one, the word that shall ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... that a man or a woman, who serves for rent only, and wretched basement rent at that, or for a few dollars monthly additional at most, can be a very intelligent, capable person, of serene temper and with qualities that one would most desire in the ideal janitor. In the ordinary New York flat house janitors are engaged on terms that attract only people who can find no other means of obtaining shelter and support. Those who would fulfill your idea of what a ...
— The Van Dwellers - A Strenuous Quest for a Home • Albert Bigelow Paine
... Serene, smiling, enigmatic, she faced him with no fear whatever showing in her dark eyes. The clear light of the bright autumn morning had no terrors for youth and health like hers. She put back a truant curl from her forehead where it had sought egress to the world, and looked him full in ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... softened and bettered." As to her husband, she finds that she has little to forgive him at the last. Step by step she goes over all he did, and even finds excuses for him, and, at the end, this is how she speaks, a noble utterance of serene love, lofty intelligence, of spiritual power and ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... glowing beauty of her maidenhood Margaret has added the serene beauty of motherhood. That is all the change I can see in her, as I put my arms round her and draw her ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... a sudden. spring forward, her dress caught on the wall, and she slipped lightly into his outstretched arms. For the half of a second he held her against his breast; then, as she released herself, he drew back and lifted his eves to meet the serene composure of her expression. He was conscious that his own face flamed red hot, but to all outward seeming she had not noticed the incident which had so moved him. The calm distinction of her bearing ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... known is perhaps the Josiah Quincy who was Mayor of Boston for six years and president of Harvard for sixteen. The portrait of his long, thin face is part of every New England history, and his busy, serene life, "compacted of Roman and Puritan virtues," is still upheld to all American children as a model of ...
— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery
... as haunted persons of their expectations at Brighton, Weymouth, Sidmouth, or Bath, Miss Smith and Miss Watson used to surrender themselves without restraint to their glad animal impulses of girlish gayety, like the fawns of antelopes when suddenly transferred from tiger-haunted thickets to the serene preserves of secluded rajahs. On these visits it was, that I, as a young pet whom they carried about like a doll from my second to my eighth or ninth year, learned to know them; so as to take a fraternal interest in the succeeding periods ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... His tone drove a little higher colour into her face, but she kept the serene indifference in her half-smile. "But you did dine with me . . . because you liked me, ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory
... list became greater; huge waves rolled up, carrying wreckage and bodies on their crest. Then, with all the terror of destruction about him, Frohman said to his associates, with the serene smile still on ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... Odeluc's word for it, when words so different are spoken elsewhere. There are observers at a distance—impartial lookers-on, who predict (and I fear there are signs at home which indicate) that our position is far from secure—our prospects far other than serene. There are those who believe that we are in danger from other foes than the race of Oge; and facts have arisen—but enough. This is not the time and place for discussion of that point. Suffice it now that, as we ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... pastimes, fly, Sad troops of human misery. Come, serene looks, Clear as the crystal brooks, Or the pure azur'd heaven that smiles to see The rich attendance of our poverty: Peace and a secure mind, Which all men seek, ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton
... of January, in the house of lords, a bill for naturalizing his serene highness Prince Albert of Saxe Cobourg and Gotha was passed through all its stages. On the second reading, the Duke of Wellington objected that it was not only an act for the naturalization of Prince Albert, but contained also a clause entitling ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... accelerated pulses narrowed her thoughts upon the machinery of her project. She herself was metal, pointing all to her one aim when in motion. Nothing came amiss to it, everything was fuel; fibs, evasions, the serene battalions of white lies parallel on the march with dainty rogue falsehoods. She had delivered herself of many yesterday in her engagements for to-day. Pressure was put on her to engage herself, and she did so liberally, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... watch them thus was a savoring of peace. For every contented animal is a bearer of peaceful tidings. In the Garden of Eden with the Two there were happy animals. And Dion recalled the great battle which had dyed red this serene wilderness, a battle which was great because it had been gently sung, lifted up by the music of poets, set on high by the lips of orators. He looked over the land and thought: "Here Miltiades won the name which has resounded through history. To that shore, where I see the cattle, ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... to the pil-low "Dear Sister Cecilia!" She patted the white pillow with her hand, as though it were the cool cheek against which she yearned to lay her own. "Ah, you would know—you would know!" With the thought of the serene face of the good Sister, and of the kind arms that would have gone round her in her trouble, her sobbing grew loud and uncontrollable. But she would not have her father hear it, and buried her face deep in the pillow. After a time, she began to grow quieter, turned, ...
— The Two Vanrevels • Booth Tarkington
... a car tearing down the road like a huge demon on wheels, its driver evidently trusting to the common sense of the man in the way to get out of the path of danger in time. But Lyman walked on in serene preoccupation, gloating over the unlucky, unhappy man who was following. With a cry of warning Martin rushed to the side of the other man and pushed him from the path of the car, but when the big machine came to ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... along the street Coming—coming—on countless feet. And the clockmen mark the hours as they go. But slow—slow— The swans float In the Bishop's moat. And the inn swan Sits on and on, Staring before him with cold glass eyes. Only the Bishop walks serene, Pleased with his church, pleased with his house, Pleased with the sound of the hammered bell, Beating his doom. Saying "Boom! Boom! Room! Room!" He is old, and kind, and deaf, and blind, And very, very pleased with his charming moat ...
— American Poetry, 1922 - A Miscellany • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... incidents of the earthquake; for the beams of the falling houses being ignited by the burning heaths, the flames, fanned by the winds, were so vast and fierce, that they seemed to issue from the bosom of the earth. The heavens, alternately cloudy or serene, had given no previous sign of the approaching calamity; but a new source of suffering followed it, in a thick fog, which obscured the light of the day, and added to the darkness of night. Irritating ...
— The Book of Enterprise and Adventure - Being an Excitement to Reading. For Young People. A New and Condensed Edition. • Anonymous
... they are fighting in Paris." But absorbed in a throng of inward calculations, he had paid no heed to it. To tell the truth, he had not heard her. He rose and began to pace from the door to the window and from the window to the door, growing ever more serene. ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... might have sway'd, Or wak'd to Extacy the living Lyre. But Knowledge to their Eyes her ample Page Rich with the Spoils of Time did ne'er unroll; Chill Penury repress'd their noble Rage, And froze the genial Current of the Soul. Full many a Gem of purest Ray serene, The dark unfathom'd Caves of Ocean bear: Full many a Flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its Sweetness on the desart Air. Some Village-Hampden that with dauntless Breast The little Tyrant of his Fields withstood; Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest, Some ...
— An Elegy Wrote in a Country Church Yard (1751) and The Eton College Manuscript • Thomas Gray
... she came; a slim, graceful figure in a plain white dress. The evening was warm, and she had taken off her hat, and was swinging it idly in her hand. When he saw her face distinctly, he noticed that it was calm and serene; there was no expression of expectation in it; she looked as if she were just strolling without any object. Pale beneath his tan, Derrick stepped forward and raised his hat. Celia stopped dead short, and looked at him for a moment with the ordinary expression of surprise at the sudden ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... measure himself by his comrades. The tall soldier, for one, gave him some assurance. This man's serene unconcern dealt him a measure of confidence, for he had known him since childhood, and from his intimate knowledge he did not see how he could be capable of anything that was beyond him, the youth. Still, he thought that his comrade might be mistaken about himself. ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... or so beautiful, so bright, so serene, happy to be there, so inoffensive—jewels in the crown of Peace, models of pure and upright family life, homes of loyal and dutiful industry, of ready, ever-smiling geniality, with the natural welcome, the ever-proffered hand and the ever-open heart: all the others are dead cities, of which not ...
— The Wrack of the Storm • Maurice Maeterlinck
... country was level, and the sky always serene and unclouded, the Egyptians were among the first who observed the courses of the planets. These observations led them to regulate the year(371) from the course of the sun; for as Diodorus observes, their year, from the most remote antiquity, ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... placid natures fill the allotted scene With lifeless drawls, insipid and serene; While others' thunder every couplet o'er, And almost crack your ears with rant and roar; More nature oft, and finer strokes are shown In the low whisper than tempestuous tone; And Hamlet's hollow voice and fixed amaze, More powerful ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... "Traviata" and the fellows singing whatever pleased them, generally "Up the Street." Then we had a snake dance, a wonder of a snake dance! The band got lost in the shuffle, but later on we found him standing serene and undismayed under the shadow of the west stand spouting "Auld Lang ...
— The New Boy at Hilltop • Ralph Henry Barbour
... almost the same, and performed by both in the same manner. Marlborough "teaches the battle to rage;" the angel "directs the storm:" Marlborough is "unmoved in peaceful thought;" the angel is "calm and serene:" Marlborough stands "unmoved amidst the shock of hosts;" the angel rides "calm in the whirlwind." The lines on Marlborough are just and noble, but the simile gives almost the same images a second time. But ...
— Lives of the Poets: Addison, Savage, and Swift • Samuel Johnson
... In the next six months she had better occupation, however, in spasmodically busy shops, where the hours were shorter than in the cloak factory, and she managed to earn an average wage of $6 a week. She was then more serene; she said ...
