"Unselfish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was so just, that Cimon promised to do better, and tried so hard that he soon became one of the most industrious and unselfish men ...
— The Story of the Greeks • H. A. Guerber
... debate on a Saturday! What! does he think that reporters are made of iron?" Woodfall used to tell a characteristic story of Dr. Dodd. When that miserable man was in Newgate waiting sentence of death he sent earnestly for the editor of the Morning Chronicle. Woodfall, a kind and unselfish man, instantly hurried off, expecting that Dodd wished his serious advice. In the midst of Woodfall's condolement he was stopped by the Doctor, who said he had wished to see him on quite a different subject. Knowing Woodfall's ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... sitting just where the afternoon sunshine fell over her beautiful hair like a halo. The Old Lady looked at her in a rapture of satisfied longing and thenceforth the service was blessed to her, as anything is blessed which comes through the medium of unselfish love, whether human or divine. Nay, are they not one and the same, differing in degree only, not ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... from each must be evoked a response. Only in so far as such all-round realization and response are achieved by us do we live the spiritual life. We do it perhaps in some degree, every time that we surrender to pure beauty or unselfish devotion; for then all but the most insensitive must be conscious of an unearthly touch, and hear the cadence of a heavenly melody. In these partial experiences something, as it were, of the richness of Reality overflows and is experienced by us. But it is in the wholeness of response characteristic ...
— The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day • Evelyn Underhill
... still, as she told the little girl, sorrows and troubles have to come, and till we learn to bear them and find the sweet in the bitter we are not good for much. So she encouraged Pansy to be brave and unselfish and not to make the nursery life sad and miserable on account of this misfortune. And Pansy did her best. Only she begged her mother to ...
— The Thirteen Little Black Pigs - and Other Stories • Mrs. (Mary Louisa) Molesworth
... devoted woman, who spoke of her Paul as if she were speaking of her religion, and who, knowing nothing of the life of her husband, only loving him, sacrificed herself to him in this almost cruel poverty (a strange contrast to the life of luxury Jacquemin led elsewhere), with the holy trust of her unselfish love. ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... Clodius and his bravos manfully—or had he turned his back upon Rome for ever, and shaken the dust off his feet against the ungrateful city, and become a noble pensioner upon Atticus at Buthrotum—he would have died a greater man. He wandered from place to place sheltered by friends whose unselfish loyalty marks their names with honour in that false and evil generation—Sica, and Flaccus, and Plancius—bemoaning himself like a woman,—"too blinded with tears to write", "loathing the light of day". Atticus thought he was going mad. It is not pleasant to dwell ...
— Cicero - Ancient Classics for English Readers • Rev. W. Lucas Collins
... associated with him politically, had learned to love and respect him. His opponents admired his unflinching devotion to his country, and his manly frankness and candor. He was the type of a true American, able, unselfish, prudent, unambitious, and good. Other pens will do justice to his memory, but I thought as I heard the last account of him alive, as he lay within the rebel lines, his face wearing that calm serenity which grew more beautiful ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... development of the whole nature which means the highest life. He says also that Browning is one of the most eloquent expounders of the doctrine of the reality of a future life, in which those who live a noble and unselfish life will get their reward in an existence ...
— Modern English Books of Power • George Hamlin Fitch
... rival cities and proud knights allied, had failed, the love and high influence of these noble ladies of the middle age most wonderfully succeeded. Memorable for its beneficent and permanent effects, the treaty was unique for its high and unselfish spirit of conciliation, and the final words of exhortation which stilled the waters tossed by two centuries of storm have the ...
— The Counts of Gruyere • Mrs. Reginald de Koven
... wealth, or what is called pleasure, perhaps makes people hard to each other, and infuses into the higher social life, which should be the most unselfish and enjoyable life, a certain vulgarity, similar to that noticed in well-bred tourists scrambling for the seats on top of a mountain coach. A person of refinement and sensibility and intelligence, cast into the company of the select, the country-house, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... mother know of this woman's most unselfish behaviour; to put you on the 'qui vive' for what Eustace may do now; to give you a chance to make up for your folly. Moreover to warn ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... though propagated by leaders of high intellectual power, and inspired by a pure unselfish morality, achieved little success in the enterprise of providing new and firmer guidance and support to mankind in their troubles and perplexities. But they were not content to look down from serene heights upon the world, ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... "The same unselfish, good, sterling fellow! But I understand, my friend; I know how it really is, and I shall do my duty, and stand by you; depend upon that! And this dear child, too!" she added, turning to Margaret and taking her hand affectionately. "So young, so unexperienced! and to be attempting the care ...
— Margaret Montfort • Laura E. Richards
... men and women, of all creeds and of no creed, whose lives have shown forth the glories of beautiful, helpful, unselfish, sympathetic humanity: ...
— The Old Franciscan Missions Of California • George Wharton James
... regretted, though for very different reasons. Lee was thinking that for Melissy's sake he should have made a friend of the man he hated, since it was on the cards that within a few days she might be in his power. The girl's feeling, too, was unselfish. She could not forget the deep hunger for friendship that had shone in the man's eyes. He was alone in the world, a strong man surrounded by enemies who would probably destroy him in the end. There was stirring in her heart a ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... long-digested sentiment of the whole, and to substitute in its place the opinion of individuals, than which nothing can be more uncertain?" These words were penned by Samuel Adams, and freedom never had a more unselfish advocate; they fell upon a community that was discussing in every home the gravest of political questions; and they were responded to with a prudence and order that were warmly eulogized both in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... fifteen minutes—plainly, simply, to the point, and what he had to say was that he and his friends did look on this Bill as a final settlement, which Ireland would be honourably pledged to carry out. Unselfish, straightforward, unpretentious, kindly, Mr. MacCarthy brought into more vivid contrast the personal venom—the ruthless hunger for vengeance and the humiliation of his enemies—which came out with almost painful vividness from the speech to which we had just ceased to listen. ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... money they were absolutely unselfish. Those of them who were poor, as the most of them were, toiled on without the hope of financial recompense. They did their work not only without the promise or prospect of material reward of any kind, but with the certainty of pains and penalties that included the ostracism and contempt of their ...
