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Benignant

adjective
1.
Pleasant and beneficial in nature or influence.  Synonym: benign.  "The benign sky" , "The benign influence of pure air"
2.
Characterized by kindness and warm courtesy especially of a king to his subjects.  Synonym: gracious.






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"Benignant" Quotes from Famous Books



... here. Notwithstanding his close habits of work Agassiz was eminently social, and to this club he was especially attached. Dr. Holmes says of it in his volume on Emerson, who was one of its most constant members: "At one end of the table sat Longfellow, florid, quiet, benignant, soft-voiced, a most agreeable rather than a brilliant talker, but a man upon whom it was always pleasant to look,—whose silence was better than many another man's conversation. At the other end sat Agassiz, robust, sanguine, ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz

... following day: how fearful, when the morning broke grey and lowering: how grateful, when the benignant sun shone out later, and promised a brilliant afternoon: how carefully I dressed, and what a price I paid for the flower for ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey

... what feelings one gazes upon it. It is as old as the Pyramids, perhaps older, and there it still looks out upon the green and fertile banks of the Nile with the Libyan Desert behind. Its countenance has the same benignant cast, but it tells neither of sorrow nor of anger, neither of triumph nor of defeat. It tells you of no human passion, and yet seems to tell you of all—the end of all—and yet it is not a sad face. It is every thing and yet nothing. I never ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie

... smaller thrones, without rainbows, upon each side of the God of Jurgen's grandmother, in two semi-circles: upon these inferior thrones sat benignant-looking elderly angels, with long white hair, all crowned, and clothed in white robes, and having a harp in one hand, and in the other a gold flask, about pint size. And everywhere fluttered and glittered the multicolored wings of seraphs and cherubs, like magnified paroquets, ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell

... dost wear The Godhead's most benignant grace; Nor know we anything so fair As is the smile upon thy face: Flowers laugh before thee on their beds And fragrance in thy footing treads; Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong; And the most ancient heavens, through ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various

... which, when he passed it in the company of anyone, still seemed to gaze at him, and not at his companion. He had much to think of, in association with a print that hung up in another place, where, in the centre of a wondering group, one figure that he knew, a figure with a light about its head—benignant, mild, and merciful—stood ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... them capable of ferocious actions, done, apparently, in cold blood. Being the result of an inward intoxication, this sort of dumb violence seems to be irreconcilable with their quasi-lymphatic outward man, and the tranquillity of their benignant glance. ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac

... miles back in the hills. Riding his sturdy little horse, his loose black cloak floating like benignant wings bearing him on; his radiant old face shining even in the face ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock

... his supper and had cleared away the tea service, he took down his book, lighted his little bit of candle, and—as his aunt was in a benignant humor, he went to her for sympathy in ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... rises clearer and more clear. It is the voice of faith, silver-toned and sweet; and the very heavens themselves seem to listen; and the thunders rumble away into the valleys; and the stars, shining, and calm, and benignant, come out again over the mountain-peaks. And lo! once more she can descry the faint red rays above the snow; and she can almost see the choristers within the little building; and she listens to the silver-clear song; and her heart is filled with a strange ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black

... woman I have seen And have known, Benignant eyes, nobility of mien, A scarf from off a perfect shoulder blown, Solicitude, white ardor in a face, Motions like water under the moon's grace,— I wonder much how men can be so base, ...
— Perpetual Light • William Rose Benet

... of Frank, I expect, who was too far gone to notice anything—was a benignant-looking old man, very shabby, in an alpaca jacket, with a rusty velvet cap on his head, and very bright short-sighted eyes behind round spectacles. This figure appeared in the doorway, stood looking at them a moment, ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson

... lost his benignant air. "I've lived north all my life," he said. "And I never met with the like. We have different ideas ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner

... country, or, at least, a certain portion of it, would thus be a kind of holy-land where those Semites whose earliest traditions were connected with its soil would think themselves assured of a more tranquil repose and of protection from more benignant deities. The soil of Assyria itself would receive none but the corpses of those slaves and paupers who, counting for nothing in their lives, would be buried when dead in the first convenient corner, ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot

... to disadvantage for the moment.—The good old gentleman was sitting still and thoughtful. All at once he turned his face toward the window where I stood, and, just as if he had seen me, smiled his benignant smile. It was a recollection of some past pleasant moment; but it fell upon me like the blessing ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... answer, coming to this country. A few days agone I myself did repeat to you the message of the Bell; thou didst swear thou wouldst not answer, yet art thou here in Kuttarpur. Am I to be blamed for taking this for a sign of thy repentance?... Hazoor, the Body is patient, the Will benignant and long-suffering. Still is ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance

... ages of delay, was at length to be made manifest to his native valley. He knew, boy as he was, that there were a thousand ways in which Mr. Gathergold, with his vast wealth, might transform himself into an angel of beneficence, and assume a control over human affairs as wide and benignant as the smile of the Great Stone Face. Full of faith and hope, Ernest doubted not that what the people said was true, and that now he was to behold the living likeness of those wondrous features on the mountain-side. While the boy was ...
— The Snow Image • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... cause of such a reception might be, he was simply conscious of an act of public good-will, and prepared to respond in a fitting manner. He was standing on the prow at the time, and drawing his tall form to its full height, he regarded the crowd for a moment with a benignant smile; after which he removed his hat ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille

... young man of unexceptionable character, and of a disposition mild, serious and benignant: his principles and blameless conduct obtained the universal esteem of the world, but his manners, which were rather too precise, joined to an uncommon gravity of countenance and demeanour, made his society rather permitted as a duty, ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney

... Hunterian department of the Royal College of Surgeons in London. It is a masterpiece of art. But we have no time to examine it now. Delicacy forbids that I should amplify at a juncture like this"—casting an almost benignant glance toward the patient, now beginning to open his eyes; "but let me point out to you upon this thigh-bone"—disengaging it from the skeleton, with a gentle twist—"the precise place where I propose to perform the operation. Here, young gentlemen, here is the place. You ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville

... His followers the emblems of victory, and invests them with the insignia of their royal state. The glittering ranks are drawn up, in the form of a hollow square, about their King, whose form rises in majesty high above saint and angel, whose countenance beams upon them full of benignant love. Throughout the unnumbered host of the redeemed, every glance is fixed upon Him, every eye beholds His glory whose "visage was so marred more than any man, and His form more than the sons of men." Upon the heads of the ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White

... With their buds left luminous And their little leaves made wet From the warmer dew of tears, Mother's tears in extreme need, Hid the limbs of Iamus, Of thy brother's seed; For his heart was piteous Toward him, even as thine heart now Pitiful toward us; Thine, O goddess, turning hither A benignant blameless brow; Seeing enough of evil done And lives withered as leaves wither In the blasting of the sun; Seeing enough of hunters dead, Ruin enough of all our year, Herds and harvests slain and shed, Herdsmen stricken many an one, Fruits ...
— Atalanta in Calydon • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... from the intelligence I have received, I have little doubt that the connection will be drawn a good deal closer before long," said Lord Erymanth with a benignant smile at us both. "I suppose we must not begin to congratulate one another yet, for I may conclude that nothing had actually taken place ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge

... and see what has wrecked my pardner's happiness and almost reasen. I looked in and I see plain that his agitation was nothin' to be wondered at. It did truly seem to be the hombliest, frightfulest lookin' little thing that wuz ever made by a benignant Providence or a taxy-dermis. I couldn't tell which made it. I see it all, but I see also, so firm, sot is my reasun onto its high throne on my heart, I see that to preserve my pardner's sanity, I must control my reasun at the sight that ...
— Samantha at Saratoga • Marietta Holley

... discreetest of women," still holding Bessie's hand, "will agree with me. You need not sit through the service. Hiram can bring you down after it has begun; and you may sit in the vestry till the clerk calls you. I'll preach a short sermon to-night," with a benignant chuckle. ...
— On the Church Steps • Sarah C. Hallowell