— Making Both Ends Meet • Sue Ainslie Clark and Edith Wyatt
... Humbly our faults, and pardon beg; with tears Watering the ground, and with our sighs the air Frequenting, sent from hearts contrite, in sign Of sorrow unfeigned, and humiliation meek. Undoubtedly he will relent, and turn From his displeasure; in whose look serene, When angry most he seemed and most severe, What else but favour, grace, and mercy, shone? So spake our father penitent; nor Eve Felt less remorse: they, forthwith to the place Repairing where he judged them, prostrate fell Before him reverent; and both ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... to live, to laugh, to look about her, and dare utter her own thoughts and opinions, instead of falsely echoing those she did not share. Lady Mary had recovered her individuality; the serene consciousness of a power within herself to live up to the ideal her lover had ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture
... the valleys, and the mountains wear To him who knows thy secret, and in shower And fog, and ice-cloud, hath a secret bower Where he may rest until the heavens are fair! Not with the rest of slumber, but the trance Of onward movement steady and serene, Where oft in struggle and in contest keen His eyes will opened be, and all the dance Of life break on him, and a wide expanse Roll upward through the void, ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... even the energy of antagonistic assurance, abated somewhat, and the controversial spirit began to make room for the scientific; and as the storm subsided, and the area of settled questions emerged, much of the dispute was abandoned to the serene and soothing touch of historians, invested as they are with the prerogative of redeeming the cause of religion from many unjust reproaches, and from the graver evil of reproaches that are just. Ranke used ...
— A Lecture on the Study of History • Lord Acton
... simile is the most magnificent that can be conceived. The stars come forth brightly, the whole heaven is cloudless and serene, the moon is in the sky, the heights, and promontories, and forests stand forth distinctly in the light, and the shepherd rejoices in his heart. This last simple and natural circumstance is inexpressibly beautiful, and heightens ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... sir," said Mary, holding down her indignant heart and forcing her countenance to appear serene; "for she ought to know that if those men of fashion, who have no wit to be either their support or ornament, did not proscribe talents from their circle, they must soon find 'the greater ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... and bettered." As to her husband, she finds that she has little to forgive him at the last. Step by step she goes over all he did, and even finds excuses for him, and, at the end, this is how she speaks, a noble utterance of serene love, lofty intelligence, of spiritual power and of ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... first in the distance, having the glory of God most precious; the approach to it is gradual; voices are heard afar off, and from the convoy of ministering spirits, such information and instructions are received as prepare it for the full vision of heaven. Every thing is calm and serene; the light is attempered to its new and feeble vision. He who makes the sun to rise by slow degrees, and does not pour straight, fierce rays upon the waking eyes even of sinful men, certainly will not torment the soul of his child with ...
— Catharine • Nehemiah Adams
... like—it's my surrender, it's my tribute, to youth. One puts that in where one can—it has to come in somewhere, if only out of the lives, the conditions, the feelings of other persons. Chad gives me the sense of it, for all his grey hairs, which merely make it solid in him and safe and serene; and SHE does the same, for all her being older than he, for all her marriageable daughter, her separated husband, her agitated history. Though they're young enough, my pair, I don't say they're, in the freshest way, their own absolutely prime adolescence; for that has nothing to ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... suit of thin gray flannel, worn threadbare but scrupulously brushed, floated about his burly limbs, adding to his bulk by the looseness of its cut. The years had mellowed the good-humored, imperturbable audacity of his prime into a temper carelessly serene; and the leisurely tapping of his iron-shod stick accompanied his footfalls with a self-confident sound on the flagstones. It was impossible to connect such a fine presence and this unruffled aspect with the belittling troubles of poverty; ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad
... eastern horizon. A strong north wind shook the house, sweeping the clouds before it with a contemptuous energy that had in it a promise of frost on the morrow. As the stars rose it was as though the lights of the city themselves were rising into the clear sky, emblems of the vast and serene power that had sent them forth. High above the level constellations soared the two great beacons of the Metropolitan and Woolworth towers, like the masthead lights of some enormous vessel, while away northward, almost hidden by the swinging limbs of our elm, ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... figure gave was not borne out by his face. Like my Lord Cornwallis's, his eyes were womanish large, and nose and mouth and the lift of the brow were cast in a mold to match; yet there was that in his face which made it the mask of a soul thoughtful and serene; and his ruddy complexion and fair hair gave him a look of openness that a dark man is ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... pain—amazement and a feeling of an inexplicable incongruity when he saw the leather-winged creatures that had him in their grip. And again there were figures high overhead—white, floating figures on pinions of pure white; their faces, kindly and serene, looked down upon ...
— The Finding of Haldgren • Charles Willard Diffin
... unconsciously, in the fervour of narrating events, or the animation of giving utterance to thoughts. He painted by an epithet or a line. Even the celebrated description of the fires in the plain of Troy, likened to the moon in a serene night, is contained in seven lines. His rosy-fingered morn—cloud-compelling Jupiter—Neptune, stiller of the waves—Aurora rising from her crocus bed—Night drawing her veil over the heavens—the black keel careering ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... beyond measure all those who had known him, since there was never any one who did so much honour to painting. With the splendour of his aspect, which was very beautiful, he made serene every broken spirit: and with his words he turned to yea, or nay, every obdurate intention. By his physical force he could restrain any outburst of rage: and with his right hand he twisted the iron ring of a door-bell, or a horse-shoe, as if it were ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 04 (of 10), Filippino Lippi to Domenico Puligo • Giorgio Vasari
... but before me lie Life's paths untrod, and a sunny sky Bends o'er the paths, and smiles on me. And under its blue serene, I see Two ways stretch out, one, narrow and straight; The other, broad, and an open gate Beckons me on, and smiling and sweet Are the Heavens fair, and down at my feet Fair flowers bloom, and the grasses nod On ...
— Nestlings - A Collection of Poems • Ella Fraser Weller
... to have fluttered to the table, beside which she now stood, slightly swaying, her walking costume of grey shot silk falling about her in soft, tremulous petals. Dainty, chic, well-poised, serene, flawlessly pretty in her miniature fashion: Anisty recognized her in a twinkling. His perceptions, trained to observations as instantaneous as those of a snap-shot camera, and well-nigh as accurate, had photographed her individuality indelibly upon the film of his memory, ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... eyes along the street at a certain point of my progress, I beheld Trabb's boy approaching, lashing himself with an empty blue bag. Deeming that a serene and unconscious contemplation of him would best beseem me, and would be most likely to quell his evil mind, I advanced with that expression of countenance, and was rather congratulating myself on my success, when ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... said tranquilly, "but we are such slaves to silly habits," she added, looking at the rector and his wife in her pretty philosophizing way, while they smiled approvingly at her ready wit and serene good-temper. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... sex. That she had been able to maintain her humble personality with Max, despite the fact that she had been compelled to meet him twice as princess, proved her ability. Of course, she had the help of good old Castleman and his sweet Frau Kate, serene Twonette, and myself; but with all this help she probably would have failed without the stairway ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... faces of many wounded who were already returning home gripped me the most. They had lived through the horror of the battle, their feet had waded through blood, their young bodies were horribly maimed. I saw this strangely serene, quietly friendly expression in the young faces. They were men who had sacrificed their ego. They were great patient conquerors of selfishness. And with what tenderness, what goodness are they surrounded, to lighten their ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... too, hoar Mount! with thy sky-pointing peaks, Oft from whose feet the avalanche, unheard, Shoots downward, glittering through the pure serene, Into the depth of clouds that veil thy breast,— Thou too again, stupendous Mountain! thou That, as I raise my head, awhile bowed low In adoration, upward from thy base Slow travelling with dim eyes suffused with tears, Solemnly seemest, like a vapory cloud, ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... him that Egmont was not a very powerful stage-play. Its subtle psychology did not impress him so much as its lack of 'greatness'. And then he had his pique against Goethe and wished to show the Weimarians that he at least could perceive the spots on the sun. Goethe's serene comment upon reading the critique was to the effect that the reviewer had analyzed the moral part of the play very well indeed, but in dealing with the poetic aspect of it he had left something to be done ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... accompanied the royal procession from St. James's Palace to Westminster Hall. He well knew how bitterly William had been mortified, and was astonished to see him present himself to the public gaze with a serene and cheerful aspect. ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... after exhibiting to his court for many years an example of patience in sickness and of dignified cheerfulness under the restraints of enforced inaction. His wife, Elizabetta Gonzaga, one of the most famous women of her age, was no less a pattern of noble conduct and serene contentment. ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... exactly an express, but it was a tolerably quick train, and the stoppages were not frequent. The dull gray twilight melted into a fair tranquil night. The moon rose early; and the quiet English landscape seemed very fair to Clarissa Lovel in that serene light. She watched the shadowy fields flitting past; here and there a still pool, or a glimpse of running water; beyond, the sombre darkness of wooded hills; and above that dark background a calm starry sky. Who shall say what dim poetic thoughts were in her mind ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... immediately with the advent of Christ, for this is the end towards which they look. Desolating judgments prepare the way for the King of glory to appear. After the storm of thunder and hail there follows a serene light, "as the light of the morning when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds; as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain." The mind of the inspired bard hastens onward towards the glorious end of God's ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... But the serene and quiet age of the settlement is near its close. Enterprise and speculation, with their bustle and turmoil, have laid hold of it. The clank of the hammer, the whistle of steamboats, the rattling of carts, heaps of lumber and of bricks, excavations and gratings, short corners and ...
— Minnesota and Dacotah • C.C. Andrews
... frankly and instinctively without the smallest scruple. So far, she is like any other pretty woman who is just clever enough to make the most of her sexual attractions for trivially selfish ends; but Candida's serene brow, courageous eyes, and well set mouth and chin signify largeness of mind and dignity of character to ennoble her cunning in the affections. A wisehearted observer, looking at her, would at once guess that whoever had placed the Virgin ...