— The Abolitionists - Together With Personal Memories Of The Struggle For Human Rights • John F. Hume
... dedicated his young life, there were times when in almost ascetic self-abnegation he unconsciously bowed down to that stem-lipped, stony Teraph who, under the name of "Duty," sat a cowled and shrouded idol in the secret oratory of his unselfish heart. Are there not seasons when even the most orthodox wonder whether the Dii Involuti passed away for ever, with the paterae and fibulae that once rendered service in the classic shades ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... and began to speak of London smoke Then, there being a discussion about Lord Byron on the other side of the table, she spoke to me about Lady Byron, whom she knows intimately, characterizing her as a most excellent and exemplary person, high-principled, unselfish, and now devoting herself to the care of her two grandchildren,—their mother, Byron's daughter, being dead. Lady Byron, she says, writes beautiful verses. Somehow or other, all this praise, and more of the same kind, gave me an ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the sacred documents of Christianity contained all the ideals of antiquity, and that the speculative conception of ecclesiastical Christianity was the only true and right one. His character was pure, his life blameless; in his work he was not only unwearied, but also unselfish. There have been few Fathers of the Church whose life-story leaves such an impression of purity behind it as that of Origen. The atmosphere which he breathed as a Christian and as a philosopher was dangerous; ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 2 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... gladly done, Unselfish work for sickly souls When sorrow in black surges rolls And gloomy darkness hides the sun,— These in their truth make more the man Than royal aim or ...
— Oklahoma and Other Poems • Freeman E. Miller
... Alan's heart. There was no indignation at her prize being carried off by one who was a mere stranger to her. There was no doubting or disbelieving his reality as the boy's father, but only unselfish joy that Harry found ...
— Wilton School - or, Harry Campbell's Revenge • Fred E. Weatherly
... probably aware, in this sad and painful illness the only proof of unselfish affection which one can give, may be to keep away from the patient, when you know that all is being done for him that skill and devotion can suggest. The smallest agitation is almost certain to bring on a fresh attack ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates
... the community, of the citizen to the state; it set the safety of the commonwealth, as the supreme aim of conduct, above the safety of the individual whether in this world or in the world to come. Trained from infancy in this unselfish ideal, the citizens devoted their lives to the public service and were ready to lay them down for the common good; or if they shrank from the supreme sacrifice, it never occurred to them that they acted otherwise than basely ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... would shuffle round for an excuse to keep Maida; but with an immovable face he said that was for the three ladies to arrange. Of course, Maida must have wanted to be in front, but she is so horribly unselfish that she glories in sacrificing herself, so she gave up as meekly as if she had been a lady's-maid, or a dormouse, and naturally I felt a little brute; but I usually do feel a brute with Maida; she's so much better than any one I ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... the disposition is more thoroughly shown than it is in traveling. A long journey is considered by some people to be a perfect test of the temper. There are many ways in which an unselfish person will find an opportunity to be obliging. It is surprising to see how people who consider themselves kind and polite members of society can sometimes forget all their good manners in the cars, showing a ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... indulgence beyond the others. The rare qualities of that young officer showed themselves brilliantly in this frightful peril. It was due to his skill and careful management that they were not swamped a dozen times; tireless, unselfish, cheerful, unsparing of himself, without him they would have died. The men bore their sufferings, when all food and water failed them, with the sturdy resolution of British sailors; Desborough his, with the courage of the hero that he was, his fiercest pang being for the white-faced girl who ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... other babies. So he, too, tried, and at last he made the safety-pin that is in use all over the world. And though it was the father who finally made it, the thought came to him from Harrison, and his thought grew from the unselfish wish to made his baby brother comfortable. So we can truly say that it was to a little boy, and to a little boy's kind thought, that we owe the invention ...
— Dew Drops Vol. 37. No. 17, April 26, 1914 • Various
... breast. The great act of self-sacrifice, as it may almost be termed, which she was about to perform, became so diminished in her imagination, that all sense of its virtue passed away; and instead of gaining strength from a consciousness of the pure and unselfish motive by which she was actuated, she began to contemplate her conduct as the result of a rash and unjustifiable presumption on the providence of God, and a wanton exposure of the life he had given her. She felt herself tremble; her heart palpitated, and for a minute or two her whole soul ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton
... eyes were misty and his breath choked in a sorrowing gasp of manly remorse, as the winsome face of the true-hearted Justine rose up before him in this hour of lonely agony! Her devotion had touched the wayworn wanderer, and, pure and unselfish, her love had been the one bright star of all ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... A. Partridge that if even a small part of it was to come true, there lay immediately ahead a great educational campaign. Ignorance and suspicion would require to be routed. It would be difficult to convince some farmers that his motives were unselfish. Others would be opposed to the idea of a farmers' trading company in the belief that it would wreck the Association. "We must keep our organization non-partizan, non-political and non-trading" had been the slogan ...
— Deep Furrows • Hopkins Moorhouse
... clergymen about Boston, who controlled society and Harvard College, were never excelled. They proclaimed as their merit that they insisted on no doctrine, but taught, or tried to teach, the means of leading a virtuous, useful, unselfish life, which they held to be sufficient for salvation. For them, difficulties might be ignored; doubts were waste of thought; nothing exacted solution. Boston had solved the universe; or had offered and realized the best ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... quite strange at the thought that she had never seen the mother of this devoted, unselfish, affectionate, ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... involuntarily Theos thought of Niphrata, ... alas, poor maiden! how utterly her devotion to Sah-luma was wasted! What did he care for her timid tenderness, . . her unselfish worship? Nothing? ... less than nothing! He was entirely absorbed by the sovereign-peerless beauty of this wonderful High Priestess,—this witch-like weaver of spells more potent than those of Circe; and musing thereon, Theos was sorry for Niphrata, ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... influence of the Emperor was especially notable at the conclusion of the Paraguayan War, when the finances of Brazil were in an exhausted condition. Pedro II. was no autocrat; of a gentle and exceptionally unselfish character, he governed in a simple and most painstaking fashion, manifesting his patriotism ...