... stick in his hands. He did not live in his father's house, for he had a little flat in the rue du Faubourg St. Honore, but he was in and out a good deal. He paused when he saw his niece, and smiled upon her a benignant smile which she rather disliked, because she disliked benignant people. The two really saw very little of each other, though Captain Stewart often sat for hours together with his sister, up in a little boudoir which she had furnished in the execrable taste which ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman

... continued the lady, gazing around upon her victims with a benignant smile, "without further prelude, I will inform you for what object I have asked you to honor me with your presence ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield

... the conservative sentiment of the Republicans and the country was with Mr. Lincoln, and that the confidence of the people in his patriotism and integrity was such as could not be shaken. Nevertheless, a small band of the radicals held out and would not assent to his benignant policy. These malcontents undertook to create a distinct political organization which, if possessed of power, would make a more fierce and unrelenting war on the rebels, break down their local institutions, overturn ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various

... the ruby. In the temple its influence was beneficent, its crimson glow benignant and abounding with blessings for all true believers; but when desecrated by the plundering vandal's touch it became a ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk

... pumpkins were rolled in from many a hill in billows of gold, and the corn was husked, and the labours of the season were done, and the warm, late days of Indian summer came in, dreamy and calm and still, with just frost enough to crisp the ground of a morning, but with warm trances of benignant, sunny hours at noon, there came over the community a sort of genial repose of spirit—a sense of something accomplished, and of a new golden mark made in advance on the calendar of life—and the deacon began to say to the minister, of ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various

... crossed his mind. He believed that what he saw was Rosarita's spirit, and he would rather a thousand times have known her living, though pitiless and disdainful, than behold her dead, though she appeared in the form of a gentle and benignant apparition. ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid

... looked up and saw the deep quiet of the skies, the stable peace of the stars, and I was a son of the good Earth again, a sojourner in the tents of Home. I did not doubt that Alixe was alive or that I should find her. There was assurance in this benignant night. In that thought, dreaming that her cheek lay close to mine, her arm around my neck, I fell asleep. I waked to bear the squirrels stirring in the trees, the whir of the partridge, and the first unvarying note of the oriole. Turning ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... taken of Amy's flight, except by her mates; but the sharp-eyed demoiselles discovered that Mr. Davis was quite benignant in the afternoon, and also unusually nervous. Just before school closed Jo appeared, wearing a grim expression as she stalked up to the desk and delivered a letter from her mother; then collected Amy's property and departed, carefully scraping the mud from her boots on the door-mat, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... never had seen a person at Mrs. Kitson's advanced stage of life with such a healthy, rosy visage. But every one has some pet weakness. Mrs. Kitson's was always fancying herself ill and nervous. Now, Flora had no very benignant feelings towards the old lady's long catalogue of imaginary ailments; so she changed the dreaded subject, by inquiring after the health of ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie

... Pain, Strange foes, though stranger guardian friends of Pleasure: I know that poor men lose, and rich men gain, Though oft th' unseen adjusts the seeming measure; I know that Guile may teach, while Truth must bow, Or bear contempt and shame on his benignant brow. ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various

... not the place to speculate on the good or evil which resulted from this change in the Roman government. Most historians and philosophers agree that the change was inevitable, and proved, on the whole, benignant. It was simply the question whether the Romans should have civil wars and anarchies and factions, which decimated the people, and kept society in a state of fear and insecurity, and prevented the triumph of law, or whether they should submit to an absolute ruler, who had unbounded means of doing ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord

... her flapping waterproof cloak giving very inefficient protection to the rather girlish dove-grey cashmere dress, picked out with pink embroidery, beneath it. At first his eyes challenged hers in slightly defiant and amused enquiry. But as she smiled back at him, sweetly eager, ingenuously benignant, his glance softened and his hand went up to his ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... with doubt and suspicion, and examined my records closely, but finally permitted me to enter the pearly gates. As I walked up the street of the heavenly city, I saw a venerable old man with long gray hair and flowing beard. His benignant face encouraged me to address him. 'I have just arrived and I am entirely unacquainted,' I said. ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok

... not in imagination, but in reality, my own loved Jennie, the partner of my joys and the sharer of my sorrows, sustaining, comforting, and cheering my pathway by her benignant smile; pouring the sunshine of domestic comfort and happiness upon our humble home; making life more worth the living as we toil on up the hill of time together, with the bright pledges of our early and constant love by our side while ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins

... straight up to the Guru, bowed and smiled and clearly introduced herself. In another moment he was showing his white teeth and salaaming, and together they walked back to The Hurst, where Georgie palpitated behind the yew-hedge. Together they entered and Lucia's eye wore its most benignant aspect. ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson

... realm where tender memories brood O'er sacred haunts of time, That woo his spirit to a nobler mood And more benignant clime,— ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various

... view of it which seemed non-progressive, and his success as a writer no doubt interfered with his practice. His friend Professor Masson draws a pleasant picture of him when he first settled in practice, as a dark-haired man with soft, fine eyes and a benignant manner, the husband of a singularly beautiful woman, and much liked and sought after in the social circles of Edinburgh. This was partly owing to the charm of his conversation, and partly to the literary ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various

... enjoyment of every privilege with his white brethren, and that you may all so conduct yourselves as to give the lie direct to those who have affirmed that the only idea you have of liberty is that it will enable you to indulge in idle habits and licentious pursuits. When liberty casts her benignant smiles on this beautiful island, I trust that the employer and the laborer will endeavour to live on terms of friendship and good will with one another.—When the labourer receives a proper remuneration for his services—when the employer contemplates the luxuriance ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... note occurred that night; dancing continued with unabated spirit, even after the departure of the royal guests, and pleasure was the prevailing feeling to the last. The notice of the Duke, and the benignant spirit of the Duchess, her gentle and kindly manners, had penetrated many a young and ardent soul, and fixed at once and unwaveringly the stamp of ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume II. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes • Grace Aguilar

... that the benignant, sly old gentleman had overheard a substantial part of Maisie's telephone conversation. It was equally clear that his interference was wisely and kindly intended. He had a perfect right to be scrupulous ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson

... true queenly power,—not in their households merely, but over all within their sphere. And in what sense, if they rightly understood and exercised this royal or gracious influence, the order and beauty induced by such benignant power would justify us in speaking of the territories over which each of them reigned, as ...
— Sesame and Lilies • John Ruskin

... distinction of your noble family. It is, in a word, the intention of the Holy Father to confer on your lordship the Grand Cross of the Most Noble Order of the Santo Spirito. And it is further the benignant purpose and wish of his Holiness to present you with this most honourable mark of his approbation with his own ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope

... the cult of exercise and sport—these all are helping to lower the death-rate and enrich the life-rate the world over. Health has fought with smoke and germs and is now in the air. It would be strange if the receptive nature of the artist should escape the benignant infection. ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler

... It was the first time I had ever ventured to reveal to others the talent hidden with all a miser's vigilance in my bosom casket. I had lisped in rhyme,—I had improvised in rhyme,—I had dreamed in poetry, when the moon and stars were looking down on me with benignant lustre;—I had thought poetry at the sunset hour, amid twilight shadows and midnight darkness. I had scribbled it at early morn in my own little room, at noonday recess at my solitary desk; but no human being, save my mother, knew of ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz

... which many marvellous things happened; a true romance of incident and adventure which became as real to the romancer as to his eager and credulous listeners. De Quincey created an imaginary kingdom, peopled with imaginary beings whom he ruled with benignant wisdom, amid universal prosperity and peace, until, in an unlucky hour, he admitted his brother into a partnership of authority; and that brother, unable to withstand the temptation of absolute power, became a remorseless tyrant. And De Quincey feelingly describes the ...
— Essays On Work And Culture • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... wild that we must make you fast," his captor said, with a benignant smile; and struggle as he might, the boy was very soon secured. His antagonist drew forth a red bandana handkerchief, and fastened his bleeding hands behind his back. "There, now, lad," he said, "you can ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore

... Saviour's calm, benignant eye Fell on your gentle beauty; when from you That heavenly lesson for all hearts he drew. Eternal, universal as the sky; Then in the bosom of your purity A voice He set, as in a temple shrine, That ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various