— Candida • George Bernard Shaw
... preaching ("Horses to be stabled here, my Christian brethren"), by relics, and quasi-miracles, to a furious condition; leads them out against Otto, beats Otto utterly; brings him in captive, amid hooting jubilations of the conceivable kind: "Stable ready; but where are the horses,—Serene child of Satanas!" Archbishop makes a Wooden Cage for Otto (big beams, spars stout enough, mere straw to lie on), and locks him up there. In a public situation in the City of Magdeburg;—visible to mankind so, during certain months of that year 1278. It was in the very time ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol, II. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Of Brandenburg And The Hohenzollerns—928-1417 • Thomas Carlyle
... glasses toward him slowly filled them with wine. "It is true," he said, "that it is not my intention to become a petitioner for the pardon of a rebel to his serene and German Majesty the King; true also that I like the fragrance of the lily. I have my fancies. Say that I am a man of whim, and that, living in a lonely house set in a Sahara of tobacco fields, it is my whim to desire the ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... garden. After laying down my pen, I took several turns in a berceau, or covered walk of acacias, which commands a prospect of the country, the lake, and the mountains. The air was temperate, the sky was serene, the silver orb of the moon was reflected from the waves, ...
— Books and Authors - Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches • Anonymous
... Then, disarmed by the serene frankness of the girl, she added: "A blue-stocking is bad enough, but a grimy one is impossible. Allons! Vite!" she insisted, driving Eileen before her; "the country is demoralising you. Philip, we're dining early, ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... Raven in hand dreamed on Edgar Poe, And Longfellow sweet and serene, While Prescott, and Ticknor, and Emerson too, And Hawthorne ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... confidence, which the thoughts of Tucson Jennie sort o' stampedes, beginnin' to return. 'But now an' then them gusts of apprehensions frequent with married gents sweeps over me an' I feels weak. But comin' back to the dance-hall: As I su'gests thar's many a serene hour I whiles away tharin. Your days an' your dinero shore flows plenty swift in that temple of merriment; an' chilled though I be with the stiff dignity of a wedded middle age, if it ain't for my infant son, Enright Peets Tutt, to whom I'm strivin' to set examples, I'd admire to prance ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... all-embracing love for all, that is the generator and the circulator of a genuine, hearty, wholesome sympathy and courage and good cheer, that is not disturbed or upset by the passing occurrence little or great, but that is serene, tranquil, and conquering to the end, that is looking for the best, that is finding the best, and that is inspiring the best in all. There is moreover, no quality that when genuine brings such rich returns to its possessor by virtue of the thoughts and the feelings that it inspires and ...
— Thoughts I Met on the Highway • Ralph Waldo Trine
... in it nothing that can fade, nothing that can burn out, nothing that can be disturbed. The deeper the penitence the surer the rebound into gladness. The more a man goes down into the depths of his own heart and learns his own evil, the more will he, trusting in Christ, rise into the serene heights of thankfulness, and live, if not in rapture, at least in the calm joy of conscious communion and unending fellowship. Every tear may be crystallised into a diamond that shall flash in the light. And they, and only they, who begin in the valley of weeping, confessing their sins and imploring ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... spot till everything had been settled completely to his satisfaction. The most expeditious mode of ending matters would, no doubt, have been to summon a couple of ciauses and make them lay the rascal's head at his own feet, but the political horizon was not yet sufficiently serene for such acts of daring. The bands of the insurgents were still encamping in the public square outside. First of all they must be hoodwinked and pacified, only after that would it be possible to proceed to extreme ...
— Halil the Pedlar - A Tale of Old Stambul • Mr Jkai
... and I found that I was very hungry. I also found that I could not conjure up any real feeling of discomfort or uneasiness, and that the prospective scolding from Miss Hallam had no terrors in it for me. Never had I felt so serene in mind, never more at ease in every way, than now. I felt that this was wrong—bohemian, irregular, and not respectable, and tried to get up a little unhappiness about something. The only thing that I could ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... summer time, and the weather was serene and beautiful, when in the grey dusk of the evening we sailed through the Rip at Port Philip Heads. Then began the troubles of the heaving ocean, and the log of the voyage was ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... are all I have time to give of the former conditions of serene weather, and of non-electric rain-cloud. But I must yet, to complete the sequence of my subject, show you one example of a good, old-fashioned, healthy, ...
— The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century - Two Lectures delivered at the London Institution February - 4th and 11th, 1884 • John Ruskin
... of Boravia. Captain Alexis Vollmar was a typical Russian officer of the younger school, tall, well-set-up, and good-looking after the Muscovite fashion. He had distinguished himself in the Far East, but just now he preferred the serene atmosphere of Boravia to the thunder-laden air of ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... divine natures, without becoming, in some degree, himself divine. Like a new soul, they renew the body. We become physically nimble and lightsome; we tread on air; life is no longer irksome, and we think it will never be so. No man fears age or misfortune or death, in their serene company, for he is transported out of the district of change. Whilst we behold unveiled the nature of Justice and Truth, we learn the difference between the absolute and the conditional or relative. We apprehend the absolute. As it were, for the first time, we exist. ...
— Nature • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... and the roll of our old, honest English books were closed, than that esurient book-makers should continue and debase a brave tradition, and lower, in their own eyes, a famous race. Better that our serene temples were deserted than filled with ...
— The Art of Writing and Other Essays • Robert Louis Stevenson
... most Serene Highness has deigned to remember that I was in the world. It is very sad to be there, without paying you my court. I never felt so cruelly the sad state to which old age and maladies ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... breath of the wind, as it gustily swept the earth, was a promise of things vernal, of the tender beauties of a coming spring; but there was still a keen, delightful freshness in the air, a vague reminder of frosty starlights and serene white snow—the untrodden snow of deserted, moon-lit streets—that quickened the blood, and sent a craving for movement through the veins. The people who trod the broad, clean roads and the paths of the wood walked with a spring in their steps; voices were light and high, ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... at that; but in extenuation of his act he assured me that it was quite customary for prime ministers to give their personal attention to the building of imperial navies; "and this," he said, "is the imperial navy of his Serene Highness, David I, Emperor of the ...
— Pellucidar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... with lava; like Pompeii our Ottajano is buried in ashes. Let me advise you. To-day go to Sorrento, and there stay for a time, until we can the dust brush from our streets and prepare to welcome you with the comfort more serene. I must myself ride to the villages that are suffering. My men are already gone, with the Red-Cross corps, to succor whom they can. I will send to you word when you may return. Just now, should you stay, you will be able to see ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... house too much and bending over her heavy law-books. Perhaps she had strained her eyes. But to-day these discomforts were forgotten. Every little while she straightened up and stood at an open window drawing in long breaths. He should see her at her best to-night—serene—triumphant. The pallor of her cheeks he had commented on lately, shouldn't be there to ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... ordinances in the ceremonial law, interdicting the eating of the blood and the fat, distinguishing between beasts clean and unclean for meat, are many and strict; nay, the faith itself being clear and serene from all clouds of ceremony, yet retaineth the use of fastlings, abstinences, and other macerations and humiliations of the body, as things real, and not figurative. The root and life of all which prescripts is (besides ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon
... maidens by a river strayed, 'T was in the state of Maine. Rebecca was the darker one, The fairer, Emma Jane. The fairer maiden said, "I would My life were as the stream; So peaceful, and so smooth and still, So pleasant and serene." ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the touch, all presented to us by the hill-men. I will also give him a thousand deer-skins brought from China and other things of the kind that may be worthy of Kesava. I will also give him this serene gem of the purest rays that shines day and night, for Kesava alone deserves it. This car of mine drawn by mules that makes a round of full fourteen Yojanas a day, I will also give him. I will place before him every-day provisions ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... ominous laughter rang out in the little rock hewn chamber. "Days?" he jeered. "Days? Art thou mad? In two hours from the time we board the tube-road thou shalt learn thy fate from his Serene Highness." ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... staunchly there in shriveled earth, The canna stood serene, refreshed by dew That silently, each cooling night anew Spread living gems to sparkle in their mirth. Beneath, the bulb lay proving well its birth— A shower passed, the funnel leaves caught true— The plant awoke with life and beauty too. And not a drop ...
— Clear Crystals • Clara M. Beede
... Renunciation hath happiness for its recondite object. Happiness hath heaven for its recondite object. Heaven hath tranquillity for its recondite object.[1073] For the sake of contentment thou shouldst wish to obtain a serene understanding which is a precious possession, being indicative of Emancipation, and which, scorching grief and all purposes or doubts together with thirst, destroys them completely in the end.[1074] One possessed of those six attributes, viz., contentment, grieflessness, freedom ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... half-starved child delivered over to her than he became serene and contented. The water-gruel regime was over, and he began to thrive from that time. Even when later in the afternoon the King himself brought in Colonel Sands, whom in the joy of his heart he had asked to dine with him, the babe lay tranquilly ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the world. She sat in a dirty day-coach; the smoke rolled in at the windows and doors; the cars shook and swayed and lumbered around curves and down and up gorges; there were about her rough men, crying children, slatternly women, tobacco juice, peanuts, popcorn and apple cores, but dainty, serene and as merry as ever, she sat through that ride with a radiant smile, her keen black eyes noting everything unlovely within and the glory of hill, tree and chasm without. Next morning at home, where we rise early, no one was allowed to waken her and she had breakfast ...
— A Knight of the Cumberland • John Fox Jr.
... Under the combined stimuli of Darbor and Snowgrape Champagne, he seemed to ascend to some high, rarified, alien dimension where life became serene and uncomplicated. A place where one ate and slept and made fortunes and love, and only the love was ...