— South America • W. H. Koebel
... of the college. To her my salary read affluence, and in my letters I began to have difficulty to convince her that I had not grown exceedingly worldly and was not putting material comfort in the balance against unselfish and uncomplaining love. On my third biannual visit to Harlansburg I went armed with facts and figures as to house rents and flat rents, the prices of meats per pound, the cost of fuel, light, and clothing. Having in my pocket such a tabulated statement ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... selfish person shocks less, and is more easily loved, than one who is laboriously and egotistically unselfish. There is at least no fuss about the first; but the other parades his sacrifices, and so sells his favours too dear. Selfishness is calm, a force of nature; you might say the trees were selfish. But egotism is a piece of vanity; it must always take you ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp
... only made their burden more unendurable; for they comprehended to the full the knowledge of what was past, and what must come in the future unless help came quickly. They had the strength of devotion, the strength of unselfish love. ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... Morison Baynes thought upon the subject the more fully convinced he became that he was contemplating a most chivalrous and unselfish act. Europeans will better understand his point of view than Americans, poor, benighted provincials, who are denied a true appreciation of caste and of the fact that "the king can do no wrong." He did ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... entering society, and sent to comparative seclusion as regards family establishment—and now again prevented from assuming the situation that seems the natural termination of a career like my father's. Here is a noble trial—for me personally to exercise a kindly and unselfish feeling, if amid the excitements and allurements now near me, I am enabled duly to realise the bond of consanguinity and suffer with those whom Providence has ordained to suffer.' And this assuredly was no mere entry in a journal. In betrothals, marriages, deaths, on all ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... in the abstract was a kind of political millennium, in which the people collectively exhibited traits quite different from their individual components. The people, to Jefferson's mind, were unselfish, by nature good, and needing no restraining bonds. They were their own censors. His democracy in the concrete took the shape of a great uprising of the people in 1800, temporarily led astray from the true principles of self-government ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks
... of faith, And whispered in the maiden's heart, "Rise up and look from where thou art, And scatter with unselfish hands Thy freshness on the barren sands And ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... to keep back her own—she could not bear to see the change in the poor boy, who had always before seemed so full of life and spirits. And she knew that all he had done and risked had been out of his unselfish devotion to Justin. Half unconsciously her hand went into her pocket, where, safely nestling, was her little purse; but she did not draw it out, for she remembered that it only contained sixpence. Miss Mouse was a careful little person; she kept her money in a tiny ...
— Miss Mouse and Her Boys • Mrs. Molesworth
... believed—know nothing of the outrage in the studio. That piece of news which would surely be welcome to her if she understood what it implied, should rightly come to her from the woman who had been unselfish for her sake. Adela ought to tell her that. But first it was his duty to tell Adela. He must go ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... no doubt {47} too much detached to be a successful Reformer of the historical Church, and he was too little interested in external organisations to be the leader of a new sect; but he was, what he aspired to be, a sincere and unselfish contributor to the spread of the Kingdom of God, and a significant apostle ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... It is not the part of a book on etiquette to tell how to keep out of prison, or to explain that one should be honorable and should do no murder. No book or person, however, can inculcate etiquette without showing that the roots of all true courtesy lie deep in the spirit of unselfish consideration for others. To master this spirit until it becomes one's own is the best fitting one can have for social achievement. Such consideration is the touchstone by which all social customs are tried, to see whether they be worthy of perpetuation or not. It is the sure test of correct ...
— The Etiquette of To-day • Edith B. Ordway
... touches certain realities commonly outside his scope; especially the reality of the normal wife's attitude to the normal husband, an attitude which is not romantic but which is yet quite quixotic; which is insanely unselfish and yet quite cynically clear-sighted. It involves human sacrifice without in the least ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... the most evilly-disposed selfishness has to recognise this when it seeks the power to do evil; for it cannot ignore truth and yet be strong. So in order to claim the aid of truth, selfishness has to be unselfish to some extent. A band of robbers must be moral in order to hold together as a band; they may rob the whole world but not each other. To make an immoral intention successful, some of its weapons must be moral. In fact, very often it is our very moral strength which gives us most effectively the ...
— Sadhana - The Realisation of Life • Rabindranath Tagore
... matter of fact, Nikky was not altogether unselfish. He would visit the roof again, where for terrible, wonderful moments he had held Hedwig in his arms. On a pilgrimage, indeed, like that of the Crown Prince to Etzel, Nikky ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... I see the perfect reasonableness of this Restraint, soberness, the matured thought, the unselfish a act, they are necessities of the barbarous state, the life of dangers. Dourness is man's tribute to unconquered nature. But man has conquered nature now for all practical purposes—his political affairs ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... and finds—a passionately devoted mother, indeed, but also a woman in the full pride of her beauty and maturity. And this boy would condemn her—the most delightful, the most attractive, the most unselfish companion ever desired by a man—to sit in the chimney-corner like an old crone with a distaff, throughout all the years that fate may yet hold in store for her—with no greater interest in life than to watch ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture
... tears streaking her face in hot rivulets as she sat in her saddle, struck inactive by the great admiration, the boundless pride, that this unselfish deed woke in her. She never had, in her life of joyousness, experienced such a high sense of human ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... good scout must be chivalrous. That is, he should be as manly as the knights or pioneers of old. He should be unselfish. He should show courage. He must do his duty. He should show benevolence and thrift. He should be loyal to his country. He should be obedient to his parents, and show respect to those who are his superiors. He should be very courteous to women. One of his obligations is to do a good turn ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... a bit different, but the people are much the same in Kalvik and in Chicago. You will find unscrupulous men and unselfish women everywhere." ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... pauper, be he rich or poor, has the parasitic habit of mind. When we ask ourselves then, Who are the poor? we must answer that they include widely divergent types of character,—the selfish and the {12} unselfish, the noble and the mean, workers and parasites—and that, in going among them, we must be prepared to meet human beings differing often from ourselves, it may be, in trivial and external things, but ...
— Friendly Visiting among the Poor - A Handbook for Charity Workers • Mary Ellen Richmond
... story, the last, "Tannis of the Flats," the secret of Elinor Blair's spinsterhood is revealed in an episode which carries the reader from Avonlea to Saskatchewan and shows the unselfish devotion of a half-breed Indian girl. The story is both poignant and dramatic. Its one touch of humor is where Jerome Carey curses his fate in being compelled to live in that desolate land in "the picturesque language ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Robert Grostete. Perhaps the Earl himself was too affectionate: perhaps his occupation in public affairs hindered him from enforcing family discipline. At any rate, neither of the elder three could have been naturally endowed with his largeness of mind, and high unselfish views. He was a man before his age; not only deeply pious, but with a devoted feeling for justice and mercy carried into all the details of life, till his loyalty to the law overcame his loyalty to the King. Simon and Guy, on the other hand, were ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of Slowbridge," he remarked to Octavia that very afternoon. "There are some very remarkable young ladies here,—very remarkable indeed. They are interested in the church, and the poor, and the schools, and, indeed, in every thing, which is most unselfish and amiable. Young ladies have usually so much to distract their attention ...