... the face from the sun. But while, for example, the projection of one peak shades the nose, the ears and cheeks are left to fish for themselves; or else, if the hat wheels round again to the front, the ears come under its benignant shade, but the tip of the proboscis suffers awfully. The cocked hat has always been a two-horned dilemna ever since the third peak moved up in the world from its original position of horizontal equality, and aspired to be a near neighbour of the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various

... are other persistent winds that, for purposes of exploration, would prove equally serviceable and sure. From time immemorial the dweller on the Nile has been led to regard his river in the light of a benignant deity. If he wished to travel down its course he had but to entrust his vessel to the stream, and this would carry him. If, again, he wished to retrace his course, he had but to raise a sail, and the prevalent wind, conquering the flood, would bear him against the stream. This constant ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon

... decline was hard on dark When evening trembled round thy glowworm lamp That shone across her shades and dewy damp A small clear beacon whose benignant spark Was gracious yet for loiterers' eyes to mark, Though changed the watchword of our English camp Since the outposts rang round Marlowe's lion ramp, When thy steed's pace went ambling ...
— Sonnets, and Sonnets on English Dramatic Poets (1590-1650) • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... His manner was very quiet, his smile was pleasant, but he did not like explosive laughter any better than Hawthorne did. None who met him can fail to recall that serene and kindly presence, in which there was mingled a certain spiritual remoteness with the most benignant human welcome to all who were privileged to enjoy ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... was invited to fill the void which his removal had left among us, the wind again began to fisle, and the signs of a tempest were seen in the changes of the royal Councils. The gracious-hearted statesmen before spoken of were removed from their benignant spheres like falling stars from the firmament, and the Duke of Lauderdale was endowed with the power to persecute ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt

... that Patricia was afraid she was going to orate further, and visions of a premature initiation flitted uneasily through her nimble mind. Miss Green, however, said nothing further, taking up her tools and going on with her work with a complacent and benignant smile ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther

... two figures stood up, marvellously alike in strength and beauty, yet absolutely different in expression and bearing, the one serene and benignant, the other fierce and threatening. The quiet one was still pleading, with a hand laid upon the other's shoulder. But he shook it off, and thrust his companion away ...
— The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke

... battle, thank God is past—and so the last of the humiliations has been endured," he wrote his wife. "Preston King met me at the depot and conveyed me to my home. It seemed sad and mournful. Dr. Nott's benevolent face, Lord Napier's complacent one, Jefferson's benignant one, and Lady Napier's loving one, seemed all like pictures of the dead. Even 'Napoleon at Fontainebleau' seemed more frightfully desolate than ever. At the Capitol the scene was entirely changed from my entrance into the chamber last winter. Cameron greeted me kindly; Wilkinson of Minnesota, ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... some swart abysm he had gone, Had not a heavenly guide benignant led To where thick myrtle branches, 'gainst his head Brushing, awakened: then the sounds again 380 Went noiseless as a passing noontide rain Over a bower, where little space he stood; For as the sunset peeps into a ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats

... was introduced to Canon Gleed, another missionary, who seemed to be on very good terms with himself, and stood rubbing his hands with a benignant smile. ...
— Captain Jinks, Hero • Ernest Crosby

... declared that Marshall's "real worth was never known until he was appointed Chief Justice." And Sedgwick is further confuted by the portraits of the Chief Justice, which, with all their diversity, are in accord on that stubborn chin, that firm placid mouth, that steady, benignant gaze, so capable of putting attorneys out of countenance when they had to face it overlong. Here are the lineaments of self-confidence unmarred by vanity, of dignity without condescension, of tenacity untouched by fanaticism, and above all, ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin

... difficulty. The animals turned eagerly to feed on the soft rich grass, while I, wrapping myself in my blanket, lay down and gazed on the evening landscape. The mountains, whose stern features had lowered upon us with so gloomy and awful a frown, now seemed lighted up with a serene, benignant smile, and the green waving undulations of the plain were gladdened with the rich sunshine. Wet, ill, and wearied as I was, my spirit grew lighter at the view, and I drew from it an augury of good for ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.

