But long before his death, Hirohito had become a benign, grandfatherly figure, a symbol of national unity and continuity.

With superior qualities of mind and body, he was a benign figure who was yet gifted with sharp political acumen.

He began to cut a more benign public figure.

This benign and godlike figure disappears midway through the novel.

As the woman he ruins, Ms. Archer inexplicably softens a character who is already the play's most benign figure.

Vuillard seems to have stood in the background, a benign but rather silent figure - yet he was always there.

"And as a matter of fact people here are looking back nostalgically on Barry Goldwater as a relatively benign figure compared to this group."

When things are going well, the mother is experienced as an all benign figure.

He is remembered as a largely benign transitional figure in modern Chinese political history.

Coddled by Ko, she seems younger than her years, an adolescent struggling to find herself in a society run by apparently benign parental figures.