— A Fair Barbarian • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... and the republic were restored." One thing only was wanting to complete their perfect felicity—they had no children. It was this that caused Turia to make a proposal to her husband which, coming from a truly unselfish woman, and seen in the light of Roman ideas of married life, is far from unnatural; but to us it must seem astonishing, and it filled Lucretius with horror. She urged that he should divorce her, and ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler
... as good an offering to your friends as you know how to make. Your next special occasion—for which you might have "saved" all these things—will lose nothing of value. It may rather gain fourfold, by the reflex inspiration that replenishes every unselfish outpouring of the ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... consent to an engagement between you two till Jacob had some good position." Way down in my heart there was a small voice whispering: "Well, if I loved him I wouldn't ask anybody." But the letter was a beautiful one, and after these many years I know that every word in it was prompted by true, unselfish love. I cried over it and answered it as best I could, and then after a while forgot about it and was happy as ever with my studies, my music, and plenty of dances and parties to break the routine. Jacob had gone ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... while heavy sprays pattered loudly on his oilskin coat, the seas swishing broke about his high boots; and he never took his eyes off the ship. He kept his gaze riveted upon her as a loving man watches the unselfish toil of a delicate woman upon the slender thread of whose existence is hung the whole meaning and joy of the world. We all watched her. She was beautiful and had a weakness. We loved her no less for that. We ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... him out for money; after rebuking him from the beginning she had stabbed him to the heart for a price. It was always he, Wiley, who thought of nothing but money; who was the liar, the miser, the thief. Everything that he did, no matter how unselfish, was imputed to his love of money; and yet it had remained for Virginia, the censorious and virtuous, to violate her trust for gain. It was not for revenge that she had withheld the payment and snatched a million dollars from his hand; she had told him herself that it was because Blount had ...
— Shadow Mountain • Dane Coolidge
... see him, I heard of him frequently enough, for Mrs. Purblind rarely ever met me without saying something about "Dolph," as she called him. She was exceedingly fond of him, and with good cause, for he was a most affectionate, thoughtful, unselfish brother. He was very different from her, and they were not confidential friends, when serious matters were concerned, ...
— How to Cook Husbands • Elizabeth Strong Worthington
... died, leaving Mary a widow. On Jesus, as the eldest son, the care of the mother now rested. Knowing the deep love of his heart and his wondrous gentleness, it is easy for us to understand with what unselfish devotion he cared for his mother after she was widowed. He had learned the carpenter's trade; and day after day, early and late, he wrought with his hands to provide for her wants. Very sacred must have been the friendship of mother and son in those days. Her gentleness, quietness, ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... fortune had never exceeded a fair competence, for he had not entered into politics for the purpose of making money. Naturally unselfish, he never thought of himself, but continually of others; nor was he tormented by a thirst for fame. To be a deputy was enough for him; he ...
— Ticket No. "9672" • Jules Verne
... responding to a lofty or poetic thought, or of appreciating the points of an argument, unless it were upon some such subject as the merits of a new dress or the seasoning of a pudding. But he quickly checked the rising discontent, for Fanny was so pure in heart, and so unselfish in disposition, that it was impossible not to respect as well as to love her. In short, Philip Hayforth was a fortunate man, and what is more surprising, knew himself to be so. And when, after twenty years of married life, he saw his faithful, gentle Fanny laid in her grave, he felt bereaved ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... and very still; until even in the daylight the red cigar-end grew redder in the haze. Without being conscious of the fact, he was probably doing the most unselfish thinking of his life. What the result of that thought would have been no man will ever know, for of a sudden, interrupting, Hans Becher's round ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... private loss or trial. Her philosophy of life, her faith, or her temperament seemed equal to every exigency of disappointment or suffering. She generally kept her personal trials hidden within her own heart, and recovered from every selfish pain by the elastic vigor of her power for unselfish devotion to the good of others. She said that happiness was to have an unselfish work to do, and the power ...
— The Seven Little Sisters Who Live on the Round Ball - That Floats in the Air • Jane Andrews
... not worthy to be your husband. Even had you not taken so great pains to tell me, but had been willing to wreck your life by marrying me, I should not have accepted the sacrifice. From the first, my love for you has been the one unselfish impulse of my life, and since I have almost lost hope of ever being worthy of you, I should not have permitted you to share my wretched life, even had you been willing. But for you to come to me and to give me your love, only ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... talked, these two in the garden, of their hopes and of what might be, unselfish talk of happiness that might possibly come to those they loved, and in the drawing-room Ellice Brand eyed this girl, her rival, ...
— The Imaginary Marriage • Henry St. John Cooper
... case in all periods of religious revival. The number who are rather impressed, who for a few days or weeks take to reading their Bibles or going to a new place of worship or praying or fasting or being kind and unselfish, is always enormous in relation to the people whose lives are permanently changed. The effort needed if a contemporary is to blow off the froth, ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells
... the objections to Aristotle's interpretation are equally applicable to this. Why should this "transport of sympathetic feeling" not take the form of a transport of pain? Why should the net result be "a noble emotional satisfaction?" If pity and fear remain pity and fear, whether selfish or unselfish, it doth not yet appear why they are emotionally satisfactory. The "so transformed" of the passage quoted assumes the point at issue and begs the question. That is, if this transformation of feeling does indeed take place, ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer
... consequence, but a proof, of our moral excellence. The sensibility to moral beauty, the forgetfulness of self in the admiration engendered by it, all prove its claim to a high moral influence. It is the triumph of the unselfish over the selfish part of ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... mine—a year longer. Forget me if you will; but Leo, when your heart refuses to be strangled, suffer its cry to reach me. Whatever the future may decree, you shall always be my noble ideal of exalted womanhood, my own proud, sensitive, unselfish Leo; and from the depth of my heart I wish you a pleasant tour, and a ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... is said that Sir Thomas Seymour, brother to the Protector, made a strong impression on her, and that she would have married him had the Council consented. By nature, Elizabeth was affectionate, though prudent. Her love for Seymour was uncalculating and unselfish, though he was unworthy of it. Indeed, it was her misfortune always to misplace her affections,—which is so often the case in the marriages of superior women, as if they loved the image merely which their own minds created, as Dante did when he bowed down to Beatrice. When we see intellectual ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord
... man showed early in the boy when, at only eight years of age, he became possessed of an unselfish impulse to go out and perform a feat which for one so young would have been heroic. It was reported in the castle that a dangerous hyena was prowling about in the vicinity of the estate, terrifying everybody. ...