... independence, if they are the crown upon the head of a benignant despotism, are the very lifeblood in the veins ...
— Heart's-ease • Phillips Brooks

... with the rocks that jutted through the turf, and were decked with clumps of poplar and spruce and pine. The world seemed full of brightness to the boy. His heart overflowed with kindness to all mankind. He found it possible, indeed, to think of Crawley, even, with a benignant compassion. ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor

... young adventurer demand from benignant Fortune above and beyond the blessings she had given, him? The favoured suitor of the fairest and brightest woman he had ever looked upon, received by her kindred, admitted to her presence, and only bidden to serve a ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon

... they, blossoms still, Born of Benignant Will, Not of the Sphingian Fate, which hath no heed For human smiles or tears; The long-revolving years Have ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, January 23, 1892 • Various

... with a venerable bachelor residing in the city of Antwerp. It was so urged upon us, that the least we could do was to present it, expecting only a few minutes' agreeable conversation. Shall we ever forget the instant welcome that beamed from his benignant face, or how he honored the draft upon him by immediately calling upon all the members of our travelling-party? how literally, against all our expostulations, he gave himself up to us, attending us to picture-galleries and zoological ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various

... to make Edward or Elinor more easy, nor to conciliate the good will of Lucy, who looked up at Marianne with no very benignant expression. ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... ran beneath lofty bluffs; on the left bank was a far-stretching view of low, rich country, with palms and canals. Fritz visited us, and a monitor favoured us with some comically bad shooting. And after sundown came a moon, benignant, calm, in a cloudless heaven, looking down on men miserable with small vexations, which haply saved them from facing too much the deeper griefs which ...
— The Leicestershires beyond Baghdad • Edward John Thompson

... on of the bull's-eye put a stop to further remark, and a few seconds later our hero went over the side, while Ram-stam, smiling benignant indifference as to the event which had so recently ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne

... business." He looked very hard indeed at the Persian, who decided that it might as well be supper-time and rose stiffly to his feet. The Persians rob and murder, and even retreat, gracefully. He bade us a stately and benignant good evening, with a poetic Persian blessing at the end of it. He bowed, too, to the Zeitoonli, who bared his teeth and bent his head forward something less ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy

... hope. He had a generous and vivid faith in humanity, and he showed the natural effect of abandoning belief in another life by his energetic interest in arrangements for improving the lot of man in this life. But it would be far better to share the superstitious opinions of a virtuous and benignant priest like the Bishop in Victor Hugo's Miserables, than to hold those good opinions of Chaumette as he held them, with a rancorous intolerance, a reckless disregard of the rights and feelings of others, and a shallow forgetfulness of all that great and precious part of ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley

... of this prize-dog in the paper, a noble great creature with a benignant countenance, standing by a table. He was placed in that way so that one could get a right idea of his great dimensions. You could see that he was just a shade higher than the table—indeed, a huge fellow for a dog. Then there was a description which event into ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... where your children have room enough to increase and to multiply, and to become, with God's blessing, greater and more prosperous than yourselves. But I am confident that no spell less potent than the gentle and benignant control of those liberal institutions which it is Britain's pride and privilege to bestow on her children, will insure the peaceful development of its unrivalled resources, or knit together into one happy and united family the various races of which ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin

... flattered, needed and praised. Adjustment to them was a practical, imperative necessity. They combined infinite capacity with human and finite caprice. The attention they received from humans was distinctly utilitarian in character. These forces of wind and sun and rain might be brutal or benignant. Primitive man established, therefore, a system of magic, sacrifice, and prayer, whereby he might minimize the precariousness of existence, and keep the gods on ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman

... ruth Stops at the source. Behold this poor old man, Last of a line of princes, stricken in years, As thy dead father would have been to-day. Was that white beard a rag for obscene hands To tear? a weed for lumpish clowns to pluck? Was that benignant, venerable face Fit target for their foul throats' voided rheum? That wrinkled flesh made to be pulled and pricked, Wounded by flinty pebbles and keen steel? Behold the prostrate, patriarchal form, ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus

... career, though short, gave promise of considerable talent, which required only a fair field for its development. But he was the child of misfortune, and his morning of life was overcast by clouds and tempests. If his character, naturally benignant, sometimes showed the fiery sparkles of the vindictive Indian temper, some apology may be found, not merely in his blood, but in the circumstances of his situation. He was more sinned against than sinning; and, if conspiracy could ever find a justification, it must be in ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott

... him to death in his brawny arms, as I never remember to have seen a figure so powerful and muscular; but he was evidently slow to anger, and long-suffering; not a resentful word escaped him, and his features retained their usual expression of benignant placidity. ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... with most benignant aspect upon this plain. They seem quite proud of it, and nurse it with the care and tenderness of a parent. Noble rivers not a few—the Ticino, the Adige, and streams and torrents without number—do they send ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie

... devoid of succulence, and boxes of starch and candles. Its only ornament is the cat, and his beauty is more apparent to the artist than to the fancier. His splendid stripes, black and grey and tawny, are too wide for noble lineage. He has a broad benignant brow, like Benjamin Franklin's; but his brooding eyes, golden, unfathomable, deny benignancy. He is large and sleek,—the grocery mice must be many, and of an appetizing fatness,—and I presume he devotes his nights to the pleasures of the chase. His days ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier

... of this most excellent, learned, and benignant Pontiff, science must flourish. Your arrival will be welcome to his Holiness. He asked me if you were coming, and when, and in short, he seems to love and esteem you ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball

... was available, a benignant Providence provided him with friends entirely to his taste. For the great brown hound, Punch, was surely, despite the name men had given him, a nobleman by birth and breeding. Powerful and beautifully made, the ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham

... exhibits considerable insight into his condition. It is a well known fact that in a malignant psychosis, self-knowledge does not exist, and this in part is responsible for its malignancy. On the other hand the benignant nature of a psychoneurosis may be in part attributed to the patient's appreciation of ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10

... cues. In the joy of the moment, Ben had forgotten to leave his rifle at the door, and now, with it in his left hand rested on the floor, he stood by the bedside of his strangely fated little friend, a heroic smell of gunpowder and buckskin boisterous in the air about him, and on his face a look of benignant wonderment, as he gazed down into the newly reopened eyes, whose light had so well nigh been lost in the shadows of death. Bright and clear as were the eyes turned up to his own, they were still hardly capable of more than a dreamy perception of what they looked ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady

... chums had been inspecting the progress made by the carpenters and were leaning over the new fence, then just erected, but not yet painted. Down the gravel walk of the mansion across the road came strolling its owner, silk-hatted, side-whiskered, benignant. ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln

... who, in speechless grief, Mourn'd o'er her infant's unprotected state, Benignant charity affords relief, And bids her bosom glow, with ...
— Poetic Sketches • Thomas Gent

... benignant kindling in his eyes, O happy realm! the glad Columbus cries, Far in the midland, safe from every foe, Thy arts shall flourish as thy virtues grow, To endless years thy rising fame extend, And sires ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow

... the benignant expression of his face, the tearful look of his eye, and the quiver in his voice when he deprecated a resort to retaliatory measures. 'Once begun,' said he, 'I do not know where such a measure would stop.' ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay

... executed in fine white marble. The work was so superior to the rude designs we find throughout the country that I stopped to examine it. I was amply repaid. In place of the painful-looking Christ on the Cross,—too often a mere caricature,—the image was that of the Youthful Saviour,—mild, benignant, forgiving. In his left palm, which was not extended, but held near his person, rested a globe, which he seemed to regard with a heavenly love and compassion, and the effect on me was so impressive that the words came impulsively to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various

... contrast to all these ogres, the board of education shines benignant and bland. Here is power making itself manifest in the form of young ladies, kindly of eye and speech, who take a sweet and friendly interest in the children and all that concerns them. Woman meets woman and no policeman interferes. The little ones are cared for, ...
— New Faces • Myra Kelly

... blest, whom Summer's heat, Whom Spring's impulsive stir and beat, Have taught no feverish lure; Whose Muse, benignant and serene, Still keeps his Autumn chaplet green Because his verse ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson

... woods, and winds, and waters, Till he relent, and can no more endure 25 To be a jarring and a dissonant thing, Amid this general dance and minstrelsy; But, bursting into tears, wins back his way, His angry spirit heal'd and harmoniz'd By the benignant touch of ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... to agonize, so tossed and buffeted were they by the wind. But soon the storm ceased, the sun shone on the rounded head of the willow, turning the raindrops to quickly vanishing diamonds, and the great tree breathed only a gentle and benignant peace. When, in later years, I came to know the moss-hung live-oak of the Southland, the weeping willow assumed to me a new dignity and value in the northern landscape, and I have strongly resented the attitude of a noted writer on "Art Out of Doors" who ...
— Getting Acquainted with the Trees • J. Horace McFarland

... in a whisper, in a whisper when none heareth, when the sun is low: "What doeth MANA-YOOD-SUSHAI?" Roon is no god that thou mayest worship by thy hearth, nor will he be benignant to ...
— The Gods of Pegana • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]

... the Judiciary Committee wore fresh waistcoats, pinks in their buttonholes, and a genial air—and had not the least idea of granting the suffragists anything except a benignant hearing. The report of "ought not to pass" was ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day

... attacked in his helplessness by the vermin, and he muttered a prayer in his first stride toward where he recalled the feeble light. The rats' compact column had figured in his dreams, and while they were led by the fair waltz-singer and dancer in order to devour him, unable to resist, the benignant fairy, for once dark—contrary to all precedent—wore the ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas

... upon to speak at the Harvard dinner. Had I spoken, I should like to have said: 'Men of Harvard, grandsons of that benignant mother—still young—who sits crowned with laurels, ever fresh, on the sedgy bank of Granta, think of the country from which your fathers have sprung. Go out into the world—your world of youthful endeavour and success; ...
— As We Are and As We May Be • Sir Walter Besant

... easy fertility by the impregnating sun. Upon these roofs the brothers were wont to walk, and here they sat at peaceful evening. Here, too, we strolled; and here I could not resist the temptation to lie an unheeded hour or two, soaking in the benignant February sun, above every human concern and care, looking upon a land and sea steeped in romance. The sky was blue above; but in the south horizon, in the direction of Tunis, were the prismatic colors. Why not be a monk, and lie ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... infinitely enriched and refined by responding to the beauty, the goodness, and the gladness to be found around us. In Hawthorne's story of The Great Stone Face, the boy Ernest dwelt upon and admired the character revealed in the benignant lines of the great face outlined by the hand of the Creator on the mountainside until the fine qualities which the young boy daily idealized had grown into his own life, and Ernest himself had become the "wise man" whose coming had long ...
— How to Teach Religion - Principles and Methods • George Herbert Betts

... talking and gesturing among themselves, or gazing in a kind of fixed awe, asking of the least sailor with all reverence, bowing themselves before the Admiral, the over-god. The Admiral moved richly dressed, rapt and benignant, yet sparing a part of himself to keep all order, measure, rightness on the ship, and another part to find out with keen pains, "What of other lands? What of folk who must ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston

... streams, (the northern dawn,) With meek effulgence quiver'd o'er the lawn; No star benignant shot one transient ray 440 To guide or light the wanderer on her way. Round the dark craggs the murmuring whirlwinds blow, Woods groan above, and waters roar below; As o'er the steeps with pausing foot she moves, The pitying Dryads shriek amid their groves; 445 ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin

... reciteth the Holy Name, shall Brahma and Chakra the great king bring homage, and about him shall heavenly beings and benignant deities keep watch throughout ...
— Buddhist Psalms • Shinran Shonin

... of life e'en now has met His calm benignant eye; Some ancient promise breathing yet Of immortality. Some heart's deep language which the glow Of faith unwavering gives; And every feature says 'I know That ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield



Words linked to "Benignant" :   kindly, benignity, kind, benignancy, malign, graciousness, harmless



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