— Master of the Moondog • Stanley Mullen
... like himself, despised riches when they led to dishonour. Thus the saving a great nation was devolved upon a husbandman taken from the plough, and an obscure sentinel found among the dregs of the army. 15. Upon entering the city, the dictator put on a serene look, and entreated all those who were able to bear arms, to repair, before sunset, to the Cam'pus Mar'tius (the place where the levies were made) with necessary arms, and provisions for five days. 16. He put himself at the head of these, and, marching ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... descended, gradually, exchanged the region of winter for the genial warmth and beauty of spring. The sky began to assume that serene and beautiful tint peculiar to the climate of Italy; patches of young verdure, fragrant shrubs and flowers looked gaily among the rocks, often fringing their rugged brows, or hanging in tufts from their broken sides; and the buds of the oak and mountain ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... suitable place of encampment for the night. He would find, if possible, the picturesque banks of some running stream, where there was grass for his horses, and a forest growth to furnish him with wood for his cabin and for fire. If the weather were pleasant, with the prospect of a serene and cloudless night, a very slight protection would be reared, and the weary family, with a buffalo robe spread on the soft grass for a blanket, would sleep far more sweetly in the open air, than most millionaires sleep in tapestried halls and upon ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott
... that such a companionship should have produced, eventually, an effect. She was no longer the simple schoolgirl of two years since. The change was visible even in her public demeanour. Her expression, once "ingenuous and serene," now appeared to a shrewd observer to be "bold and discontented." She had learnt something of the pleasures of power and the pains of it; but that was not all. Lord Melbourne with his gentle instruction ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... She knew no more than a child of ten; he would educate her, form her mind. She would then understand that this cure for which she thought herself indebted to the Blessed Virgin, had in reality come to her from the Only Mother, serene and impassive Nature. But even whilst he was thus settling things in his mind, a kind of terror, born of his religious education, arose within him. Could he tell if that human happiness with which he desired to endow her would ever be worth ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come;" and he has answered, with a flush of keenest joy, Yes. Whatever else is unholy, there is an Holy One, spotless and undefiled, serene and self-contained. Whatever else I cannot trust, there is One whom I can trust utterly. Whatever else I am dissatisfied with, there is One whom I can contemplate with utter satisfaction, and bathe my stained soul in that eternal fount of purity. And who is He? Who save the ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... near, As you have seen the ravens flock Around the dying deer. He would not deign them word nor sign, But alone he bent the knee; And veiled his face for Christ's dear grace Beneath the gallows-tree. Then, radiant and serene, he rose, And cast his cloak away; For he had ta'en his latest look Of earth ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... who estranges the nobleman from his son, Lord Hardy, the gentlemanly, poverty-stricken leading man of the piece. When Brumpton has a cataleptic fit, and is apparently dead as a doornail, the spouse confides his body to the undertaker with feelings of serene pleasure. But let the lines of the play, or a portion ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... waistcoat; it was not the trousers, that displayed the foot so perfectly formed—it was none of these things that attracted the attention,—it was his pale complexion, his waving black hair, his calm and serene expression, his dark and melancholy eye, his mouth, chiselled with such marvellous delicacy, which so easily expressed such high disdain,—these were what fixed the attention of all upon him. Many men might have been handsomer, but certainly there could be none ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... travelling costume; never had she looked more charming, never more cheerful. "I trust your Serene Highness will pardon my unorthodox costume," she said, smiling archly; "but as I am about to leave Parma for a very long time, I have felt it my duty to come and thank you ere I go for all the kindnesses you have deigned to confer ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... mountain and its environs presented a most dismal spectacle, causing much alarm as to what the night would bring forth. Nothing happened, however, and on Monday morning May 5, although everything was not quite serene, the aspect was decidedly encouraging. Less ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... to-day's excitement Martie had time for a memory of those long-ago summer afternoons, and she said to herself with a vague touch of pain that it would of course be impossible to have with any man the serene communion of those ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... him leading the army, animated with the noblest sentiments. General Washington was now forty-three years of age and in the full power of manhood. His personality was distinguished and his bearing serene. He electrified ...
— Reading Made Easy for Foreigners - Third Reader • John L. Huelshof
... in the happiness of others is the surest road to happiness for one's self;—if you get feeling tired of yourself make a visit to some congenial friend, and there forget self and your troubles. "It is more blessed to give than receive" is a truth that all serene and great souls recognize and practice throughout ...
— Herself - Talks with Women Concerning Themselves • E. B. Lowry
... idle regrets. He had been a fool, and he paid the price of fools. Bella, slamming noisily about the room, never suspected the presence in the untidy place of a third person—a sturdy girl of twenty-two or -three, very wholesome to look at, and with honest, intelligent eyes and a serene brow. ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber
... him. The square forehead, the square jaw, the tense lines of the mouth, the deep flashing dark eyes, the impression of something more than strength he gave you, an impression of sincerity, of solid force, of immovability, yet with the gentleness arising from the serene consciousness of his strength—all this belonged to Huxley and to him alone. The first glance magnetised his audience. The eyes were those of one accustomed to command, of one having authority, and not fearing on occasion to use it. The hair swept ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... army. And then the peculiar wickedness of Tommy (a child's naughtiness for superficiality) ceases to offend you so much. Rather your own regulation code seems a trifle less important than it did. Let's all lie and steal; what does it signify? I would lie and steal till the crack of doom to gain the serene endurance of the ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps
... the year; and they were usually occasioned by the negligence of people who burnt the underwood, for the purpose of clearing the lands. He was himself witness to one of them. The day had been remarkably serene, and the underwood had been fired in several places. During the afternoon, the weather was sultry, and, about five o'clock, the horizon, towards the north, became dark, and a terrible whirlwind arose. Mr. ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley
... lonely defiles, with here and there robbers, hermits, or soldiers, make his most effective pictures. There is a deep sense of desolation, almost of fear, in them which is very impressive. Sometimes he painted serene landscapes and poetic figures; but his best works are not of this sort. His pictures are in the principal public and in some private galleries. He also left about ninety etchings which are masterly in execution and full of expression ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture - Painting • Clara Erskine Clement
... could only finish by faltering and blushing. There was a power of repression about Esclairmonde that annihilated all his designs, and drove him back into his bashful self whenever he came into contact with her, and felt how unlike the grave serene loftiness of her presence was to the mere queen of romance, that in her absence ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... path of death that now we tread: At every step my soul grows more serene. When I implor'd Apollo to remove The grisly band of Furies from my side, He seem'd, with hope-inspiring, godlike words, To promise aid and safety in the fane Of his lov'd sister, who o'er Tauris rules. Thus the prophetic word fulfils itself, That with my ...
— Iphigenia in Tauris • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... clothed to himself the desolation of his spirit; the lines down his face deepening, his eyes day by day looking forth with the melancholy which sat so strangely on a face wont to be strong and serene. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... rush to the help of the earl, who had so nobly and magnanimously interested himself in an innocent woman, should the wrath of her husband threaten him also. But, to her surprise, Henry's face was perfectly serene ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... to the most splendid, illustrious, serene and eminent Lady of Pleasure the Countess of Castlemayne, &c., signed by us, Madam Cresswell and Damaris Page, this present 25th day of March, 1668." This sham petition occasioned a pretended answer, entitled, "The ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... shared my love for animals, and the elder my passion for flowers. On this scene the eldest sister made her appearance. I assure you, Joseph, it is almost too absurd, but it is a fact; she actually contrived to snub me. I read as plainly as possible in those pretty, serene eyes of hers the question, 'How is it that you, who never condescended to know my mother, intrude upon us now, in our loss?' She was most gentle and most dignified, but I could as soon take liberties with her as with—with—you, Joseph, when you choose to exert your authority. After Miss Mainwaring ...
— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... night fell, Tony, the swaggerer, lost his contempt for Maimie and eyed her fearfully; and no wonder, for with dark there came into her face a look that I can describe only as a leary look. It was also a serene look that contrasted grandly with Tony's uneasy glances. Then he would make her presents of his favourite toys (which he always took away from her next morning), and she accepted them with a disturbing smile. The reason he was now become so wheedling and she so mysterious was ...
— Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... Aleck pursued his serene and steady trot up the hills on the Edgewood side of the river, till at length he approached the green Common where the old Tory Hill meeting-house stood, its white paint and green blinds showing fair and pleasant in the afternoon sun. Both ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... representative assembly encounter so fearful a responsibility as the present Congress. Each member must vote as if the fate of the Union and of humanity depended upon his action. He must rise above the passing clouds of passion and prejudice, of State, local, or selfish interests, into the serene and holy atmosphere, illumined by the light of truth, and warmed by the love of his country and of mankind. His only inquiry must be, What will save the nation? The allegiance to the Union is paramount, its maintenance 'the supreme law,' ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... them, and then fixed her eyes successively on each of the other persons in the room, including Caballuco, who, entering shortly before, had seated himself on the edge of a chair. Dona Perfecta looked at them as a general looks at his trusty body-guard. Then she studied the thoughtful and serene countenance of her nephew—of that enemy, who, by a strategic movement, suddenly reappeared before her when she believed him to ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... family,—you needn't laugh, for I am,—I think I ought to interfere; and so I put it to you,—do you like him, and will you have him? or are you merely amusing yourself, as you have done ever since you were out of pinafores? If you like him, all serene. I'd rather have him for a brother than any one I know, for he's a regular trump though he is poor; but if you don't, I won't have the dear old fellow floored just because you like to ...