— Lafayette • Martha Foote Crow
... forgave the harlot, and denounced bigotry in many an immortal breathing of charity; and who, even in his final agony, pardoned and prayed for his murderers! What reason is there for supposing that he who was so infinitely gentle, unselfish, forgiving, when on earth, will undergo such a fiendish metamorphosis in his exaltation and return? It is the most monstrous, the most atrocious travesty of the truth that ever was perpetrated by the superstitious ignorance and audacity of the human ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... where all knew, a tree stood, branching up to the ceiling; how blissfully happy everybody had been during the two weeks when the world becomes one in spirit and truth, and the god of good-will wields the sceptre and wears the crown! Father had been with them, dear, unselfish, great-hearted papa, whose every exertion had been to make them all happy and whose dearest hope and prayer had been that his girls might be noble, splendid women, with pure, true hearts and the ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... you away before it gets to be so bad as that. This is an old fellow-student of mine, Hazel; an odd, clever, careless, unselfish fellow, who has never got along in the world. He took to art, came to America, on account of some family troubles at home; and here he was a good deal petted in society. Now he is ill, and alone, and I fear very poor. He is at ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... ought to have cared; my scent and her goodness have been all one to you,—things to take or to leave. It was for no merit of yours that she was always planning something to make life smoother and brighter for you. What had you done to deserve it? How unselfish and generous and good she has been to you for years and years! What would have become of you without her? She left me here on purpose'—it's the geranium leaf that is speaking all the while, Margaret—'to say this to you, and to tell you that she was not half appreciated; but now ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... civilization of Mars was older than that of Earth, but it was a dying one. This was what remained of it: one city, nine hundred people. They were waiting for Earth to make contact, for a selfish reason and for an unselfish one. ...
— Earthmen Bearing Gifts • Fredric Brown
... gave a little cry of delight as he let them run in a shining stream from hollowed hand to hollowed hand, and contemplated their jingle and glitter with the delight of a new Midas. But the first thought that welled up in his heart to welcome this strange wealth was bravely unselfish. ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... expression seemed sweeter, though not, perhaps, softer. She was, however, even more fiercely Jacobite than her brother, and her devotion to "the King over the Water" (as they called King James) was far more unselfish than that of Vich Ian Vohr. Flora Mac-Ivor had been educated in a French convent, yet now she gave herself heart and soul to the good of her wild Highland clan and to the service of him whom she looked on ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... half turned to Beatrice. How kind was her simple earth-warm affection, after the star-cold transcendentalism in which he had been living! How full of comfort was her unselfish humanity, after the pitiless egoism ...
— The Worshipper of the Image • Richard Le Gallienne
... included, applauded her unselfish stand. The lady tore off a blank leaf from a letter she took from her pocket, and made it into twelve pieces, which she proceeded to distribute among ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic
... things in my time. You pick one that's full-chested, that's got a fairish-sized nose, and that likes cats. The full chest means she's healthy, the nose means she ain't finicky, and likin' cats means she's kind and honest and unselfish. Ever notice some women when a cat's around? They pretend to like 'em and say 'Nice kitty!' but you can see they're viewin' 'em with bitter hate and suspicion. If they have to stroke 'em they do it plenty gingerly and you can see 'em shudderin' inside like. It means ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... an opportunity to express publicly my appreciation of the grand, noble, and untiring work that every day is being performed by those noble and unselfish men and women, who have gathered under the Flag of The Salvation Army, loved and esteemed ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... worries, the first four or five years of my married life were the happiest in my life. Certainly I was very free from sexual desires; and the general effect of marriage was to make me economical, energetic, ambitious, and unselfish. I was certainly overworked. I seldom got to bed before 1 or 2; my meals were irregular; and I became worried and nervous. At the beginning of my fifth year of married life I got run down, and had a severe illness, and at one time ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... soon caught in the tide of a certain social movement, whose chief aim was to induce persons of culture to live among the very poorest of the poor. The leader of this movement was a man of beautifully unselfish temper, but of no striking intellectual gifts; apart from a certain originality of character, which was the fruit of this unselfish temper, he was quite commonplace in mind, and could have aspired to no higher rank in life than an honourable place ...
— The Quest of the Simple Life • William J. Dawson
... perhaps you expected. Neither Carpaccio nor I know anything about duration of life, or what the word translated 'everlasting' means. Nay, the first sign of noble trust in God and man, is to be able to act without any such hope. All the heroic deeds, all the purely unselfish passions of our existence, depend on our being able to live, if need be, through the Shadow of Death: and the daily heroism of simply brave men consists in fronting and accepting Death as such, trusting that what their Maker decrees for them ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... be hoped that the consideration of this life will aid in the development of all sterling qualities, and that women will rise from its persual with a stronger determination than ever to become unselfish, useful, and devoted. Are there not lives yet to be saved? Are there no wrecks as awful as those which are caused by ships crashing among rocks, or stranding upon dangerous sands? These are days of civilisation and culture, of ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope
... How much of hardship and suffering that means, we are thankful but few of our readers will ever know. There are a few of us who do know something of these things, and this fellowship of his suffering knits our hearts in loving memory to him who excelled us all, and the fragrance of whose name and unselfish devotion to his work met us almost everywhere, although years had passed away since James Evans had entered into his rest. "He being dead yet speaketh." To write about him and his work is a labour of love. Would that the pen of some ready writer might give us a biography of this Missionary of such ...
