The old gentleman had arranged his features with a view to
self-command, rather than external cheerfulness; and he entered the cottage on his visit of conciliation with the bearing of a clergyman come to announce a death.
Lady Susan, who had been shedding tears before, and showing great agitation at the idea of the meeting, received her with perfect
self-command, and without betraying the least tenderness of spirit.
To the usual precocity of the girl, she added that early experience of struggle, of conflict between the inward impulse and outward fact, which is the lot of every imaginative and passionate nature; and the years since she hammered the nails into her wooden Fetish among the worm-eaten shelves of the attic had been filled with so eager a life in the triple world of Reality, Books, and Waking Dreams, that Maggie was strangely old for her years in everything except in her entire want of that prudence and
self-command which were the qualities that made Tom manly in the midst of his intellectual boyishness.
Then, again, it would never do in plain sight of the world's riveted eyes, it would never do, I say, for this straddling captain to be seen steadying himself the slightest particle by catching hold of anything with his hands; indeed, as token of his entire, buoyant
self-command, he generally carries his hands in his trowsers' pockets; but perhaps being generally very large, heavy hands, he carries them there for ballast.
Weekes was equally chilled, but had superior sagacity and
self-command. He counteracted the tendency to drowsiness and stupor which cold produces by keeping himself in constant exercise; and seeing that the vessel was advancing, and that everything depended upon himself, he set to work to scull the boat clear of the bar, and into quiet water.
"No; only the time to ask a question." Then, turning towards the sailor, "My friend," asked he with an emotion which, in spite of all his
self-command, he could not conceal, "whose soldiers are these, pray tell me?"
Edmond preserved the most admirable
self-command, not suffering the faintest indication of a smile to escape him at the enumeration of all the benefits he would have reaped had he been able to quit the island; but as The Young Amelia had merely come to Monte Cristo to fetch him away, he embarked that same evening, and proceeded with the captain to Leghorn.
Adam, you perceive, was by no means a marvellous man, nor, properly speaking, a genius, yet I will not pretend that his was an ordinary character among workmen; and it would not be at all a safe conclusion that the next best man you may happen to see with a basket of tools over his shoulder and a paper cap on his head has the strong conscience and the strong sense, the blended susceptibility and
self-command, of our friend Adam.
I was aware also that I should often lose all
self-command, all capacity of hiding the harrowing sensations that would possess me during the progress of my unearthly occupation.
He had not the
self-command of his companion, and he feared to trust himself to speech.
To which the doctor, on one knee beside the body, busy and watchful, only rejoins without looking round: 'Now, my girl, unless you have the
self-command to be perfectly quiet, I cannot allow you to remain in the room.'
Mrs Musgrove was of a comfortable, substantial size, infinitely more fitted by nature to express good cheer and good humour, than tenderness and sentiment; and while the agitations of Anne's slender form, and pensive face, may be considered as very completely screened, Captain Wentworth should be allowed some credit for the
self-command with which he attended to her large fat sighings over the destiny of a son, whom alive nobody had cared for.