— On Picket Duty and Other Tales • Louisa May Alcott
... to appear just then. It was Mrs. Wentworth's day, and to call on Mrs. Wentworth was in some sort the cachet of good society. Many, it was true, called there who were not in "society" at all,—serene and self-contained old residents, who held themselves above the newly-rich who were beginning to crowd "the avenues" and force their way with a golden wedge,—and many who lived in splendid houses on the avenue had never been ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... her rivals and of the rest of the company with the simplicity that was her crowning grace. No one could ever be jealous of her triumphs because she managed to give the feeling that she would have been just as serene if she had missed them. But when her eyes met her husband's her face glowed with the ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... Land of Silver Sky is but a myth, The other dream is true! e'en all he saith! Oh, tell me, all ye sparkling stars, That wing above thy glorious flight, And feel not Nature's jars; But grandly, sweetly fling thy light To our bright world beneath serene, Hath mortals on thee known Or viewed beyond,—that great Unseen, Their future fate by ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous
... Lo! steadfast and serene, In patient pause between The seen and the unseen, What gentle zephyrs fan Your silken silver hair,— And what diviner air Breathes round you ...
— Songs of Friendship • James Whitcomb Riley
... Lady Scott's sick-room this morning I found her suffering, and I doubt if she knew me. Yet, after breakfast, she seemed serene and composed. The worst is, she will not speak out about the symptoms under which she labours. Sad, sad work; I am under the most melancholy apprehension, for what constitution can hold out under these continued and ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... of swarthiness with stature above the average and a long skull, confer upon me the serene ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... one by one appear in the darkening sky, and the labour of the field ceases, the lowing cattle wend their slow ways toward the villages and the bull-frogs in their thousands raise their evensong. No scenery in the world has, to my mind, such mellow and serene beauty as these farm-lands of Lower Egypt, and in a later chapter I will tell you more about them, and of the simple people whose life is ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Egypt • R. Talbot Kelly
... neither of us spoke a word. But by the light of the moon, enthroned in serene glory in the sky, I was able to observe her at my leisure. She was a charming girl of twenty or twenty-two—brunette, with large blue eyes, more expressive of intelligence than melancholy—a finely chiseled nose, mocking lips, teeth of pearl, hands like a queen's, and feet like a child's; and all ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... the coast and in a very short time were flying over the water, whereupon Bob made a sweep to the right and the plane headed westward. The Atlantic rocked gently below, serene under a smiling sun and with only the merest whisper of a breeze caressing it. On the southern horizon a plume or two of smoke, only faintly discernible, marked where great liners were standing in for the distant metropolis. To the north, far away, showed ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge
... Now, let your E down until perfect with C, all waves disappearing. You now have the most perfect, sweetest harmony in the chord of C (G, C, E) that can be produced; all its members being absolutely perfect; not a wave to mar its serene purity. But, now, upon sounding this E with the A below it, you will find it so flat that the dissonance is unbearable. Try the minor chord of A (A-C-E) and you will hear the rasping, throbbing beats of the too ...
— Piano Tuning - A Simple and Accurate Method for Amateurs • J. Cree Fischer
... I want a magnanimous nature;—one that takes slights and neglects in a large-minded way, and does not believe people meant them and, if they did, does not fret: one who is serene when little things go wrong, and does not fuss or worry: one who accepts generously as well as gives generously, and who is keenly alive to people's good points and good intentions. Little petty motives and small spites and jealousy ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby
... had, and every year they will be scarcer with the present demand for beef. A perfect breeding or feeding animal should have a fine expression of countenance—I could point it out, but it is difficult to describe upon paper. It should be mild, serene, and expressive. The animal should be fine in the bone, with clean muzzle, a tail like a rat's, and not ewe-necked; short on the legs. He should have a small well-put-on head, prominent eye, a skin not too ...
— Cattle and Cattle-breeders • William M'Combie
... up like the lady of the house, her Serene Highness insisted on stopping at the iron gates of the stately approach. There she alighted, and waited to make the best setting to rights she could of the heiress's wind-tossed hat and cloak, and would have put her into the carriage, ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... gentleness, and charity; Lactantius, skilful Christian philosopher, ingenious and possessing insinuating subtlety; Saint Hilarius, an ardent polemist, impetuous and torrential; Saint Ambrose, exalted, wise, serene, very well read, very "Roman," who may be styled the Cicero of Christianity; Saint Jerome, ardent, impassioned, possessing lively sensibility, an animated and seductive imagination, who—excluding all idea of scandal—suggests ...
— Initiation into Literature • Emile Faguet
... to the king's religion, and he kept his oath of allegiance so firmly that it cost him his place. William III. deprived him of his bishopric, and he retired in poverty to a home kindly offered him by Lord Viscount Weymouth in Longleat, near Frome, in Somersetshire, where he spent a serene and beloved old age. He died aet. seventy-four, March 17, 1711 (N.S.), and was carried to his grave, according to his request, by "six of the poorest ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... quite sure now that she meant me to speak then. I can recall the way she fixed her eyes on me, serene and expectant. She was waiting. But to save my life I could not. And she did not. Had she gone as far as she had the strength to go? Or was this again one of those curious pacts of hers—if I spoke or was ...
— The Confession • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... late in the summer, and Mrs. Cliff dwelt happy and serene in her native town of Plainton, Maine. She had been there during the whole warm season, for Plainton was a place to which people came to be cool and comfortable in summer-time, and if she left her home ...
— Mrs. Cliff's Yacht • Frank R. Stockton
... rivals had been not a whit less selfish, though less successful, than his own; and that, if his cupidity appeared insatiable, he had dispensed the fruits of it in acts of princely munificence. He himself maintained a serene and even cheerful aspect. Meeting one of the domestics of Prince Henry, he bade him request the prince "to reward the attachment of his servants with a different guerdon from what his master had assigned to him." As he ascended the scaffold, he surveyed ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... by a light breeze at S.W., which kept veering by little and little to the south, and at last to the eastward of south, attended with clear serene weather. At length, on the 8th of September, we crossed the Line in the longitude of 8 deg. W.; after which, the ceremony of ducking, &c., generally practised on this occasion, was ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... talk I was turning over in my mind what account, if any, we were to give Master Freake of our being here. If I had had only myself to consider I should have trusted him without hesitation. He was the sort of man that inspires confidence, his grave, serene, intelligent face having strength and steadfastness written in every line of it. But I had Mistress Waynflete to consider, and if any appeal was to be made for his assistance, she must make it. I'm afraid that I hoped she wouldn't, ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... not the life of the butterfly experience that is firm, calm, serene in times of storm and stress. It is the life that by loads of care has been forced to strike its roots down to the rocks. There are some lives that seem to run over with a happiness that is full of ...
— Levels of Living - Essays on Everyday Ideals • Henry Frederick Cope
... fate of every man have We bound about his neck.' May yours be as serene, as beautiful, as a string ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... one cross word, not even when her husband brought the coral necklace from the big chest and gave it to Mell for her very own. "The child had a right to her mother's necklace," he said. All was peaceful and serene, and when Mell said good-by she surprised herself by feeling quite sorry to go, and kissed Gabella Sarah's small face with tears in ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... down upon them. They kneel to it, and pray: 'Thou art pure and steadfast. Thou fallest not like the meteor bursting in the warm summer sky, nor settest like the moon in the far-off lakes of youth. After our long and restless journey, we bask in thy serene light. Be faithful to us, shine benignly upon us, that our House may live, that our descendants ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... across the marsh to examine the enemy's position more clearly, and I fancied there was a shade of anxiety on his usually serene face. It was a heavy responsibility he had to bear, for, should his troops be defeated, the Huguenot Cause was lost. There was no other army to replace the ...
— For The Admiral • W.J. Marx
... week later when I again saw Solon; one of those still, serene evenings of later summer when the light would yet permit an hour's play at the game. I heard a step, but it was not she I longed, half-expected, and wholly dreaded to see. Instead came Solon, and by his restored confidence of bearing I knew at a glance that something had ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... before Novikoff the image of Lida, as he had once known and loved her; of Lida, the proud, high-spirited girl, lustrous-eyed, and crowned with serene, consummate beauty as with a radiant aureole. He shut his eyes, and put faith in ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... to stray, Emerging thence more widely spread It foams along its craggy bed, And shatter'd with the mighty shock Rushes from the giddy rock— Hurl'd headlong o'er the dangerous steep On runs the current to the deep, And gathering waters as it goes Serene and calm the river flows, Diffuses plenty o'er the smiling coast, Rolls on its stately waves and is ...
