Literary notes about console (AI summary)
The word "console" is deployed in literature to evoke the act of offering comfort or relief in the face of distress. In many works, characters console one another—or themselves—by seeking solace for emotional wounds, as seen when a character is advised to console themselves for past losses ([1], [2], [3]). It is used both transitively, as when one is urged to console another during moments of grief or despair ([4], [5], [6]), and reflexively, where a character turns inward to find consolation amid misfortune ([7], [8]). Occasionally, the term is applied in contexts that stretch its common emotional connotation, for instance, when it denotes a physical object or mechanism, hinting at a more modern or technical usage ([9], [10]). This varied application underscores the word’s adaptability in capturing both the deeply personal and occasional pragmatic aspects of human experience.
- “There is not much harm done, so console yourself.”
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova - With such reflections on his own superior merit, it was the custom of the old gentleman not unfrequently to console himself.
— from Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray - At one corner of the wide, low wall was a seat, and here Amy often came to read or work, or console herself with the beauty all about her.
— from Little Women; Or, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy by Louisa May Alcott - Console him, dear Isabella, and tell him I will smother my own anguish rather than add to his.”
— from The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole - He had said it without thinking, simply to console her.
— from Anna Karenina by graf Leo Tolstoy - God has sent you to me to console, at one and the same time, the man who could not be a father, and the prisoner who could not get free.”
— from The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas and Auguste Maquet - “No—I don’t; I shall try to console myself with that.
— from The Portrait of a Lady — Volume 1 by Henry James - You will be safe though not comfortable, and if you grow weary you can console yourself by thinking that you are in our minds.”
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova - Basically, xdm gives you a nice graphical login prompt on the X virtual console (probably VC 7), and you log in there.
— from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Complete by Mark Twain - This will start X and switch you to its virtual console.
— from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Complete by Mark Twain