— By Canoe and Dog-Train • Egerton Ryerson Young
... diamonds to the Danish consul for an advance of two thousand ducats, saying she pledged her property "that in our common distress it may be rendered of real use to my uncle, his faithful servants, and myself." The Duchess's consistent and unselfish kindness procured her from the King, and those about him who knew her best, the name of ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... many thousands of spectators. The idea was to provide a decoration which might be earned by officers and soldiers alike, as it should be conferred for a single merit—the highest a soldier could possess, yet in its performance open to all—devoted, unselfish courage. Thus arose the most coveted and honourable of English orders, which confers more glory on its wearer than the jewelled star of the Order of the Garter gives distinction. In excellent keeping with the motive of the creation, the Maltese cross is of the plainest material, iron from the ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... "'She's a dear unselfish creature,' replied my father, with the credulity of a child; 'I never saw another young person just like her. She's so deep and hidden in her nature, one cannot easily read her thoughts. I wish sometimes she was more open and confiding; but she is ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... their good and evil deeds, are commended by virtuous men. Those who are just and good-natured, and endowed with virtue, who wish well of all creatures, who are steadfast in the path of virtue, and have conquered heaven, who are charitable, unselfish and of unblemished character, who succour the afflicted, and are learned and respected by all, who practise austerities, and are kind to all creatures, are commended as such by the virtuous. Those who are charitably ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... whole of what I have shown. Let each carry enough to feel self-reliant, and let the party carry enough not only for their own needs, but also for any other runner in distress whom they may come across. Ski-ing should be an unselfish sport. ...
— Ski-running • Katharine Symonds Furse
... affection, scarcely as yet meditated distinctly that he needed to draw her more closely to himself. If he had a passage to read, a page to be copied, a thought to express, was she not ever there, gentle, patient, unselfish? and scarce by the absence of a day did she let him perceive that his need of her was becoming so absolute that his hold on her must needs be ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... time to turn a new leaf—to be somebody, to accomplish something? Yes, I could make the woman who awaited me beyond the puddle of scandal—happy. I could—I must be unselfish and fine where she was concerned. The world might forgive me, it would never quite forgive her. The world would never believe that we had played the game as fairly as it can be played. There would be such talk as, "Of course ...
— We Three • Gouverneur Morris
... His individuality was so marked that, if told John Sevier was present, any stranger could have pointed him out in the most crowded assemblage. His career will read more like romance than history, but it was entirely in keeping with the man, who was altogether great, unselfish, heroic, one of those choice spirits who are now and then sent into the world to show us of what our human nature is capable. Next to the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, the coming together of those ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... Fenton said, smiling fondly. "If he once learns that the secret of being happy lies in helping others, he'll be unselfish from mere selfishness, ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... confidence of the people of North Carolina of every faction. A Marylander by birth, he came to North Carolina when quite a youth, without fortune or friends, and won his unbounded popularity by long years of unselfish, unstinted ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore
... in her step, and to me, who understood her fault only through the faint sound of infantile wailing which accompanied her departure, there was a nobility in her action which raised her in an instant to an almost ideal height of unselfish virtue. ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... she said. "I don't wish them to do things now that they will repent of afterwards. But it seems to me that if they are trained now to be unselfish, they will always be so. Don't you think, dear Mrs. Stevens, that the whole trouble with the world ...
— What Two Children Did • Charlotte E. Chittenden
... chief citizens who were left were Aristides and Themistocles, both very able men; but Aristides was perfectly high-minded, unselfish, and upright, while Themistocles cared for his own greatness more than anything else. Themistocles was so clever that his tutor had said to him when he was a child, "Boy, thou wilt never be an ordinary person; thou wilt either be a mighty blessing or a mighty curse to ...
— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge
... at last, with that mingling of selfish and unselfish motives, which is like the mixed blood of the heart itself, he had chosen the third tragedy: the silence that would at least leave each of them blameless. And so he had come finally to that high cold table-land where the sun of Love ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen
... anything else I had any knowledge of, and, in opposition to my friend's opinion, that I should have greater chances of attracting attention as a colored composer than as a white one. But I must own that I also felt stirred by an unselfish desire to voice all the joys and sorrows, the hopes and ambitions, of the American Negro, in ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson
... sometimes he knew I'd do it and he was so unselfish he wanted me to have all the fun of it instead of having it himself. I am not depriving myself of anything to speak of. We have plenty left to buy us a nice little home and a large amount to spare besides, and Danny is making a very good salary." And ...
— Mary Louise and Josie O'Gorman • Emma Speed Sampson
... was as great as her surprise. She said I was a dear, unselfish boy. Considering what I intended doing I felt decidedly mean; but I did not tell her what ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... with no idle curiosity that we listened to her; none could help feeling deeply interested in the energetic, unselfish, orphan girl. She was not beautiful, nor was she fair—she had none of those childish graces which usually attract so much attention to children of her age; her eyes were heavy and bloodshot (with work, weeping, ...