— Poems • Robert Southey
... permits evil to exist, when with a breath of her mouth she could sweep it away forever. But it is part of her scheme of life. She is indifferent to the cries of distress which rise up to her, in one undying wail, from the face of the universe. With stony eyes the thousand-handed goddess sits, serene and merciless, in the midst of her worshipers, like a Hindoo idol. Her skirts are wet with blood; her creation is based on destruction; her lives live only by murder. The cruel images of the pagan are ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... the street at a certain point of my progress, I beheld Trabb's boy approaching, lashing himself with an empty blue bag. Deeming that a serene and unconscious contemplation of him would best beseem me, and would be most likely to quell his evil mind, I advanced with that expression of countenance, and was rather congratulating myself on my success, when ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... find it. Look for yersilf, Ma'am," he resumed, with the serene confidence of the prestidigitateur who informs the audience that the missing handkerchief will be found ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... excited speculators in groups were gesticulating and vociferating, and in the anteroom were impatient clients awaiting their turn. In the inner chamber, however, was perfect calm. There at his table sat the dark, impenetrable operator, whose time was exactly apportioned, serene, saturnine, or genial, as the case might be, listening attentively, speaking deliberately, despatching the affair in hand without haste or the waste ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... though it should show itself even in this court, it has not made the slightest impression on me. The highest flight of such clamorous birds is winged in an inferior region of the air. We hear them, and we look upon them, just as you, Gentlemen, when you enjoy the serene air on your lofty rocks, look down upon the gulls that skim the mud of your river, when it ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... joys, and all the glories, are 19 Of three great kingdoms, sever'd from the care. I, that of fumes and humid vapours made, Ascending, do the seat of sense invade, No cloud in so serene a mansion find, To overcast ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... lost in the rush of the car down the hill. His wife had leaned back snugly under the fur rug and her profile in the moonlight was serene, neither happy nor unhappy, but absolutely complacent. He seemed to get a glimpse of their future, with her figure travelling away into a ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... figure slipped out from the shadow of a doorway and confronted them. It was Esmay, and she spoke with serene gravity. ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... sandal and lign-aloes. In it were ten damsels, high-bosomed maids, as they were moons; and when they saw him, they came ashore to him and kissed his hands, saying, "Thou art the King, the Bridegroom!" Then there accosted him a young lady, as she were the sun shining in sky serene bearing in hand a silken napkin, wherein were a royal robe and a crown of gold set with all manner rubies and pearls. She threw the robe over him and set the crown upon his head, after which the damsels bore him ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... its ways. It awoke no wonder in me to see the bulk of its male population ranged like statues, day after day, and from dawn till eve, against the wall by the lifeboat house, talking little (or ceasing, at any rate, to talk when I approached), smoking much, conning a serene sky, and the dimples spread on the sea by a gentle nor'-westerly breeze. At intervals one or two would leisurely fall out of the line and saunter towards the inn, leaving their places to others as leisurely sauntering from the inn. ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... came to say that Mrs. Chater would see me in the study. Down I crawled, wishing that I was the heroine of a novel who would have passed firmly down the stairs and into the room, 'pale, but calm and serene.' Oh! I was pale enough, I feel sure. But as to serene!—my heart was flapping about just like a tin ventilator in a wind, and I was jumpy all over. You see ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... is, which has provided, in its government of mankind, such narrow bounds to his sight and knowledge of things; and though he walks in the midst of so many thousand dangers, the sight of which, if discovered to him, would distract his mind and sink his spirits, he is kept serene and calm, by having the events of things hid from his eyes, and knowing nothing of the ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Of York, Mariner, Vol. 1 • Daniel Defoe
... of the Gallic dash which had won first honours in airmanship for France, but it was combined with the coolness and circumspection bred of scientific training, so that Smith was able to take repose in serene confidence that, barring accidents, the aeroplane would fly as safely under Rodier's charge as under his own. Karachi was soon a mere speck amid the sand. In less than half-an-hour the aeroplane was crossing the swampy delta of the Indus. Soon afterwards it flew over the Run ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... cry over her own naughtiness and Mr. Corbet's departure; but the August evening was still and calm, and put her passionate grief to shame, hushing her up, as it were, with the other young creatures, who were being soothed to rest by the serene time of day, and the subdued light ...
— A Dark Night's Work • Elizabeth Gaskell
... being fond of the wide expanse of the outer boulevards, where they could roam and lounge at ease. They continued silent, for their heads were heavy still, but the comfort of being together gradually made them more serene. Still it was only when they were opposite the Western Railway Station ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... state-room had berths for only two, and he had a faint hope the other fellow would not turn up. As he paced the deck his thoughts wandered to the pretty girl who did not buy his book. He had seen her again on the tender in company with a serene and placid older woman, who sat unconcernedly, surrounded by bundles, shawls, straps, valises, and hand-bags, which the girl nervously counted every now and then, fruitlessly trying to convince the elderly lady that something must have been left behind ...
— One Day's Courtship - The Heralds Of Fame • Robert Barr
... English voice. Then a hush. The man's voice produced a very strange effect upon Audrey. Roussel began to play. Musa held his bow aloft. Creeping steps in the doorway made Audrey look round. A lady smiled and bowed to her. It was Madame Piriac, resplendent and serene. ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... as if the very heavens must have been shrouded and the course of nature changed during the perpetration of such bloody crimes? Does it not seem as if a natural darkness must have overspread the land? And yet it was not so. The sun shone in his brightness, the skies were as serene, the rain and the dew descended, the vine and the olive ripened, and the flowers shed forth their sweetness, and all the bustle and show of life went on, as at other times. The people were oppressed, but the courts of Israel and Judah were splendid and luxurious; and ...
— Notable Women of Olden Time • Anonymous
... of his father, rocking on the porch of the Pennsylvania farm, pipe in his mouth, the weathered old face serene, as he puffed and listened to the radio beside him. He wished he'd written him last night, instead of joining the usual beer and bull session in the wardroom. ...
— Slingshot • Irving W. Lande
... down the sky. They had chosen the steeper slope of the hill so that they could look down upon the whole length of the winding stream, the scattered house-tops, and the wide green of those gardenlike stretches that still lay, safe and serene, ripening their grain beside the river. The Beeman's eyes moved up and down the valley, resting longest upon the slope opposite, where the yellow farmhouse stood at the edge of its grove of trees and showed ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... says this writer, 'was drier than dust both in body and mind. His person was small; and possibly a more meagre, arid, parched anatomy of a man, has not appeared upon this earth. The upper part of his face was grand; forehead lofty and serene, nose elegantly turned, eyes brilliant and penetrating; but below it expressed powerfully the coarsest sensuality, which in him displayed itself by immoderate addiction to eating and drinking.' This last feature of his temperament ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... terror only at a distance; For as the line of life conducts me on 95 To Death's great court, the prospect seems more fair. 'Tis Nature's kind retreat, that's always open To take us in when we have drained the cup Of life, or worn our days to wretchedness. In that secure, serene retreat, 100 Where all the humble, all the great, Promiscuously recline; Where wildly huddled to the eye, The beggar's pouch and prince's purple lie, May every bliss be thine. 105 And ah! bless'd spirit, wheresoe'er thy flight, Through rolling worlds, or fields of ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... have to weary your soul with work, and many a time eat your bread in sorrow and in bitterness, and you shall not have learned to take refuge in the great source of pleasure without alloy, the serene resting-place for worn human nature,—the ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... duke and Louis XI, and it was the latter who managed to save something even from broken bargains. The Swiss not only counted on his friendship, but were constantly encouraged by his money, which emboldened them to send a letter of open defiance to Charles: "We declare to your most serene highness and to all of your people, in behalf of ourselves and our friends, an honourable and an open war." To the herald who delivered this document Charles answered: "O Berne, Berne!"[12] He felt that he ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... go to your rooms at once," said Sir Stephen, in his serene and courtly voice. "If you should be too tired to come down again to-night I will have some dinner sent up to you—but I hope you won't be. It would ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... Man was not made so large limbed and robust but that he must seek to narrow his world and wall in a space such as fitted him. He was at first bare and out of doors; but though this was pleasant enough in serene and warm weather, by daylight, the rainy season and the winter, to say nothing of the torrid sun, would perhaps have nipped his race in the bud if he had not made haste to clothe himself with the shelter of a house. Adam and Eve, according to the fable, wore the bower before other clothes. Man ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... which transcended all earthly and temporal considerations, prayed with him and for him, whilst the tears streamed in torrents down his cheeks. Nor was the spirit of his holy mission lost; the penitent man's face assumed a placid and serene expression; the light of immortal hope beamed upon it; and raising his eyes and his feeble arms to heaven, he uttered several ejaculations in a tone of voice too low to be heard. At length he exclaimed aloud, "thanks to the Almighty that I did not ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... prayer, she had a serene, exalted expression, like one who walks with some unseen excellence and meditates on some untold joy. As she was crossing the court to come towards her uncle, her eye was attracted by the sparkle of something on the ground, and, stooping, she picked up a heart-shaped locket, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... education, the things she had seen, the spectacle of what seemed the end of everything, the Revolution, had so formed her character as to lead her to disdain human suffering. And this old woman, who had nothing left of life save breath, had risen to a serene philosophy, to a virile, haughty, almost satirical stoicism. Sometimes she would begin to declaim against a sorrow that seemed a little too keen; but, in the midst of her tirade, she would suddenly ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... golden, and interspersed with the rich crimson of the faded maples, there verdant with the evergreen leaves of the pine and cedar—and the far azure summits of the most distant peaks, all steeped in the serene and glowing sunshine of an ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... any doubt as to the intention of his Holiness toward the rebellious spirit of the Most Serene Republic; the Ambassade Extraordinary which had been appointed to convey to the Holy See the dutiful congratulations of her devoted Venetian sons, on the accession of Paul V, had few amenities to report in those lengthy dispatches to which the Senate ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... such a strong repugnance to his smoking in the bed the night before, yet see how elastic our stiff prejudices grow when love once comes to bend them. For now I liked nothing better than to have Queequeg smoking by me, even in bed, because he seemed to be full of such serene household joy then. I no more felt unduly concerned for the landlord's policy of insurance. I was only alive to the condensed confidential comfortableness of sharing a pipe and a blanket with a real friend. With our shaggy jackets ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... through many crooked and unclean—brought up, I say, under such a father and a guide, was it a wonder that Michael was imperfect in many qualities of mind—that reason with him was no tutor, that his understanding failed to be, as South expresses it, "the soul's upper region, lofty and serene, free from the vapours and disturbances of the inferior affections?" In truth there was no upper region at all, and very little serenity in Michael's composition. He had been a wayward and passionate boy. He was a restless and excitable man—full ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... something about that psychological cabin mystery of discomfort (for it's obvious that it must be psychological) which affected so profoundly Mr Franklin the chief mate, and had even disturbed the serene innocence of Mr Powell, the second of the ship Ferndale, commanded by Roderick Anthony—the son of the poet, ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... by the highways of war, and many a watchfire did they kindle. As when the stars shine clear, and the moon is bright—there is not a breath of air, not a peak nor glade nor jutting headland but it stands out in the ineffable radiance that breaks from the serene of heaven; the stars can all of them be told and the heart of the shepherd is glad—even thus shone the watchfires of the Trojans before Ilius midway between the ships and the river Xanthus. A thousand camp-fires gleamed upon the plain, and in the glow of each there sat fifty men, while ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... Perugino is still solid and beautiful, immutably serene. It radiates peace and strength. I neither criticise nor admire; my attitude is much more nearly that of worship, not of Perugino's images, but of a far-away ineffable mystery, which he in his time humbly sought to make a little more symbolically visible to men than any that came before him. For ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... Cicero, and the moral Seneca, and Euclid, and Hippocrates, and Avicen, and Averroes, who wrote the great commentary, and others too numerous to mention. The company of six became diminished to two, and Virgil took him forth on a far different road, leaving that serene air for a stormy one; and so they descended again ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... its profusion of silver and cut glass, its affectation of candle-light when the world without was a blaze of sunshine. She looked at Uncle Ranny, with his nervous, twitching lips and restless, dissatisfied eyes; at Aunt Flo, delicate, affected, futile; at Harold Phipps, easy, polished, serene. What possible chance would there be of rousing people like that to sympathy for poor, visionary Papa Claude? For three days the dread of having to fulfil her promise had hung over her like a pall. Now ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... too; for sometimes you will see dark masses of watery vapor, coming suddenly into view, and driving swiftly across the sky, where a few moments before every thing had appeared settled and serene. These scuds are soon followed by others, more and more dense and threatening, until, at last, there come drenching showers of rain, which drive every body to the nearest shelter, if there is ...
— Rollo in Scotland • Jacob Abbott
... Alicia Van Der Pool. I cite the Matterhorn, for just so high and cool and white and inaccessible was this daughter of the old burghers. The social Alps that ranged about her over whose bleak passes a thousand climbers struggled—reached only to her knees. She towered in her own atmosphere, serene, chaste, prideful, wading in no fountains, dining no monkeys, breeding no dogs for bench shows. She was a Van Der Pool. Fountains were made to play for her; monkeys were made for other people's ancestors; dogs, she ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... present fact. And we call him insane. Other visionaries wakened rudely to life as it is, accept it as unchangeable fate, lose all their true ideals and become cynical, or victims of utter depression for whom life holds nothing that matters. Still others go on through the years self-satisfied and serene because they simply refuse to believe unpleasant truths; they "pretend" that their wishes are realities, and acknowledge as facts only the pleasant things of existence. The first two groups have failed to adapt self to life ...
— Applied Psychology for Nurses • Mary F. Porter
... complimented on an excellence which he was not very sure of possessing: and most sensibly grieved at an insult, where he half suspects himself of really making a poor figure, whereas he would like to make a good one. It is doubtless the serene and settled conviction that Englishmen generally entertain of the greatness of their country, that enables them to listen with equanimity to abase of England, such as no other people in Europe would endure ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... smiled at me; there was neither conciliation nor defiance in her smile, but a sort of serene assurance and—yes, it ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... who is considered by Moslems as a kind of pre-Islamitic Saint; and whom Rabelais (iii. c. 7) calls Le gentil Falot Galen, is explained by Eustathius as the Serene {Greek} ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... whose tears bedewed the sweet face which her motherly bosom supported, though unfelt by the fair sleeper; and either insensibly to the good woman, or what she would not disturb her to wipe off or to change her posture. Her aspect was sweetly calm and serene; and though she started now and then, yet her sleep seemed easy; her breath indeed short and quick, but tolerably free, and not like that of a dying person.' Allowing for the queer grammar, this is surely a touching and simple picture. ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... qualities of his progenitors prophesied this right royal course, his portrait, by Pesne, shows him to have been conceived in some happy moment when Nature was in her most generous mood. What finish of form and feature! and what apparent power to win! Yet in what serene depths it rests, to be aroused only by some superb challenger! No strength of thought or stress of situation seems to have had power to line the curves of beauty. Observe, too, the full-blown mouth, which never saw cause to set ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... succeed in spite of the Professor's burked report)—they would fall in their own hearts and in one another's eyes. This was the prospect that stretched before her, as she sat again alone in the drawing-room, after Quisante had set out, much better, greatly rested, in good spirits, serene and safe, and after she had pledged herself to his fortunes by the sacrifice of loyalty to friends ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... like a moving coolness than a stream of air, passed down the glade from time to time; so that even in my great chamber the air was being renewed all 20 night long. I have not often enjoyed a more serene possession of myself, nor felt more independent of material aids. The outer world, from which we cower into our houses, seemed after all a gentle, habitable place; and night after night a man's bed, it seemed, was laid and waiting for him in the 25 ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... upon her young shoulders, albeit not knowing that they were burdens, since they were wholly acts of love and joyously done. She was fully conscious of her advancing years, and took them very seriously, regarding her acts with a grave and serene sense of their importance. She had put back the wild hair that used to fly about her face until her father called her "An owl in an ivy bush" and her mother admonished her that her "head was like a mop." Now, being in ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... God is utterly good. God, I say, will help you, by His Holy Spirit the Comforter, to do your duty, and to be at peace. And then the peace of God will rule in your hearts and make you kings to God. For He will enable YOU each to rule, serene, though weary, over a kingdom— or, alas! rather a mob, the most unruly, the most unreasonable, the most unstable, and often the most fierce, which you are like to meet on earth. To rule, I say, over a mob, of which you each must needs be king or slave, according as you ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... were white and yellow oaks; and they would be considered giants if standing alone. These were the serene gods of the forest, and they had a quieting influence on my companion. It was with regret that I led her back along the rough shore ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... cringe and writhe from the hell-hot agony of searing shrapnel. There is an unmistakable appeal for pity that stirs the depth of feeling until a wild frenzy to right matters sends Berserk passion to the brain. Oh, you German gunners in your serene safety, if ...
— Norman Ten Hundred - A Record of the 1st (Service) Bn. Royal Guernsey Light Infantry • A. Stanley Blicq
... the New Hampshire prude, lisping, regardless of Murray; the statue-like Baltimorean, with queenly figure and all lovely face, dazzling in her beauty, like a diamond among stones less brilliant; the flirting blonde of Washington; the gracious Virginian, with features so classic and serene; the daisy-like daughter of Connecticut, ever ready to give out her wild unmeasured laugh—all were there. And then there came the imperious Carolinian, whose stately step, Grecian face, dark, languishing eyes, and thoughtful ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... would be very nice for us. So we fell to and devoured the whole; and I recollect being somewhat disappointed in the odd, sweetish taste, and thinking that onions were not as nice as I had supposed. Then mother's serene face appeared at the nursery door, and we all ran toward her, and with one voice began to tell our discovery and achievement. We had found this bag of onions, and had eaten ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton
... and returned to her station, and in the blue discharges which now flashed almost continuously, and the phosphorescent glare of the advancing mountain, I saw that though her beautiful face worked beneath the pain of the blow, her eyes remained serene and purposeful. Even then I wondered—what was the purpose shining through them. Also I wondered if I was about to be called upon to make that sacrifice of which she had spoken, and if so, how. Of one thing I was determined—that if the call came it should not find me deaf. Yet all the ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... There was something so frank and gentle in this young man's demeanor-something so manly and radiant in his countenance-something so disinterested and holy in his mission of love—something so opposite to the coldness of the great world without—something so serene and elevated in his youth, that even the most inveterate criminal awaited his coming with emotions of joy, and gave a ready ear to his kindly advice. Indeed, the prisoners called him their child; and he seemed not dainty of their approach, but took them each by the hand, sat at their side, addressed ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... from the fireplace, she was lying back in the big, comfortable chair, a careless, whimsical smile on her lips. She was as serene as if she had never known what it was to have a heart-pang or an instant of regret in all her life. I could not understand that ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... faint apparition in the mist, it roused in him a fresh gust of rage. Rachel, the sentimental Rachel, unable to sleep—Rachel, happy and serene, thinking of her lover—the lies of her divorce all forgotten—and the abominable Roger cut finally out ...
— Harvest • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... what they call it,' returned the Grunewalder; and he broke into a song, which the rest, as people well acquainted with the words and air, instantly took up in chorus. Her Serene Highness Amalia Seraphina, Princess of Grunewald, was the heroine, Gondremark the hero of this ballad. Shame hissed in Otto's ears. He reined up short and sat stunned in the saddle; and the singers continued to descend the ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... while the moaning wind Stole o'er the summer ocean, The moonlight scene was all serene, The waters scarce in motion; Then, while the smoothly slanting sand The tall cliff wrapp'd in shade, The Fisherman beheld a band Of spectres, gliding hand in hand, Where ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
... brothers. My wife and I, too anxious to rest, spent that dreadful night in prayer, and in arranging various plans. How gladly we welcomed the light of day, shining through an opening. The wind was subsiding, the sky serene, and I watched the sun rise with renewed hope. I called my wife and children on deck. The younger ones were surprised to find we were alone. They inquired what had become of the sailors, and how we should ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss
... one of the ambitious yet commonplace girls who wish to shine, without knowing the difference between the glitter of a candle which attracts moths, and the serene light of a star, or the cheery glow of a fire round which all love to gather. Her mother's aims were not high, and the two pretty daughters knew that she desired good matches for them, educated them for that end, and expected them to do their parts when the time came. The elder sister was now ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... to see what a change retirement and its quiet had wrought in the spirit and manner of this woman. The drive and hum of busy life were over; a heavenly calm had ensued—solemn, serene, peaceful—no agony of prayer, no ecstasy of spirit, no shouts of transport, no fiery trials. Her infirmities accumulate, but still she rejoices in sacred, hallowed peace. She becomes a cripple, almost confined to her bed, ...
— Elizabeth: The Disinherited Daugheter • E. Ben Ez-er
... that even so my text does not offer eye and ear a pellucid field for smooth advance, I must reply that the original is likewise very far from being a serene and joyous highway; and it has not appeared to me necessary or desirable to improve upon the form of Dio's record further than the difference in the genius of the two languages demanded. I am reminded here of what Francisque Reynard says regarding the difficulties ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume 1 (of 6) • Cassius Dio
... et des pierres: a serene and gem-like quality, entirely his own, is in all these poems, in which a particular kind of French verse realises its ideal. Mallarme is the poet of a few, a limited poet, perfect within his limits as the Chinese ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... at him with her calm, kind eyes, which had seen all the horror and pain of the world, and yet, filled with the vision of a world without sin, remained serene. ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... face flushed, but her smile came back in a moment, and she was serene again. "Come here, Jack. Now, old fellow, look me straight in the eyes, and tell me if you would like to have me dance the serpentine dance before a drawing-room full of gossiping women, with, as you say, just a few men peeping in at ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... that are gracious and serene By gift of God, in human lore unread, May pluck these holy blooms and grasses green That now I wreathe for thine immortal head, I that may walk with thee, thyself unseen, And by thy whispered voice ...
— Rhymes a la Mode • Andrew Lang
... As You Like It or the Tempest. These seven years, accordingly, might, without much risk of misunderstanding, be called Shakespeare's tragic period.[26] And after it he wrote no more tragedies, but chiefly romances more serious and less sunny than As You Like It, but not much less serene. ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... conceals the anguished groan, With all the poignant griefs that goad The brain to madness; Within the hushed volcano's breast, The molten fires of ruin lie;— Thus human passions seem at rest, And on the brow serene and high, Appears no sadness. But still the fires are raging there, Of vengeance, hatred, and despair; And when they burst, they wildly pour Their lava flood of woe and fear, And in one short—one little hour, Avenge the ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various
... our hero, Wilfred, were years of tranquil happiness and serene joy, such as Milton wrote of in later ages, in ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... bitter enemies at court. People were for ever suggesting to the monarchs that this foreigner was doing wrong. The admiral's son, Ferdinand, gives a vivid picture of some of the complaints preferred against his father. He says, "When I was at Granada, at the time the most serene Prince Don Miguel died, more than fifty of them (Spaniards who had returned from the Indies), as men without shame, bought a great quantity of grapes, and sat themselves down in the court of the Alhambra, uttering loud cries, saying, that their Highnesses and the admiral made them live in ...
— The Life of Columbus • Arthur Helps
... antique Sphinxes, and boldly questions them, and reads their riddles. The red light of innumerable watch-fires glares all round about, and shines upon the terrible face of the arch-scoffer; while on either side, severe, majestic, solemnly serene, we behold the gigantic forms of the children of Chimera, half buried in the earth, their mild eyes gazing fixedly, as if they heard through the midnight, the swift-rushing wings of the Stymphalides, striving to outstrip the speed of Alcides' arrows! Angry griffins are near ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... general good, in humanely treating the sick and the wounded, and in winning to themselves a very rare amount of personal confidence and trust. They had all risen to be distinguished soldiers; they had all done deeds of great heroism; they had all combined with their valour and self-devotion a serene cheerfulness, a quiet modesty, and a truly Christian spirit; and they had all been educated ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... while potted, as it were, in our Unitarian cold green-house, but had taken to growing so fast that he was lifting off its glass roof and letting in the hailstorms? Here was a protest that outflanked the extreme left of liberalism, yet so calm and serene that its radicalism had the accents of the gospel of peace. Here was an iconoclast without a hammer, who took down our idols from their pedestals so tenderly that it seemed like an ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... was an ethereal sentiment of adoration and not a passion, and of friendship, when it was a passion and not an expedience,—of dear and simple adventures, and of comrades who had part in them,—of dappled mornings, and serene and glowing sunsets,—of sequestered nooks and mossy seats in the old wood,—of paths by the riverside, and flowers that smiled a bright welcome to our rambling,—of lingering departures from home, and of old by-ways, overshadowed by trees and hedged with ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... of it he hardly spoke, and a perpetual little frown creased a brow usually so serene. In the early morning of the day after Malloring went back to town, he crossed the road to a field where the farmer, aided by his family and one of Malloring's gardeners, was already carrying the hay; and, taking up a pitchfork, without a word to anybody, he joined in ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... notwithstanding these facts, possessing the whole nation. [Cheers.] Nothing strikes the visitor to Paris more than that. There is a calm, a serene confidence, which is supposed to be incompatible with the temperament of the Celt by those who do do not know it. [Laughter.] There is a general assurance that the Germans have lost their tide, and that now the German armies have as remote a chance of crushing France ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... course the opening offers some fine opportunities for fine music; but the later parts with their nonsense—Milton's nonsense, I believe—about "In native worth and honour clad, With beauty, courage, strength, adorned, Erect with front serene he stands, A MAN, the Lord and King of Nature all," and the suburban love-making of our first parents, and the lengthy references to the habits of the worm and the leviathan, and so on, are almost more than modern flesh and blood can endure. It must be conceded that Haydn evaded the difficulties ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... vehicle. King Yudhishthira the just, of great wisdom, also blessed him. After this, Phalguna proceeded towards Karna's car. Beholding that great bowman thus proceeding, all creatures, O Bharata, regarded Karna as already slain by the high-souled Pandava. All the points of the compass, O king, became serene. King-fishers and parrots and herons, O king, wheeled around the son of Pandu. A large number of beautiful and auspicious birds, O king, called Pung, causing Arjuna (by their timely appearance) to put forth greater speed in battle, cheerfully ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... herself had ushered the gentleman in, and now stood lingeringly by the door-way. My lady sat watching the ceaseless rain with indolent eyes, holding a novel in her lap, and looking very serene and handsome. ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... realms of gold, And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; Round many western islands have I been, Which bards, in fealty to Apollo, hold. Oft of one wide expanse had I been told That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne; Yet did I never breathe its pure serene Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold; Then felt I like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken; Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes He stared at the Pacific—and all his men Look'd at each other ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... like lead in my body when I went out from that dungeon; but she—she was serene, she was not troubled. She had done what she believed to be her duty, and that was sufficient; the consequences were not her affair. The last thing she said that time was full of this ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... sharp; and painful awakening from his bliss and serene delight, and it was an effectual one. No more placid gliding now; no careless voyaging. Two hours! Seven o'clock! Already they were at breakfast, and waiting for him. They were wondering about his absence. And when could he join them again? Two hours! If it had taken two hours ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... her time. She is the acme of histrionic dexterity; all that she does upon the stage is, in sheer effectiveness, superb. But in her work she has no soul; she lacks the sensitive sweet lure of Duse, the serene and starlit poetry of Modjeska. Three things she does supremely well. She can be seductive, with a cooing voice; she can be vindictive, with a cawing voice; and, voiceless, she can die. Hence ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton
... which is in their model. I saw not long ago, for the first time, the portrait of a man whom I knew well—a young man, but a religious man—and one who had suffered much from sickness. The whole dignity of his features and person depended upon the expression of serene, yet solemn, purpose sustaining a feeble frame; and the painter, by way of flattering him, strengthened him, and made him athletic in body, gay in countenance, idle in gesture; and the whole power and being of the man himself were lost. And this ...
— Lectures on Architecture and Painting - Delivered at Edinburgh in November 1853 • John Ruskin
... and more animated than I am by nature. As, in the village, half in jest, half by way of eulogy, I am called the saint, I endeavor, through modesty, to avoid the appearance of sanctity, or to soften and humanize its manifestations with the virtue of moderation, displaying a serene and decent cheerfulness which was never yet opposed to holiness nor to the saints. I confess, nevertheless, that the merry-making and the sports of these people, with their coarse jokes and boisterous mirth, weary me. I do not ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera
... it was enough to intoxicate one's fancy. It seemed to confess newness of life, joy, passion, temperance, refinement, aspiration, modest wisdom, and serene courage. You would say there must live two well-mated young lovers—but ...
— Strong Hearts • George W. Cable
... winds were like those of some perpetual, paradisical present, with no story to tell, and none that would ever be enacted. It was a world in which Nature seemed to hold herself aloof from man, refusing to be tamed by him, rejecting his caress, keeping herself serene, inviolate, making his ...
— The Letter of the Contract • Basil King
... hand on my wheel I moved a few steps towards the middle of the road. I was about to take off my cap when she turned her eyes upon me. She even moved her head a little so as to gaze upon me a few seconds longer. Her face was quiet and serene, her eyes were large, clear, and observant. In them was not one gleam of recognition. Turning them again upon the road in front of her, she ...
— A Bicycle of Cathay • Frank R. Stockton
... his overalls, seized his hat, and with a parting salute was off down the road, singing his favorite song. I can give you the words and the time, but alas! I cannot print Osh Popham's dauntless spirit and serene content, nor his cheery voice as he travelled with tolerable swiftness ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... flow gracefully, amid the rocks by which its course is obstructed, between rocky walls whose tops in many places seem almost to reach the azure skies of the Himalayas, a heaven which here shows itself remarkably pure and serene. ...
— The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ - The Original Text of Nicolas Notovitch's 1887 Discovery • Nicolas Notovitch
... juniper that grew on the highest point of the gulch's rim, Mack Nolan lay sprawled on the flat of his back, one arm for a pillow, and stared up into the serene blue of the sky with cottony flakes of cloud swimming steadily to the northeast. Three feet away, Casey Ryan rested on left hip and elbow and stared glumly down upon the cabin directly beneath them. Whenever ...
— The Trail of the White Mule • B. M. Bower
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