— A Lady's Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia in 1852-53. • Mrs. Charles (Ellen) Clacey
... hundred and sixty lives, he stood at his post on the wheelhouse, and succeeded in having the women and children safely transferred to the boats, remaining himself to perish with his vessel. General Sherman has characterized this grand deed of unselfish devotion as the most heroic incident in our naval history. Mrs. Arthur was a lady of the highest culture, and in the varied relations of life—wife, mother, friend—she illustrated all that gives to womanhood its highest ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 5, May, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... undeserving of the selfless devotion which Percy was showing him even now. The words of gratitude died on his lips; he knew that they would be unwelcome. These Englishmen were so devoid of sentiment, he thought, and his brother-in-law, with all his unselfish and heroic deeds, was, he felt, absolutely callous in matters ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... the manipulators at Hoffmeyer's, or by marrying number nine. You will do it honestly—I mean the marrying; for you will convince him that you love, so far as love is in you, and you will convince yourself that marriage, the end of it all, is unselfish, though prosaic. You will accept resignation with an occasional sigh, feeling that you have gone far, perhaps as far as you can go. I trust that solution will not come quickly, however, because I cannot regard it as a brilliant ending to your evolution. For you have kept yourself ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... the distractions and pleasures of town life which Mr. Calvert engaged in, he still felt those secret pangs of bitter disappointment and the fever of unsatisfied desire, but he was both too unselfish and too proud to show what he suffered. There are some of us who keep our dark thoughts and secret, hopeless longings in the background, as the maimed and diseased beggars are kept off the streets in Paris, and only let them come from their hiding-places at long intervals, ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... Cousin Adair, by GORDON ROY. The book has all the requisites of a good novel, including the perhaps rarest one of literary style. Cousin Adair is well worth knowing, and her character is skilfully portrayed. As a foil against this high-minded, pure-souled unselfish girl, there are sketched in two or three of the sort of people, men and women, more frequently met with in this wicked world. But Cousin Adair is good enough to leaven the lump. GORDON ROY is evidently a nom de plume that might belong to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 101, September 26, 1891 • Various
... spite of the past, Amelia grew up good and gentle, unselfish and considerate for others. She was unusually clever, as those who have been with the "Little People" ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... had gone to his mother's dying bed. They had all been long enough away from their own mothers to have come to feel the worth of a mother quite touchingly. Moreover, they perceived that Courtland had seen more in Wittemore than they had ever seen. He had a side, it appeared, that was wholly unselfish, almost heroic in a way. They had never suspected him of it before. His long, horse-like face, with the little light china-blue eyes always anxious and startled, appeared to their imaginations with a new appeal. When he returned they would ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... old lady's borders and ribbons mingled with pages of manuscript, and known her to put aside a poem to 'settle up' grandmamma's cap for Sunday. These were the minor duties in which she indulged; but her grandmother owed the greater part, if not the entire, of her comfort to the generous and unselfish nature of that gifted girl. Her mother I never saw: morally right in all her arrangements, she was mentally wrong,—and the darling poet of the public had no loving sympathy, no tender care from her. L. E. L. had passed through the sufferings ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... finished reading, with the utmost interest and admiration, J—— C——'s narrative of his escape from the wreck of the Poolaski: what a brave, and gallant, and unselfish soul he must be! You never read anything more thrilling, in spite of the perfect modesty of this account of his. If I can obtain his permission, and squeeze out the time, I will surely copy it for you. The quiet unassuming character of his usual manners and ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... truth but a barbarian, without wisdom, without reverence, without gentleness. He has been brought only in a vague way into communion with the conscious life of the race; he has no true conception of the dignity of souls, no sense of the beauty of modest and unselfish action. He mistakes rudeness for strength, boastfulness for ability, disrespect for independence, profanity for manliness, ...
— Education and the Higher Life • J. L. Spalding
... tender, sometimes stern, sometimes playful, sometimes eager; abounding with flashes of real genius, and yet always inclining by instinctive preference to things homely and humble; but which was always sound and unselfish and thorough, endeavouring to subject itself to the truth and will of God. To Sir John Coleridge all this was before him habitually as a whole; he could take it in, not by putting piece by piece together, but because he saw ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... other of the company cooks with the certainty of a rough welcome. If he is wise he will arrive armed with some stray piece of driftwood to add to the stock of fuel. Thus will success be assured, for Thomas of all men is the most unselfish. In the first instance, if he be a staff officer, he has probably too much to get done in a short space of time to think about his creature comforts. Then, if the ordinary channels have failed, he has probably ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... Kitty—it was Kitty, dear, gay, joyous, various Kitty, who had done this thing, thinking that he might want to sleep in the open again after his illness. Kitty—it was she who had so thoughtfully served him; Kitty, with the instinct of strong, unselfish womanhood, with the gift of the outdoor life, with the unpurchasable gift of friendship. What a girl she was! How rich she could make the life of ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... a life assurance by a working man, for the benefit of his wife and children, is an eminently unselfish act. It is a moral as well as a religious transaction. It is "providing for those of his own household." It is taking the right step towards securing the independence of his family, after he, the bread-winner, has been called away. This right investment of the pennies is the ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... one who will hold his own in life; his word had the ring of truth. Of his generosity she had innumerable proofs, and it contrasted nobly with the selfishness of young men as she knew them; she appreciated it all the more because her own frequent desire to be unselfish was so fruitless. Of awakening tenderness towards him she knew nothing, but she gave him smiles and words which might mean little or much, just for the pleasure of completing a conquest. Nor did she, in truth, then regard it as impossible that, sooner or later, she might become his wife. ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... sufficient self-reliance, which was always of service to him as a teacher and governor. He always had the good-will of his pupils, and whether with them or with his colleagues he exerted an influence above rather than below his age and standing. He was a true man, unselfish, of a decidedly social turn, of warm ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... of scientific discoverers of any age or country, and it must remain a cause of sincere and permanent regret that of all the fabulous wealth that has resulted from the advancement of electrical science, this modest and unselfish inventor should have passed hence without ever having realized any substantial reward for his great work. Not only so, but he was never awarded the appropriate acknowledgment to which he was so eminently entitled for the inestimable ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... Mrs. Dudley, smiling upon her daughter. She ate it with a double relish. She was very fond of the fruit, and she was gratified by this expression of the thoughtful, unselfish love ...
— The Nest in the Honeysuckles, and other Stories • Various
... proud spirit, such orders could be nothing short of galling. He had collected his force and everything he possessed appertaining to it at the cost of much patience, much labor, much expense. Untiring vigilance had alone made possible the formation of his brigade and an unselfish willingness to advance his own funds had alone furnished it with quartermaster and commissary stores. ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel
... the boy was extravagantly loved and spoiled. Whatever Davie's youth had missed, he strove to procure for "Little Sandy." Many an extra hour he worked for this unselfish end. Life itself became to him only an implement with which to toil for his boy's pleasure and advantage. It was a common-place existence enough, and yet through it ran ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... Many of those that knew the boy, regarded him as a sort of idiot, drawing the conclusion from Gibbie's practical honesty and his too evident love for his kind: it was incredible that a child should be poor, unselfish, loving, and not deficient in intellect! His father knew him better, yet he often quieted his conscience in regard to his education, with the reflection that not much could be done for him. Still, every now and then he would think perhaps he ought ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... of Harry's Foreign Affairs to him, reserving to herself the control of the Home Department, and, between the two, they ruled their vassal right royally. After some months' acquaintance they became the greatest friends; on Royston's side it was one of the few quite pure and unselfish feelings he had ever cherished toward one of her sex not nearly akin to him in blood. He always seemed to look on her as a very nice, but rather spoiled child, to be humored and petted to any amount, but very seldom to be reasoned with or gravely consulted. Considering her numerous ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... you not see how infinitely more to me you are already, although scarcely beyond the wish to be different from what you were? I have talked to you as a man talks to a woman in the dearest and most unselfish relation of life. There is one thing, however, you never can know, and that is a father's love for a daughter: it is essentially a man's love and a man's experience. I am sure it is very different from the affection ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... home on business of some sort," Damaris replied, as she felt a little lamely. She was displeased, worried by Henrietta. It was difficult to choose her words. "He has been away for a long time, you see. I think he has been beautifully unselfish in giving up so much ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... let's count over the riches that you've got in your character. In the back of your Handbook, Mr. Roosevelt, writing about boy scouts, named four qualities for a fine lad: unselfish, gentle, strong, brave. They're your qualities, lad dear. And you proved the last one when you took that whipping with the ropes—ah, is a boy poor when he's got the spunk in him? He is not! Well, along with those ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... are a true friend," said Walter, really moved by the unselfish devotion of the house-keeper; "but I sha'n't need it. I shall take a hundred dollars with me, and long before it is gone I shall be earning ...
— Walter Sherwood's Probation • Horatio Alger
... all this while regarding news of her parent—very unselfish, for though the trip was partly undertaken to aid Senor Ralcanto, if possible, nothing as yet had been done toward this. All efforts had been bent toward getting news of Mrs. Kimball, and Mr. and Mrs. Robinson, and Inez had said nothing. Even now, she ...
— The Motor Girls on Waters Blue - Or The Strange Cruise of The Tartar • Margaret Penrose
... grandchildren to the latest generations, inevitably love one another with that love wherewith Christ loveth us. A love unselfish, unambitious, impartial, universal,—that loves only because it is Love. Moreover, they love their enemies, even those that hate them. This we all must do to be Christian Scientists in spirit and in truth. I long, and live, to ...
— Pulpit and Press (6th Edition) • Mary Baker Eddy
... Kind soul to good men fallen on pain! Brave friend who lendest such unselfish aid! Thy greatest toil to save me was in vain, For fate would not. Thy duty now ...
— The Little Clay Cart - Mrcchakatika • (Attributed To) King Shudraka
... hands, nor show strong external signs of pleasure; but how full of a pure, unselfish joy is that low-murmured ejaculation, spoken in the depths of her spirit, as well ...
— Ten Nights in a Bar Room • T. S. Arthur
... she felt that nobody but her husband understood what she had lost in Edith, she realised for the first time his kindred to his sister. She forced herself to dwell on his many admirable qualities. He was unselfish, chivalrous, the soul of honour. On his chivalry, which touched her more nearly than his other virtues, she was disposed to put a very high interpretation. She felt that, in his way, he acknowledged her spiritual perfection, also, and ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... of God. She had not quite learned that simplest of high truths that the glory of God is the beauty of Christ's face. She had a lingering idea—a hideously frightful one, though its vagueness kept it in great measure from injuring her—that the One only good, the One only unselfish thought a great deal of himself, and looked strictly after his rights in the way of homage. Hence she thought first of devoting the splendor and richness of her voice to swell the song of some church-choir. With her notion of God and of her relation to him, how could she yet have escaped the ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... Heloise were not happier in their unselfish affection than Leo and Rosie in their love. Colors on Leo's canvas now sought each other in magic harmony. At single sittings in his studio Leo made Madonna faces, and glowing landscapes, that evoked words of warm praise from his fellow artists, who were blind ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... prescribed by imminent danger; and on the top of that twenty-four hours of solitude—a thing rare in the life he led. Result, that Sir George, picturing the girl's fate, her proud, passionate face, and her future, felt a sting at once selfish and unselfish, a pang at once generous and vicious. Perhaps at the bottom of his irritation lay the feeling that if she was to be any man's prey she might be his. But on the whole his feelings were surprisingly honest; they had their root in a better nature, that, deep sunk under the surface ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... redeem their soul from deceit and violence, and precious shall their blood be in His sight.' That is the voice that has learned: 'He that is greatest among you, let him be your servant'; and that the dominion founded on unselfish surrender for others is the only dominion that will last. Brethren! that is the spirit in which alone England will keep its ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... grew older, his influence over his people became absolute. His long life among them bore fruit in an unwavering confidence in his sound judgment and unselfish devotion. He appears to have led them in right paths; for, though probably few will be found to subscribe to their peculiar religious tenets, all their neighbors hold them in the highest esteem, as just, ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... eleventh hour, she must be the most wretched of women." He did reform! and for many years has exhibited those cheerful graces of the Christian, which, added to his naturally amiable disposition and unselfish deportment, make his three-score and tenth year seem rather the morning than the evening of a life, stretching far away into the glories ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... "new women" with derision, or mannish, or unsexed; but those who have been among them, and known them as friends, know that they hold in their ranks some of the most generous-hearted, unselfish, big-souled women to exist in England to-day; and that it is just because of that they are able to plod cheerfully on, and laugh that indulgent, pitying little laugh, when an outraged man ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... Tyburn on the 21st of April, meeting death calmly, as it appears; receiving a fate most necessary and most deserved,[698] yet claiming from us that partial respect which is due to all persons who will risk their lives in an unselfish cause. For the Nun herself, we may feel even a less qualified regret. Before her death she was permitted to speak a few words to the people, which at the distance of three centuries will ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... don't know which of you is best!" she said, taking my hand with her unbandaged one. "You are great unselfish splendid men. Will has told me all about you! The way you have always stuck to your friend Monty through thick and thin—and the way you are following him now to help these tortured people—oh, I know what you are—Will has told me, and ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... Jimmie left to her. He was setting out for the annual encampment of the Boy Scouts at Hunter's Island, and in the excitement of that adventure even the movies ceased to thrill. But Sadie also could be unselfish. With a heroism of a camp-fire maiden she made a gesture which might have been interpreted to mean ...
— The Boy Scout and Other Stories for Boys • Richard Harding Davis
... chapter from the story of Little Em'ly in David Copperfield, retold in the films. Show us Ham Peggotty and old Mr. Peggotty in colloquy over their nets. There are many powerful bronze groups to be had from these two, on to the heroic and unselfish death of Ham, rescuing his enemy ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay |
