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More "Amiability" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... two. It is the difference between, say, the Athenaeum and the Savage. Only there is next to no caste spirit, and points of similarity or even community crop up there between the two which couldn't be here. The golden key to both is unvarying amiability. ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... as the boy approached him with a bow, "how is it that you always can succeed in preserving your amiability and politeness under all circumstances? I ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa
... Standing by the embroidery frame was Madame's only child, a boy who, in spite of his youth, was already Monsieur the Viscount. He also was beautiful. His exquisitely-cut mouth had a curl which was the inheritance of scornful generations, but which was redeemed by his soft violet eyes and by natural amiability reflected on his face. His hair was cut square across the forehead, and fell in natural curls behind. His childish figure had already been trained in the fencing school, and had gathered dignity from perpetually treading upon shallow ...
— Frances Kane's Fortune • L. T. Meade
... at their weight in gold. The 24th, Madame gave a concert, at which the Sontag sisters were heard and some stanzas of the Viscount of Castel-bajac were recited. The 25th, the city offered a ball to Mademoiselle, at which the grace of the little Princess, her tact, and her precocious amiability, excited surprise. The 9th of September, the inauguration of the monument commemorative of the victory of Henry IV. took place in the presence of Madame and her daughter. It was a column indicating ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... this faint and unintentional signal, he smote himself upon the knee, giving utterance again to his feelings of triumph, and departed, considering himself a young man of perception and ability. His amiability lasted so long that his mother congratulated him upon it, and remarked that he must have had good news, but Prescott gallantly attributed his happiness to her presence alone. She said nothing in reply, but kept her ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... Cyrus was now brought up with every honor and the greatest care, taught to hunt and ride and shoot with the bow like the highest nobles. He soon distinguished himself for his feats in horsemanship and skill in hunting wild animals, winning universal admiration, and disarming envy by his tact, amiability, and generosity, which were as marked as his intellectual brilliancy,—being altogether a model of ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord
... was listening with an interest and animation she had not shown for many days. The Innocent was holding forth, apparently with equal effect, to Mr. Oakhurst and Mother Shipton, who was actually relaxing into amiability. "Is this yer a damned picnic?" said Uncle Billy with inward scorn as he surveyed the sylvan group, the glancing firelight, and the tethered animals in the foreground. Suddenly an idea mingled with ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... Who does not remember that horrible Turk, Jacob Asdrubal, the Old Bailey barrister, the terror of witnesses, the bane of judges,—who was gall and wormwood to all opponents. It was said of him that "at home" his docile amiability was the marvel of his friends, and delight of his wife and daughters. "At home," perhaps, Mr. Daubeny might have been waved at, and have forgiven it; but men who saw the scene in the House of Commons knew that he would never forgive Mr. Gresham. As for Mr. Gresham himself, he ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... is that while Shakespeare is depicting Richard's heartlessness, he does his work badly; the traits, as I have shown, are crudely extravagant and even contradictory; but when he paints Richard's gentleness and amiability, he works like a master, every touch is infallible: he is ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... brains, he had energy, he had character. Our virtues can be our stumbling-blocks as well as our vices. Young Grindley had one admirable virtue that needs, above all others, careful controlling: he was amiability itself. Before the charm and sweetness of it, Oxford snobbishness went down. The Sauce, against the earnest counsel of its own advertisement, was forgotten; the pickles passed by. To escape the natural result ...
— Tommy and Co. • Jerome K. Jerome
... member of the audience who looked at her and listened to her coldly, was her elder sister. Before the actress of the evening had been five minutes on the stage, Norah detected, to her own indescribable astonishment, that Magdalen had audaciously individualized the feeble amiability of "Julia's" character, by seizing no less a person than herself as the model to act it by. She saw all her own little formal peculiarities of manner and movement unblushingly reproduced—and even the very tone of her voice so accurately mimicked from time to ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... amiability and openness of nature, the very characteristics that had made him strong, now make him ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... And, indeed, though not wholly insensible to the brilliant prospects opened to him in such a connection, yet, to do him justice, Mainwaring would have been equally entangled by a similar avowal from a girl more his equal in the world. It was rather from an amiability bordering upon weakness, than from any more degrading moral imperfections, that he had been betrayed into a position which neither contented his ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... are subtle casuists. The duty to the female dog is plain; but where competing duties rise, down they will sit and study them out, like Jesuit confessors. I knew another little Skye, somewhat plain in manner and appearance, but a creature compact of amiability and solid wisdom. His family going abroad for a winter, he was received for that period by an uncle in the same city. The winter over, his own family home again, and his own house (of which he was very proud) reopened, he found himself in a dilemma ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... picture there. Back in London he had to find his models in the Jewish school. He left the figures of Christ and the Virgin till the last and then painted them "from a lady of the ancient race, distinguished alike for her amiability and beauty, and a lad in one of the Jewish schools, to which the husband of the lady furnished a ...
— Pictures Every Child Should Know • Dolores Bacon
... Mr. Carmyle's manner changed for the worse. He lost his amiability. He was evidently a man who took his meals seriously and believed in treating waiters with severity. He shuddered austerely at a stain on the table-cloth, and then concentrated himself frowningly on the bill of fare. Sally, meanwhile, was establishing cosy relations with the much too friendly ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... sympathy with Franklin in his views of Christianity. He was also a man of letters. Mr. Franklin addressed a very polite note to Mr. Gibbon, sending his compliments, and soliciting the pleasure of spending the evening with him. Mr. Gibbon, who was never renowned for amiability of character, replied, in substance, we have not his ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott
... Besant, I read the following passage: "Plenty of people wish well to any good cause, but very few care to exert themselves to help it, and still fewer will risk anything in its support. 'Someone ought to do it, but why should I?' is the ever reechoed phrase of weak-kneed amiability. 'Someone ought to do it, so why not I?' is the cry of some earnest servant of man, eagerly forward springing to face some perilous duty. Between these two sentences lie whole centuries of moral evolution." True enough! and between these two sentences lie also the different destinies of ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... not hear half of what Sommers was saying on the way to the cabin. His very amiability jarred upon her nervous depression. She had always liked him, and respected his vast learning, but to-day she certainly did not get much comfort out of his converse. She wondered why she had been so light-hearted ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... still upon her. He had made his living since he was a child by his faculty for sizing people up, and at his first glimpse of Mrs. Baxter's shifting glance he had sized her up; so that now, when she remarked with an amiability at once ponderous and shaky that it was a very fine day, he replied in exactly the same tone, "It is that," and began to walk about the room looking at the pictures. Presently a low, but sweet, whistle broke from his lips. He made her feel uncommonly uncomfortable, ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller
... amidst which her little children were born, evoke our sympathy. Her goodness of heart is seen in her motherly kindness to Gyles, the young stranger of an alien race—the "little English," as she calls him. But with all her amiability and gentleness she possessed other and stronger qualities, and it was her woman's wit and readiness of resource that saved her husband's fortunes in a grave emergency. The story shall be told ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... congratulated me—and after a bit I wasn't sure whether it was on my daughter's account or on my own; and, what is more, I never knew I had so many friends in the town, let alone at Court! But in such brilliant company and such an atmosphere of praises and compliments and general amiability, one was not inclined to be particular! And there were only men present! You know—you ladies must excuse me—there is sometimes a peculiar charm in being only with men, especially on great occasions like that. Conversation becomes more pointed, more actual, more robust—and laughter more ...
— Three Comedies • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... When Sarah left her work undone, it was Rosemary who finished it for her, Rosemary who listened sympathetically to Aunt Trudy's complaints about the weather, Rosemary who coaxed Shirley into clean frocks and amiability each afternoon and tried to soothe Winnie when Sarah's side-yard menagerie insisted ...
— Rosemary • Josephine Lawrence
... made him indispensable in every company, declared that for that day he was the marquise's cavalier, a title which his sister-in-law, with her usual amiability, confirmed. Each of the huntsmen, following this example, made choice of a lady to whom to dedicate his attentions throughout the day; then, this chivalrous arrangement being completed, all present directed their course ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE GANGES—1657 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... J. Wills (who shared the fate of his leader), he appears to have been a man eminently possessed of most of the qualities that would fit him for the position he held, but apparently tempered with an amiability of disposition that led him to give way completely to the rash judgment of his superior, without striving to ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... possible for the purposes in view, which were silence and delivery over to inevitable but natural death. Thou wilt remember what thou didst with the mother and sister of the malefactor; yet, if now I yield to a desire to learn whether they be living or dead, I know, from knowing the amiability of thy nature, O my Gratus, that thou wilt pardon me as one scarcely less ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... one result was possible. The (p. 147) community were very speedily satisfied that they did not own the Point, and were equally convinced that their prospect of obtaining possession of it by clamor was far from good. Two letters, marked by anything but timidity or amiability, Cooper wrote to the Democratic newspaper of the village. In them he gave fully all the facts in the case. To the assertion paraded in many of the Whig journals of the state, that this meeting showed the spirit of the people in Cooperstown, ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... depths of the soul, and a conversation the most extraordinary that I had ever met with. She threw out, in the most facile and unpretending fashion, thoughts full of originality and humor, where wit was united with simplicity, and acuteness with amiability; and into the whole a deep truth was cast, as it were out of iron, giving to every sentence a completeness of impression which rendered it hard for the strongest, in any way, to break or rend it. In her presence, I had the conviction that a genuine human being stood before me, in ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... nothing from his Majesty. But the premier began to interest me. The more I saw of him the more he puzzled me. It was plain that all who came in contact with him both feared and loved him. He displayed a kind of passive amiability of which he seemed always conscious, which he made his forte. By what means he exacted such prompt obedience, and so completely controlled a people whom he seemed to drive with reins so loose and careless, ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... to his father. Rose Cannabich was a pupil of Mozart's, aged thirteen and very talented. "She is very sensible for her age, has a staid manner, is serious, speaks little, but when she does speak it is with grace and amiability," writes Mozart in the same letter. It is also related of Beethoven that he sometimes delineated ...
— Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as Revealed in his own Words • Friedrich Kerst and Henry Edward Krehbiel
... whom was destined afterwards to exercise so much influence over his fate. The Duke of Orleans was pleased with the vivacity and good sense of the Scottish adventurer, while the latter was no less pleased with the wit and amiability of a prince who promised to become his patron. They were often thrown into each other's society, and Law seized every opportunity to instil his financial doctrines into the mind of one whose proximity to the throne pointed him out as destined, at no very distant date, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... the tragedy, but the former was too nearly, though half unconsciously, connected with that to be a possible intimate for Aymer now. The possibility of his turning up in this casual manner, ignoring with ruthless amiability all that had passed, had really never occurred to either father or son, and they were both unprepared for a narrowly escaped crisis. But Aymer was evidently not going to own frankly how great had been the strain and how badly he had suffered under it. He set his pride to heal his bruised feelings, ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... popular. He was not the ideal Frenchman. He was a Frenchman of the epicier, or small grocer, type. As a bon pere de famille he was anxious to settle his sons well in life. They were admirable young men, they deserved good wives, and as far as grace, beauty, and amiability went, they all obtained them; but up to 1846 not one of them had made a brilliant marriage. This good fortune Louis Philippe hoped was reserved for his two younger sons,—D'Aumale ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... his scholars, and many of them are now professors of surgery and medicine in Germany, Belgium, and Austria. They all honor and admire him, his courage, his character, his humane treatment of the sick and suffering, arid his amiability. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 483, April 4, 1885 • Various
... on the 20th of June, 10th of August, 2nd of September, 3rd of May and 2nd of June, as at every critical moment of the Revolution in Paris and the provinces, habits of subordination and of amiability, stamped on a people by a provident monarchy and a time-honored civilization, have blunted in man the foresight of danger, his aggressive instinct, his independence and the faculty of depending upon himself only, the willingness to help one another and of ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... nice burrow, and then the owl, who is only a slovenly sort of architect himself, comes along and takes apartments. It has never been quite settled whether or not the lodger and the landlord agree pleasantly together, but in the absence of any positive evidence they may be given credit for perfect amiability; because nobody has found traces of owl in a dead marmot's interior, nor of marmot in an owl's. But the rattlesnake is another thing. He waits till the residence has been made perfectly comfortable, and then comes in himself; not in the ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... than that he ran Karstens close in strength, pluck, and endurance. Of the best that the mixed blood can produce, twenty-one years old and six feet tall, he took gleefully to high mountaineering, while his kindliness and invincible amiability endeared him to every member of ...
— The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) - A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest - Peak in North America • Hudson Stuck
... hardly been willing to eat any thing since her illness, was considered, both by Teddy and herself, as a remarkable proof of amiability and affection. ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... other teacher, and heard me play the first movement. It was frightfully hard, but I had studied it so much that I managed to get through with it pretty successfully. Nothing could exceed Liszt's amiability, or the trouble he gave himself, and instead of frightening me, he inspired me. Never was there such a delightful teacher! and he is the most sympathetic one I've had. You feel so free with him, and he develops ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... France a gentilhomme, of the purest source, and his rule of life, so far as it was definite, was to play the part of a gentilhomme. This, it seemed to him, was enough to occupy comfortably a young man of ordinary good parts. But all that he was he was by instinct and not by theory, and the amiability of his character was so great that certain of the aristocratic virtues, which in some aspects seem rather brittle and trenchant, acquired in his application of them an extreme geniality. In his younger years he had been suspected of low tastes, and his mother had greatly feared ...
— The American • Henry James
... than any that rest on Hunt, was far too potent a spirit for the fire within him not to burn out mere vulgarity. Leigh Hunt I fear must be allowed to be now and then merely vulgar—a Pogson of talent, of genius, of immense amiability, of rather hard luck, but still of the ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... tells a story of a young barber who fell in love with his own wax model. All day he dreamed of the impossible. She—the young lady of wax-like complexion, with her everlasting expression of dignity combined with amiability. No girl of his acquaintance could compete with her. If I remember rightly he died a bachelor, still dreaming of wax-like perfection. Perhaps it is as well we men are not handicapped to the same extent. If every hoarding, if every picture shop window, if ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome
... good in his own heart that he could not feel the ill that was in other people's natures, and his life passed as smoothly as if he were not continually subjected to petty annoyances from those about him who imposed upon his forbearance and amiability. ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... Evidently he intended to pass the night at the Priory, since they had let the trap go back to the village. She was glad that he had come, for his presence would act as a restraint upon the Girdlestones. In spite of her guardian's amiability at breakfast, she could not forget the words which he had used the morning before or the incident of the poison bottle. She was as convinced as ever that he meant mischief to her, but she had ceased to fear him. It never ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... I say, a melancholy sample of the effect produced by a kind and friendly speech from a lady. Observe, that the said speech was perfectly commonplace, and sprung, I'm sure, from the speaker's general amiability; and yet, what must I do, but go and fall in ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... as they had all taken it for granted that he would do, was that a reason why he, Gaston, whose father had lost a leg at Gravelotte, should do this masquerading German a service? All the German's amiability and originality did not change that. Perhaps, indeed, that explained the originality and amiability. The German, at any rate, did not seem to trouble himself about it. When Gaston next looked over his shoulder, ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... my favorite. He was the soul of amiability; everybody loved him; and I entertained for him the most tender friendship. His brother William was equally estimable, but did not attract you as strongly. Although a person of the highest sense of honor, and universally respected for ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... at least five followers, adventurers or clients, some distinguished by their tighter-fitting faces, signifying that they were men of commerce; others, by their unflagging and somewhat overstrained amiability, not to say sycophancy, signifying that out of the aforesaid Congressmen they expected something "fat." Of the former class the hardest type was unquestionably Jabel Blake, and the business which he had in hand with the freshly Honorable Arthur MacNair, ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... Bonfons was the hero of the little circle, where his wit, his person, his education, his amiability, were perpetually praised. One or another would remark that in seven years he had largely increased his fortune, that Bonfons brought in at least ten thousand francs a year, and was surrounded, like the other possessions of the Cruchots, by the ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... was running on this line, when a quarter of a mile from Little Deeping they came upon Tom Cobb leaning over a gate surveying a field of mangel-wurzel with vacant amiability. ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson
... get it. I know the bedroom," said the Terror with ready amiability; and he started to ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson
... position, and they never make new acquaintances without finding out what set they belong to; and I was never allowed from a little girl to make acquaintances with any children whose mothers were not in the right set; and amiability and goodness had nothing to do with ...
— A Flock of Girls and Boys • Nora Perry
... said the head porter, glistening with an amiability of which we all appreciated the balm. And we entered the carriages—Mrs. Portheris and the downcast Isabel and Mr. Mafferton in one, and momma, poppa, Dicky, and I in the other. For no American would have been safe in Mrs. ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... the whole matter is, that as all of man's and woman's peace and comfort, all their love, all their amiability, all their religion, have got to come to them, while they live in this world, through the medium of the brain,—and as black, uncleansed blood acts on the brain as a poison, and as no other than black, uncleansed blood can be got by the ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... any of the leaders of his own party in Congress, and met with open condemnation from the Stalwarts; yet he pursued his course with steadiness and equanimity, and was happy in his office. His serene amiability and hopefulness, especially in regard to affairs in the Southern states, were a source of irritation to the Stalwarts; but it was the serenity of a man who felt himself fully equal ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... is given in 1880, which is the last census made of them, as 16,637(17); and this number is believed to be gradually decreasing. Travellers who have visited them unite in testifying to their great amiability and docility. Physically they are a sturdy and well developed race. The characteristic which has been noticed in them more than any other is the abundant growth of hair. The men have a heavy and bushy head of hair and a full ...
— Japan • David Murray
... very evident you are not equally generous in surrendering the amiability of Timon, along with the depravity of Iago, to the arsenal of feminine weapons. What corroding mildew of discontent has fallen from Mrs. Parkman's velvet dress, and rusted the ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... address of Garratt Skinner. But he sat with it in front of him upon his desk for a long time before he could bring himself to use it. All the amiability had gone from his expression now that he was alone. He was in a savage mood, and every now and then a violent gesture betrayed it. But it was with himself that he was angry. He had been a fool not to keep a closer watch ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason
... expressionless, her hands were plump, her pretty face was full of amiability; age did not tell on her; the sea air itself was powerless to affect her expression of serene indifference. So far as appearances went, she might have just returned from a shopping expedition in Paris. However, she was bubbling over with affection, and the more loving her outbursts, ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... certainly to go upon it; and lest Mrs. Headley should be starting on her journey, he said he should despatch a special messenger to stay her. Giles, who had of course been longing for the splendid pageant, cheered up into great amiability, and volunteered to write to his mother, that she had best not think of coming, till he sent word to her that matters were forward. Even thus, Master Headley was somewhat insecure. He thought the dame quite capable of coming and taking possession of his house in his absence, and therefore ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... women addict themselves to vice of any kind, they carry it to extravagance, and become far worse than bad men. In like manner, when the natural softness and amiability of the Hindoo character yield to the temptations of luxury and dominion, the individual grows into a tyrant as cruel and odious as any of those depicted in history. This apparent discrepancy has given rise to many speculative mistakes; but, in our opinion, it is as certain ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 429 - Volume 17, New Series, March 20, 1852 • Various
... our hands and faces—certainly he never appeared in better health and spirits in his life. Whether he did this to atone for his former uncourteous behaviour towards us, or was urged by some unaccountable feeling of amiability as well as restlessness, I cannot say, but certain it is his gentler faculties were that night for once aroused, for this unaccustomed compliment I can safely affirm we never personally received at any former period of our acquaintance. ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... prolific, breeding even when there is no nectar to gather, and they often gather when other bees are idle. I have this fall secured from Mr. Frank Benton a Carniolan queen, and shall try crossing the Carniolans with the Syrians. Perhaps we can thus secure a strain with the amiability of the Carniolan, and the business of ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 1, January 5, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... brotherly love which it was their part to do; not out of hardness of heart, but merely from soured temper, and because, when people have met disappointment and have settled down into final unhappiness, with no more gush and spring of good spirits, there is nothing any more to create amiability out of. ...
— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... sire," said Duroc, "who would be an ornament to any throne, and whose grace, amiability, and kind-heartedness, have won as many subjects for your majesty as your battles. Sire, all France loves and worships the Empress Josephine; all France would weep with her if her enemies succeed in removing her from her throne, and from the side of ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... the little town of Luca, he felt that indescribable sense of a welcoming in the mere outward appearance of things, which seems to mark out certain places for the special purpose of evening rest, and gives them always a peculiar amiability in retrospect. Under the deepening twilight, the rough-tiled roofs seem to huddle together side by side, like one continuous shelter over the whole township, spread low and broad above the snug sleeping-rooms within; ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater
... of Washington's Birthday lingered with Emma; the General, restored to health and amiability, was no longer such a care, and she found time once more to spend in that haven ...
— The Spectacle Man - A Story of the Missing Bridge • Mary F. Leonard
... with decision. "You must give me credit for a great private store of amiability, if you imagine that I am satisfied to take things as they now ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... was melting with amiability, and she observed the miraculously healed girl with the fondest of eyes. Then she impulsively called her husband, who was passing: "Look, my ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... exquisitely said that Lark was quite restored to amiability by it. "In embryo," had been added to her vocabulary that very day in the biology class. It was only the sheerest good fortune which gave her the opportunity of utilizing it so soon. And Carol said "Ouch!" with such whole-souled admiration that Lark's spirit soared among ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston
... Winifred make so rude a speech before. But, to my surprise, it seemed to develop an unsuspected amiability ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... we gather of Joan's early years proves her nature to have been a compound of love and goodness. Every trait recorded of the little maid's life at home which has come down to us reveals a mixture of amiability, unselfishness, and charity. From her earliest years she loved to help the weak and poor: she was known, when there was no room for the weary wayfarer to pass the night in her parents' house, to give up her bed to them, and to sleep on ...
— Joan of Arc • Ronald Sutherland Gower
... world. No novelist has more deeply imbued his work with his own genius and spirit, and none have had a more beneficent genius, nor a more beautiful spirit to impart than the author of "The Deserted Village." The exquisite style, the delicate choice of words, the amiability of sentiment, so peculiarly his own, and so well suited to express the simple beauty of his thoughts, give a charm to the work which familiarity can only endear. Dr. Primrose, preserving his simplicity, ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... grateful to God for His great mercy as I did this morning, on reading of dear Jem's danger and safety. He is less accustomed to talk about his feelings than I am, in which I see his superiority, but partly because our tastes are in several respects different, chiefly because of his exceeding amiability and unselfishness. I am sure we love each other very dearly. Ever since his illness at Geneva, I have from time to time contemplated the utter blank, the real feeling of loss, which anything happening to him would bring with it, and the having ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... "Howld yer tongues!" "May the divil ate yez! but the best of yez hashn't the manners of a pig!" Amid such pleasant ebullitions of Celtic amiability, PUNCHINELLO succeeded in carving his way to the door, when it suddenly opened, and a tall, lean, cadaverous man, who looked like the ghost of some Fenian leader, bawled at the top of ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 13, June 25, 1870 • Various
... time this young man has been introduced, we will briefly describe him. He was of medium size, well knit and vigorous, with a broad forehead, blue eyes, and an intelligent and winning countenance. He might have been suspected of too great amiability and gentleness, but for a firm expression about the mouth, and an indefinable air of manliness, which indicated that it would not do to go too far with him. There was a point, as all his friends knew, where his forbearance ...
— The Young Explorer • Horatio Alger
... the liveliest little men I ever met. I feel almost guilty of a fraud with regard to him, for his amiability towards me was due in great part to his belief of my statement that I was going to Egypt; yet I never went there, and shall certainly not go now. My only excuse is that I sincerely believed the same statement ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... seemed that his son had grown. 'More of a man altogether,' was his comment. Over the natural amiability of that son's face had come a rather sardonic mask, as though he had found in the circumstances of his life the necessity for armour. The features were certainly those of a Forsyte, but the expression ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... being hurried about from shop to shop. If he had not been the most angelic bishop in England he would have revolted; but as he was anxious that his wife should have no cause of complaint, he exhausted himself with the utmost amiability. But the longest lane has a turning, and the day came when Mrs Pendle and Lucy, attended by the dazed Harry, left for Nauheim via Queenborough, Flushing and Cologne. Mrs Pendle declared, as the train moved away, that she was thoroughly exhausted, which statement the bishop quite ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... opinion of his great worth." Grant wrote to McPherson's aged grandmother: "The nation had more to expect from him than from almost any one living." He wished to express the grief of personal love for the departed, and he testified to "his zeal, his great, almost unequaled ability, his amiability, and all the manly virtues that can ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... stopped again, on his way back to the railroad. Billy Louise was so anxious that she smothered her dislike and treated him nicely, which thawed the man to an alarming amiability. She questioned him artfully—trust Billy Louise for that!—and she decided that the stock inspector was either a very poor detective or a very good actor. He did not, for instance, mention any ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... correspondence: or sometimes she was designated by the title of the 'Irish Witch.' As for me, I was denominated 'my gaoler,' 'my tyrant,' 'the dark spirit which has obtained the mastery over my being,' and so on; in terms always complimentary to my power, however little they might be so to my amiability. Here is another extract from her 'Prison Diary,' by which it will be seen that my Lady, although she pretended to be so indifferent to my goings on, had a sharp woman's eye, and could be ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of the table the genial Mr. Jennings Bryan presided as host, his broad countenance beaming with amiability, and a tall flagon of grape juice standing beside his hand. A little further down the table one saw the benevolent head and placid physiognomy of Mr. Norman Angell, bowed forward as if in deep calculation. ...
— Further Foolishness • Stephen Leacock
... channel. She dreaded her husband in his black rages, but she feared him more now in his unusual amiability. Perhaps he would strike Tobey when he saw him. She ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... had a stock of names for his servant, none of which he employed unless he felt in a good humour. Owl-pig, hog-mouse, ape-dog, rat-weasel, and cat-fish were the highest expressions of his amiability toward the man who had been his ill-tempered, dishonest, impudent, and treacherous attendant all the years of ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... judge said, now all amiability; "don't forget I'm always at your service in this affair. I see now that you might have preferred to question Webster alone, in the music room; but my confidence in his innocence blinded me to the fact that you could regard him as actually guilty. I expected nothing ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay
... His amiability was immediately restored, but his gaiety was somewhat forced. "You are looking charming this morning, Miss Ogden. I wished last night that there was a guitar or even a banjo in the camp, that I might ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... stood there affable and smiling, endeavouring to put a handful of awkward girls at their ease. But neither his nor Mrs. Strachey's efforts availed. It was impossible for the pupils to throw off, at will, the crippling fear that governed their relations with the Principal. To them, his amiability resembled the antics of an uncertain-tempered elephant, with which you could never feel safe.— Besides on this occasion it was a young batch, and of particularly mixed stations. And so a dozen girls, from twelve to fifteen years old, sat on the extreme edges of ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... is called by this name, because she is such a gentle Goddess, and so willing (ethelemon) to grant our requests; or her name may be Letho, as she is often called by strangers—they seem to imply by it her amiability, and her smooth and easy-going way of behaving. Artemis is named from her healthy (artemes), well-ordered nature, and because of her love of virginity, perhaps because she is a proficient in virtue (arete), and perhaps also as hating intercourse of the sexes (ton aroton misesasa). He ...
— Cratylus • Plato
... agree with the children of the long-ago in admiring Frithiof's bravery and faithfulness and Ingeborg's amiability and constancy, probably we are most interested in the story because of the many adventures that it contains. How many of the bold deeds of Frithiof can you recall without turning to the story? If you can remember all of them you are surely doing well. Can you name these deeds in just the order ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... his personal amiability, enthusiasm, and lucid intelligence, interested a number of disciples who have studied his language called the Alwato, and it may be hoped will not allow it to disappear with the life of its highly gifted and ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887 - Volume 1, Number 7 • Various
... a long while with the vicequeen, whose intelligence equaled her amiability and her beauty, but returned to Milan to dine; and immediately afterwards the ladies who were received at court were presented to him. In the evening, I followed his Majesty to the theater of la ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... table, she sank down into the chair, completely overcome by sorrow and indignation. "You'll be old yerself some day," she sobbed, not noticing that he was stealthily edging toward the door, one eye on her, one on to-morrow's pot-roast. "I tell yew, Tommy," regaining her accustomed confiding amiability, as she lifted the corner of her apron to wipe her eyes, "Miss Ellie will feel some kind o' bad, tew. Yer know me an' her an' Angy all went ter school tergether, although Miss Ellie is so much younger 'n the rest o' us that we call her the baby. ...
— Old Lady Number 31 • Louise Forsslund
... his grace and amiability, had the passionate nature of old France; his instincts were primitive and simple; he longed, and his longing had become irresistible, to send a villain out of the world. Perhaps, too, in Ratoneau's overbearing swagger, he saw and felt an incarnation of that Empire which had crushed ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... Amboise won my heart, he was so supernaturally lively, and so full of hurried amiability. A ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... knew that he who had been quite mad was now quite sane. . . . Would he like to be rid of her? Did he regret that they were tied together? No, curiously enough. It was high time he got married; she would do as well as another. She had beauty, youth, amiability, physical charm for him. There was advantage in the fact that her inferiority to him, her dependence on him, would enable him to take as much or as little of her as he might feel disposed, to treat her as ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... when, by way of exception, it requires something pleasant. But how grave you look, sir. No offence! You are one of the rare specimens of featherless birds endowed with reason, who unite to the austerity of Cato the amiability of Titus." ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... few minutes previous to John. They were so much alike that it was difficult to distinguish them when apart. John was just a shade lighter in complexion than Tommy, and Tommy overtopped his brother by something like an inch. The twins were so small as to seem insignificant; but their meek amiability was an efficient set off against their physical deficiencies. If there was any measure of self-assertiveness between them, it belonged chiefly to Tommy. Though both the little men were kind to Marian, Tommy was her especial friend; and it was ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... to a family who were eminent for their intelligence, and religious and moral worth. The circumstances of her early life and education are unknown to the writer of this sketch, but must have been such as to develop that purity of mind and manners, that sweetness and amiability of temper, that ready sympathy and disinterestedness of purpose and conduct, which, together with rare conversational and musical powers, she possessed ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... for my favourite, I might say, my only study, is man. I found these gentlemen much what I had anticipated, for this was not the first time that I had visited an English—establishment in a foreign land. They were full of amiability and courtesy to their heretic countryman, and though the advancement of their religion was with them an object of paramount importance, I soon found that, with ludicrous inconsistency, they cherished, to a wonderful degree, national prejudices ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... during his Presidential term. To play an intensely exciting game strictly in accordance with rigid moral rules of the player's own arbitrary enforcement, and which are utterly repudiated by a less scrupulous antagonist, can hardly tend to promote contentment and amiability. Neither are slanders and falsehoods mollifying applications to a statesman inspired with an upright and noble ambition. Mr. Adams bore such assaults, ranging from the charge of having corruptly bought the Presidency ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... Mrs. Smith," said Mrs. Goldsborough, smiling cordially, for she was a fond mother, and also was full of courtesy and amiability; "it will be an unexpected compliment to Julia. She will be flattered that your partiality for her is as warm as ever. We have no engagements for the first of next week. The parties with which my friends will try to spoil Julia do not ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... pleasantly, as her experience in diplomatic life is very useful to me. . . . Her manners are very pleasing and entirely unaffected. She has great tact and quickness of perception, great intelligence and amiability and is altogether extremely well-fitted for the ROLE she plays in life. Her husband is charming. . . . They have three children, very lovely. The eldest, Victor, a fine boy of seven years old, Victoria, a girl of four, for whom the Queen was sponsor, and ...
— Letters from England 1846-1849 • Elizabeth Davis Bancroft (Mrs. George Bancroft)
... quest of some object that was trying to elude his sight; at one moment listless, silent, and dejected, and again animated, almost gay, like one who, ashamed of an exhibition of moody temper, tries to atone by extraordinary efforts of amiability for the error. His intimate friends had some knowledge of these changes, and to Faith, above all, living with him in the same house, and in the tender relation of a daughter to a parent, each of whom idolized the other, they were painfully apparent, ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... minister looked puzzled, but presently answered, "Possibly we may have called attention to some neglected truths; but, after all, I fear we must go to the old school, if we want to get at the root of the matter. I know there is an outward amiability about many young persons, some young girls especially, that seems like genuine goodness; but I have been disposed of late to lean toward your view, that these human affections, as we see them in our children,—ours, I ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... laid her hand on Mrs. Roby's arm. "We must not forget," she said with a frigid amiability, "that absorbing as Xingu is to us, it ...
— Xingu - 1916 • Edith Wharton
... great degree of cultivation and politeness; although they are perfectly freezing in their manners before formal introduction, I do not doubt that there are many among them of great refinement and powers of intellect, their personal appearance being also consonant with their known amiability. ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... less to be beloved because at times his amiability prevents him from attacking even our somnolence too fiercely. If the casual reader but remember Browne as a poet who had the honor to supply Keats with inspiration,[A] there will always be others, and enough of them, to prize his ambling Muse ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... to minimize the faults of their heroes has always been the besetting sin of biographers. The pomp and picturesque circumstance of the Spanish court, the splendid administrative abilities of Ferdinand, the beauty, amiability, and devoted piety of Isabella, are depicted in glowing colors, but the crimes and cruelties which they sanctioned, while condemned upon one page, are softly extenuated upon others. Columbus appears as a romantic figure in history, the glory of ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... Edward, in a fit of unwonted amiability, had deigned to carve me out a turnip lantern, an art-and-craft he was peculiarly deft in; and Harold, as the interior of the turnip flew out in scented fragments under the hollowing knife, had eaten largely thereof: regarding all such jetsam as his special perquisite. ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... chateau until it had ripened into a close intimacy. And if I was attracted toward your mother in the first instance by her beauty, I was still more powerfully attracted afterwards by her many accomplishments, and above all by the gentleness and amiability of disposition, the charming innocence and truth, and the unsophisticated ingenuousness of character which I thought I had discovered in her. It was with a feeling of indescribable pleasure and exultation that I was soon able to detect ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... were among the most interesting pupils, were called to severe trials. One of them left in 1866, but the other remained, and was the best scholar in the school. Both possessed more than ordinary intelligence and amiability, and for more than two years had been heartily devoted to Christ. "The younger who had left the school," says the report of the mission, "was taken, a few days since, into a room where many of her relatives and a priest had assembled, to extort from her a renunciation of her faith, ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume II. • Rufus Anderson
... foreign sympathies, and hated by a sullen, starving populace for her extravagance and her pursuit of pleasure, the Austrian Princess with all her young loveliness and the sweetness of her nature could please no one in the land of her exile. Her very amiability was an offence; her unaffected simplicity a subject of scorn; and her love of ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... stopped nodding, and the amiability of his face began to cloud over. He sat up very suddenly and spread his plump hands on ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... the doorway fell back to let this distinguished couple pass, and some of us stood on tiptoe to get a glimpse of them; for San Silvestro is a man of no small importance in the political and diplomatic world, and his wife enjoys quite a European fame for beauty and amiability, having had opportunities of displaying both these attractive gifts at the several courts where she has acted as Italian ambassadress. They made their way quickly up the long room,—she short, rather ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various
... spiritual pastor of his estates. The churches he built for his peasants were consecrated by Eusebius, whose mild doctrine and kindly influence persuaded many laborers and slaves to be baptized and to join his flock of disciples. But the example and amiability of their young mistress was even more effectual than his preaching. Men and women, slaves and free, all adored and respected her; to imitate her in all she did could only lead to honor and happiness, could only be right and good and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... other name—Hoche was the hero of all his thoughts—his gallantry, his daring, his military knowledge, his coolness in danger, his impetuosity in attack, his personal amiability, the mild gentleness of his manner, were themes the young soldier loved to dwell on; and however pressed by me to talk of war and its chances, he inevitably came back to ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... you'd stop pesterin' the child, Amos," she said, inspired less by the softness of amiability than by the genius of opposition. "I don't see how you can be everlastingly doin' ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... little, but he thought a great deal for a few minutes about how much better it would have been if Sam Hardock had treated Dinass with a little more amiability. He quite forgot all about the matter for three days, and then he had fresh news, for Sam Hardock came to him ...
— Sappers and Miners - The Flood beneath the Sea • George Manville Fenn
... was brief in its telling. And it brought no explanation of the sudden amiability displayed by the crooked-faced Rodaine. They went on, striving vainly for a reason, at last to stop in front of the post-office, as the postmaster ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... less hopeful after this effort in that her companion only showed a strange good nature. And it wasn't a satiric amiability, though it WAS amusement. "Take Mrs. Medwin ...
— Some Short Stories • Henry James
... was proud of being an Englishman. A Frenchman once said to him, with what he thought was refined politeness and amiability: ...
— The English at the North Pole - Part I of the Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... considered as spiritual beings, to a kind of negative existence. All these things I did not perceive till long afterwards; but I even then felt, though without stating it clearly to myself, the contrast between the frank sociability and amiability of French personal intercourse, and the English mode of existence, in which everybody acts as if everybody else (with few, or no exceptions) was either an enemy or a bore. In France, it is true, the bad as well as the good points, both of individual ...
— Autobiography • John Stuart Mill
... were together Jean-Christophe was surprised at Minna's amiability. She gave him "Good-day," and asked him how he was in a very soft voice; she sat at the piano, looking wise and modest; she was an angel of docility. There were none of her naughty schoolgirl's ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... more than the protection thus afforded by the bishop, did the unalterable humility and amiability of Father Vianney bring these opponents to reason. In the course of a few years this noble character ceased to have any enemies among the clergy. Laymen likewise stopped their calumnies, even if they did not cease ...
— The Life of Blessed John B. Marie Vianney, Cur of Ars • Anonymous
... the man I spoke of is a particular friend of mine, and I know him to be as kind-hearted as a woman. His wife's amiability and good temper are proverbial. Do let me speak a good word for your son; I'm sure you will ...
— Lizzy Glenn - or, The Trials of a Seamstress • T. S. Arthur
... carved pipe; the bailiff, a scoffer, dressed invariably in black, scorned for his inelegant habit of carrying off what remained of his sugar; the town-clerk, the gentleman of acrostics, a person of much amiability and a feeble constitution, who sent to the illustrated journals solutions of enigmas and rebuses; and, lastly, the veterinary surgeon of the place, the only one who, from his position of atheist and democrat, was allowed to contradict ...
— Ten Tales • Francois Coppee
... rose on the following morning and this oddly assorted traveling party met to discuss the day's plans, each was so rested and refreshed that an abnormal amiability pervaded the whole group. ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond
... I went into her room, I met an Italian painter with her. She spoke Italian with him, and although he was evidently more artisan than artist, she addressed him with such amiability and modesty, with such respect even, one could not avoid recognizing that nobility of soul which is the true nobility of birth. When the painter had taken his leave, she said to me: "I wish to show you a picture which ...
— Memories • Max Muller
... said Rose, with restored amiability. "Of course I am sorry for poor little Dinah; ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... bent of his inclinations, which led him at all times to exhibit a mild, amiable, and gentle aspect,—except, of course, when he was roused. As occasion for being roused was not wanting in the South Seas in those days, Jo's amiability was frequently put to the test. He sojourned, while there, in a condition of alternate calm and storm; but riotous joviality ran, like a rich vein, through all his checkered life, and lit up its most somber phases like gleams of light on ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... counted noses, so to say. As one after the other arrived and was ushered into the huge drawing-room, he or she was accorded a congratulatory look from those already assembled, a tribute returned with equal amiability. Each one noted who else was there, and each one said to himself that at last they really had something all to themselves. It was truly a pleasure, a relief, to be able to do something without being pushed about by people who didn't belong but thought they did. ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... at her sharply; suddenly suspecting that his auditor was not perfectly sympathetic. She smiled a little at the images passing through her mind, and Leonard, taking her remark for badinage, allowed his own features to relax to their original amiability. ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... when he reached camp, and he found Doctor Worth waiting his arrival. Fortunately there was nothing but good news for the doctor. Luis had seen everything through the medium of his own happiness, and he described the midnight meal and the Senora's amiability with the utmost freedom from anything unpleasant. Rachela's interference he treated with scornful indifference; and yet it affected Worth's mind unpleasantly. For it went straight to the source of offence. "She must have had Fray Ignatius behind her. And my poor Maria, she will be ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... privy adviser to win Clotilde, Lucien found the courage of the parvenu; he came to the house five days in the week, he swallowed all the affronts of the envious, he endured impertinent looks, and answered irony with wit. His persistency, the charm of his manners, and his amiability, at last neutralized opposition and reduced obstacles. He was still in the highest favor with Madame de Maufrigneuse, whose ardent letters, written under the influence of her passion, were preserved by Carlos Herrera; he was idolized by Madame de Serizy, and ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... uncompromisingly red, of such an obstinate and determined red, that his mother often said, "Come here, Dunham, dear, and light up this corner of the room with your sunny locks. It is too dark to see how to thread my needle!" Such was his amiability that I am sure he enjoyed it, for he always went promptly, and called her "Mon amour," and slyly kissed her when he thought we ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell
... believing me to be a poor and humble individual; and you have consented to become my wife and abandon home and kindred for my sake. Profoundly then do I rejoice that it is in my power to elevate you to a position of which your beauty, your amiability and your virtue render you so eminently worthy; and in my own native Florence, no lady will be more courted, nor treated with greater distinction than ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... a toilsome troubled morning we came, rather cross from the strain of sustained amiability, to Sir Graham Rivers' house. It seemed all softness and quiet—I recall dead white panelling and oval mirrors horizontally set and a marble fireplace between white marble-blind Homer and marble-blind Virgil, very grave and fine—and how Isabel came ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... credulity to fancy he will not marry. But, if he were safe, I should not so much fear Douglas." The younger, Douglas, was a man whom some people would have called plain. But the dark sallow face, with its irregular features, was illuminated by an expression of mingled intelligence and amiability, which possessed a charm for all ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... seniors—those who knew every shift and change in the perplexing postal arrangements, the value of the seediest, weediest Egyptian garron offered for sale in Cairo or Alexandria, who could talk a telegraph-clerk into amiability and soothe the ruffled vanity of a newly appointed staff-officer when press regulations became burdensome—was the man in the flannel shirt, the black-browed Torpenhow. He represented the Central Southern Syndicate ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... notwithstanding the severe strain of the county families. There was his clear complexion indicating the continued health resulting from a well-spent life. His almost angelic features were beautiful rather in the amiability of their expression than in their loveliness of form. Anyone looking at him for the first time must exclaim, "Dear me, what ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... meet you, Chev," volunteered Eph, with suspicious amiability, holding out his hand, which the Frenchman took daintily. "I'm a 'shoveleer' myself, and this awkward, gawky looking boy with me ...
— The Submarine Boys for the Flag - Deeding Their Lives to Uncle Sam • Victor G. Durham
... the foundation of art in moral character. Of course art-gift and amiability of disposition are two different things; for a good man is not necessarily a painter, nor does an eye for color necessarily imply an honest mind. But great art implies the union of both powers; it is the expression, by an art-gift, of a pure ...
— The Queen of the Air • John Ruskin
... that by this time, Mrs. Burton, whose amiability was never her strong point, was in as bad a temper as her antagonist, she had to confess to herself that in Miss Patricia's last speech the ...
— The Campfire Girls on the Field of Honor • Margaret Vandercook
... the dog that had done it all, 'Tommy', the great, idiotic mongrel retriever, came slobbering round Dave and lashing his legs with his tail, and trotted home after him, smiling his broadest, longest, and reddest smile of amiability, and apparently satisfied for one afternoon with the fun ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... "believed in immigration," and so did Thea believe in it. This earth seemed to her young and fresh and kindly, a place where refugees from old, sad countries were given another chance. The mere absence of rocks gave the soil a kind of amiability and generosity, and the absence of natural boundaries gave the spirit a wider range. Wire fences might mark the end of a man's pasture, but they could not shut in his thoughts as mountains and forests ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... the transition as it actually exists to the Buddhistic Quietism which has covered the rocky heights of Thibet with countless cloisters, and reared the people who are dependent upon it into a childlike amiability, into a contented repose. Art and Science have here no value in themselves, and are regarded only as ministering to religion. To be able to read in order to mutter over the prayers is desirable. With the premeditated effort in the state of a monk to reduce self ...
— Pedagogics as a System • Karl Rosenkranz
... the minister felt that his candidate, Jacquier—of l'Oise—was defeated in advance by Warcolier. Granet must have laid siege to the ministers one by one. The President was entirely in Warcolier's favor. Warcolier's amiability, tact, the extraordinary facility with which he threw overboard previous opinions, were so many claims in his favor. It was necessary to give pledges to new converts, to prove that the government ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... direction he was looking. She was still too lethargic for curiosity; and she found a kind of dreamy content in lying with her eyes upon the Etheling's handsome face. Though its prevailing characteristic was the easy amiability of one who has known little of opposition or dislike, there was no lack of steel in the blue eyes or of iron in the square chin; now and then a spark betrayed them, thrilling pleasantly ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... in its highest degree the sister of goodness. Suffering and amiability may exist together, and writers have loved to depict their conjunction; there is a human and touching harmony in the picture. But perfect happiness is an attribute of angels; and those who possess it, appear angelic. Fear has been said to be the parent of religion: even of that religion is ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... end of the table, was doing his utmost to render himself agreeable, and by the extraordinary means of rolling out anecdote after anecdote that told against the Scotch character. The Mackenzies, the Murrays, the MacDonalds, the McQueens, looked black as thunder, and Stisted's amiability gave even more offence than Burton's ill-temper. Noticing that something was amiss opposite him, Burton stopped his own talk to listen. Then Stisted's innocence and the ludicrousness of the whole scene dawned upon him, and leaning back ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... to be, and never had any. Henrietta, if she were alive, could testify that it there is a defect in my relations with women, it arises from my excessive amiability. I could not refuse a woman anything she had set her heart upon—except my hand in marriage. As long as your sex are content to stop short of that they can do as they ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... meeting a fervid heart beneath a numbered button and a cultured intellect beneath a white forage-cap. These ladies are very charming, and long continue to be charming. Each year their adorers are exchanged for new ones, and in that very fact, it may be, lies the secret of their unwearying amiability. ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... thing is that while Shakespeare is depicting Richard's heartlessness, he does his work badly; the traits, as I have shown, are crudely extravagant and even contradictory; but when he paints Richard's gentleness and amiability, he works like a master, every touch is infallible: he is ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... course he could not have expressed all this as the prince did, still clearly entered into it and was greatly conciliated, as was evident from the increased amiability of his expression. "If you are really very anxious for a smoke," he remarked, "I think it might possibly be managed, if you are very quick about it. You see they might come out and inquire for you, and you wouldn't be on the spot. You see that door there? Go in there ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... whatever, could bring earls into their nets, there was no reason why Nora could not be a princess or a duchess. So she planned accordingly. But the child puzzled and eluded her; and from time to time she discovered a disquieting strength of character behind a disarming amiability. Ever since Nora had returned home by way of the Orient, the mother had recognized a subtle change, so subtle that she never had an opportunity of alluding to it verbally. Perhaps the fault lay at her own door. She should never have permitted Nora to come ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... buckboard, with one of the stablemen to drive her. The landlord put her neat bundle under the seat of the buckboard with his own hand. There was something in the child's bearing, her dignity and her amiability, which made people offer her, half in fun, and half in earnest, the deference paid to age ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... by leniency born of a fellow-feeling. At his best he is "a clever, good-for-nothing fellow." The shortcomings of this presumptively primitive type of character are weakness, inefficiency, lack of initiative and ingenuity, and a yielding and indolent amiability, together with a lively but inconsequential animistic sense. Along with these traits go certain others which have some value for the collective life process, in the sense that they further the facility ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... fact is that the Goody, anxious to invest herself with an appearance of forbearance towards the frivolities of youth, readiness to forego (from amiability) any share in the conversation, insight into the rapports of others (especially male and female rapports), and general superiority to human weakness, had endeavoured to express all these things by laying down her knitting, folding her hands on her circumference, and looking as if she knew ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... very angry, and yet there was a sparkle of something like amusement in her eyes. Having bowed to Tussie Fritzing sat down again with the elaboration of one who means to stay a long while. During his walk from the farm he had made up his mind to be of a most winning amiability and patience, blended with a determination that nothing should shake. At the door, it is true, he had been stirred to petulance by the foolish face and utterances of the footman James, but during the whole of the time he had been alone ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... away at once with so many qualities with one fell swoop, that one can hardly tell what is left. It puts amiability out of the question, and unselfishness and cheerfulness, and—and tact, and everything which makes us care for a person or not. When they are gone, what ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... the less hopeful after this effort in that her companion only showed a strange good nature. And it wasn't a satiric amiability, though it WAS amusement. "Take Mrs. ...
— Some Short Stories • Henry James
... that we were so; and lastly appeared a Mr. W———, a merchant in Manchester, and a very intelligent man; and the party was then complete. Mr. Swain, the poet, is not a man of fluent conversation; he said, indeed, very little, but gave me the impression of amiability and simplicity of ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... these Newport ladies by winning, do you? Not I, my boy. I plan too far ahead for that. For the good of our cause it is my task to lose steadily and with good grace. This establishes my credit, proves my amiability, ...
— Mrs. Raffles - Being the Adventures of an Amateur Crackswoman • John Kendrick Bangs
... face suddenly changed from an aspect of moroseness to one of bewitching amiability. He stood ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... and she was my—wife—and when I was given a parish and had introduced her to my people, they loved her for the white gentleness which seemed purity, and for acquiescent amiability which seemed—goodness. ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... to learn something of the Paris suburbs. The joyous expedition which ended our every day that year was so in the spirit of Harland that I should be inclined to look upon him as the tempter, had we not, with the usual amiability of the tempted, met him more than half way. Still, he excelled us all in the knack of collecting us from our work, no matter how it had scattered us or in what quarter of the town we might be, and carrying us off suddenly ...
— Nights - Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... opening in the direction of place and power. Nothing could exceed the manliness of his bearing in the unequal conflict in which every session he found himself engaged, unless it is to be looked for in the inexhaustible amiability that characterized his relations with the most implacable of his foes. It is, however, evident that as his health began to fail from the long course of exhausting labours which his office imposed upon him, he became more sensitive to such provocations, ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... constitutional tendencies were all evil. His greatest pleasure consisted in annoying those about him. Those who were most conversant with his humor could never guess the temper of his mind. He laughed the loudest and affected the greatest amiability when he was most exasperated, and scowled defiance when he was perfectly unruffled. His only talent was a keen sense of the ridiculous. Nothing escaped him that could be tortured into sarcasm, although no one could have guessed, from his abstracted and careless demeanor, ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... his sacred abstractions under the last palm-trees fringing a desert. In the heat and noise of quarrelling Turks and Egyptians, I have come suddenly, as with the cool shock of his own shower-bath, on the listless amiability of the English gentleman. The officials I interviewed were very American, especially in being very polite; for whatever may have been the mood or meaning of Martin Chuzzlewit, I have always found Americans by far the politest people ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... which especially it has this being abroad, and that is something distinctive, marked, speci- fically or individually speaking, as for a voice and echo clearness; for a reflected image light, brightness; for a shadow-casting body bulk; for a man genius, great achievements, amiability, and so on. In this case it is, as the sonnet says, distinctive quality in genius. ... By moonmarks I mean crescent-shaped markings on the quill- feathers, either in the colouring of the feather or made by the overlapping of one on another.' Letter to R. B., ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins
... and Bacon, and were oftener at the apex of a triangle than its comfortable base? And you always as calm as though 'sailing over summer seas!' Come—I am absolutely blue;' and the half-fretful belle, who had really exhausted her strength and amiability by a grand pedestrian tour in the Central Park that morning, stretched out demurely her gaiter boots, and drew with an invisible pencil on imaginary paper, the outline of ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... using his note-book in an obvious manner, "now skewing at an object, now leering at an individual," he was only once thoroughly put out, and that was at Beth Gelert by a Scotchman: which suggests a great deal of amiability, on one side, considering that Borrow's Welsh was ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... trying to pay them back with love,—for presents, such as thousands would like to make, are prohibited by disciplinary rule. Officers and crew must be weary; but the crowding and the questioning are borne with charming amiability. Everything is shown and explained in detail: the huge thirty-centimetre gun, with its loading apparatus and directing machinery; the quick-firing batteries; the torpedoes, with their impulse-tubes; the electric lantern, with its searching mechanism. I myself, though a foreigner, and ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn
... of his temper, over which he had very little. He had taken on the Mastership of the Pexdale Hounds in succession to a highly popular man who had fallen foul of his committee, and the Major found himself confronted with the overt hostility of at least half the hunt, while his lack of tact and amiability had done much to alienate the remainder. Hence subscriptions were beginning to fall off, foxes grew provokingly scarcer, and wire obtruded itself with increasing frequency. The Major could plead reasonable excuse for his fit of ...
— Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches • Saki (H.H. Munro)
... all sure that it was only that. This fatal amiability might have raised quite different expectations in Adair. Like her two latest husbands, he might take a notion to hang his hat in her hall. If he did, would she abate her amiability sufficiently to tell him to hang it ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... are always talking with you about this one or that one's social position, and they never make new acquaintances without finding out what set they belong to; and I was never allowed from a little girl to make acquaintances with any children whose mothers were not in the right set; and amiability and goodness had nothing to do with ...
— A Flock of Girls and Boys • Nora Perry
... manage everything, and then you have no time!" said Ethel, sensible all the time of her own ill-humour, and of her sister's patience and amiability, yet propelled to speak the unpleasant truths that in her ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... without a word said; but we are well, and sing better than in France. The air is excellent, and this is a terrestrial paradise, where the difficulties and troubles of life come so lovingly, that the more one is piqued, the more one's heart is filled with amiability." ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... home, feeding rankly on rumour; Opinion in neutral countries; Opinion getting into great tangles of misunderstanding and incorrect valuation between the Allies. The confidence and courage of the enemy; the amiability and assistance of the neutral; the zeal, sacrifice, and serenity of the home population; all were affected. The German cultivation of opinion began long before the war; it is still the most systematic and, because of the psychological ineptitude of the Germans, it is probably the clumsiest. ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells
... being enough to drive one wild!—for low be it spoken—it is the sheerest impudence!!! Indeed, the visitor who does not know her, and happens to "strike" on one of these bad days, would have to be dowered with more than his share of amiability and imagination, should he be able to mentally visualize anything approaching "brilliant accomplishments" in the face of one of these fiascos. Whether these "turns" be due to sudden obstinacy, to some feeling of injury inflicted either by myself or the onlooker—to what on earth such tempers ...
— Lola - The Thought and Speech of Animals • Henny Kindermann
... a story concerning a critic upon whose death half the stage went into quarter-mourning. If it be true, it showed that he was very short-sighted in his amiability, for when dealing with an overcrowded profession one must remember that ill-earned praise of A may keep B, who is more worthy, from getting A's place, to which, of course, he has a better title. It is very hard to act upon this proposition, although it involves a duty, for it is much easier ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... Minority Report; and by the end of a year or so has come to telling Hudge heatedly that the people were much happier where they were before. As the people preserve in both places precisely the same air of dazed amiability, it is very difficult to find out which is right. But at least one might safely say that no people ever liked stench or starvation as such, but only some peculiar pleasures en tangled with them. Not ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton
... in great spirits, and prattled away as they sat at dinner, emboldened by the lady's unusual amiability to ask all sorts of questions, some of which proved rather embarrassing to Miss Henny, and very amusing to Roxy, listening in ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... the hero of the little circle, where his wit, his person, his education, his amiability, were perpetually praised. One or another would remark that in seven years he had largely increased his fortune, that Bonfons brought in at least ten thousand francs a year, and was surrounded, like the other possessions of the Cruchots, by the ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... the boy. Either under the venerable title bestowed by Bill, or as "Tom Islington," after his adopted father, his was a familiar presence in the settlement, and the theme of much local criticism and comment. His waywardness, indolence, and unaccountable amiability—a quality at once suspicious and gratuitous in a pioneer community like Angel's—had often been the subject of fierce discussion. A large and reputable majority believed him destined for the gallows; a minority not quite so reputable enjoyed his presence without troubling themselves much about ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... literature. His infinitesimal library, a few French novels, an Horace, and some well thumbed volumes of the modern English poets in the familiar edition of Tauchnitz, he put at my disposal, in return for a collection, somewhat similar, although a little larger, of my own. In his rare moments of amiability, he could talk on such matters with verve and originality: more usually he preferred to pursue with the bitterest animosity an abstract fetish which he called his "luck." He was by temperament an enraged ...
— The Poems And Prose Of Ernest Dowson • Ernest Dowson et al
... it isn't Amy, short for amiability. To you I shall continue to be Little Miss Grouch until ...
— Little Miss Grouch - A Narrative Based on the Log of Alexander Forsyth Smith's - Maiden Transatlantic Voyage • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... two or three journalists spoke to them, asking for information about the libretto. Claude hurried on as if he did not hear them. His usual almost eager amiability of manner with strangers had deserted him this evening. But Charmian and Alston Lake spoke to the pressmen, and Alston's whole-hearted laugh rang out. Claude heard ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... said, that when women addict themselves to vice of any kind, they carry it to extravagance, and become far worse than bad men. In like manner, when the natural softness and amiability of the Hindoo character yield to the temptations of luxury and dominion, the individual grows into a tyrant as cruel and odious as any of those depicted in history. This apparent discrepancy has given rise to many speculative mistakes; but, in our opinion, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 429 - Volume 17, New Series, March 20, 1852 • Various
... the Church for the same reason. Ah! you must be careful what you say lest you offend the young! This is an indulgent, a good-natured, a compromising time. Behind this solicitude the best reasons lie, but is there no danger to these young people in all this amiability? Is it quite impossible for a young man to be put in peril by our very ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson
... superiority of the African race. She loved to descant upon it as the cause and explanation of her own arrogant habit of feeling; and she seemed indeed to have inherited something of the Indian's hauteur along with the Ethiop's supple cunning and abundant amiability. She gave many instances in which her pride had met and overcome the insolence of employers, and the kindly old creature was by no means singular in her pride ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... ourselves Chevalier Petit-Bon-Homme-vil-encore, became the object of my admiration. I made him a few of those advances which never compromise a woman; I spoke of the good taste exhibited in his latest waistcoats and in his canes, and he thought me a lady of extreme amiability. I thought him a chevalier of extreme youth; he called upon me; I put on a number of little airs, and pretended to be unhappy at home, and to have deep sorrows. You know what a woman means when she talks ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... as are entitled to fair answers; at least the first. I do not call levity, amiability; nor mere constitutional gaiety. Some of the seemingly most light-hearted women I have ever known, have been anything but amiable. There must be an unusual absence of selfishness,—a person must live less for herself, than others—or rather, must find ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... friend and sought none. He knew the liking to be there as surely as he knew it to be shy and sullen, curt in expression, contemptuous of itself. Had he ever troubled to examine himself honestly, Gilbart must have acknowledged himself Casey's inferior in all but amiability; and Casey no doubt knew this. But in friendship as in love there is usually one who likes and one who suffers himself to be liked, and the positions are not allotted by merit. Gilbart—a self-deceiver all his life—had accepted the ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... each time he took out the Levantine with him, when it was necessary to move this indolent person, who, not being able to accept even any responsibility whatever, left others to think, decide, act for her, going willingly where she was desired to go, once she was started. And it was on this amiability that he counted to take her to Hemerlingue's. But when, after dejeuner, Jansoulet dressed, superb, perspiring with the effort to put on gloves, asked if madame would soon be ready, he was told that she was not ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... marked him as first in whatever company he chose to frequent. A good friend and a good foe, men thought seriously before they opposed him. He had made himself a power in the Southwest because he was the type that goes the limit when aroused. Yet about him, too, there was the manner of a large amiability, of the easy tolerance characteristic ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... ranch. Mr. D—— became instantly possessed of a desire to own the marvel, and a bargain was concluded on the spot. Billy by this time had shed his horns, and was all that could be wished for in the way of amiability. We tied his legs together, and shipped him ...
— Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips
... as mothers or sisters or wives. No man who is engaged in the serious work of the world, in the effort to purify public opinion and direct it aright, but is helped or hindered by the women of his household. Few men can stand the depressing and degrading influence of the uninterested and placid amiability of women incapable of the true public spirit, incapable of a generous or noble aim—whose whole sphere of ideas is petty and personal. It is not only that such women do nothing themselves—they slowly asphyxiate their friends, ...
— Three Addresses to Girls at School • James Maurice Wilson
... but it isn't Miriam's amiability that I'm thinking about at present. It's what we'd better do to straighten out this trouble for Elfreda," said Grace anxiously. "I felt glad when I came to Overton that I did not have to worry about any one but myself, and now I'm confronted ...
— Grace Harlowe's First Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... with the travellers to London, and spent a pleasant day or so, being hurried about from shop to shop. If he had not been the most angelic bishop in England he would have revolted; but as he was anxious that his wife should have no cause of complaint, he exhausted himself with the utmost amiability. But the longest lane has a turning, and the day came when Mrs Pendle and Lucy, attended by the dazed Harry, left for Nauheim via Queenborough, Flushing and Cologne. Mrs Pendle declared, as the train moved away, that she was thoroughly ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... a creature of light and laughter, but there were in her odd little streaks of unconsidered impulse that testified to a passionate soul. She would flash into a temper over a mere trifle, and then in a moment flash back into mirth and amiability. ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... that her parents were well-to-do people. All that we gather of Joan's early years proves her nature to have been a compound of love and goodness. Every trait recorded of the little maid's life at home which has come down to us reveals a mixture of amiability, unselfishness, and charity. From her earliest years she loved to help the weak and poor: she was known, when there was no room for the weary wayfarer to pass the night in her parents' house, to give up her bed to them, and to sleep on ...
— Joan of Arc • Ronald Sutherland Gower
... he watched her expanding so rapidly into womanhood and exhibiting such graces of manner, such amiability of disposition, such selfless regard for others, combined with a physical beauty such as he thought he had never before gazed upon, a great yearning would clutch his soul, and a lump would rise in his throat. ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... to look at it, of course," assented the agent, who made it a point to agree always with a man of Ford's size and caliber, on the theory that amiability means popularity, and that placation is better than plasters. "You sure ought to let her do the hunting—and the worrying, too. You aren't to blame if she married you unawares. She did it all on her own hook—and she must have known what ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... Wylder just announced by soft-toned Larcom, is the daughter (there is no mistaking the jolly smile and lumpy odd little features, and radiance of amiability) of the good doctor and Mrs. Chubley, so curiously blended in her loving face. And last comes in old Major Jackson, smiling largely, squaring himself, and doing his courtesies in a firm but florid military style, and plainly pleased to find himself in good company and on the eve ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... France, since Giles was certainly to go upon it; and lest Mrs Headley should be starting on her journey, he said he should despatch a special messenger to stay her. Giles, who had of course been longing for the splendid pageant, cheered up into great amiability, and volunteered to write to his mother, that she had best not think of coming, till he sent word to her that matters were forward. Even thus, Master Headley was somewhat insecure. He thought the dame quite capable of coming and taking possession of his house in his absence, and therefore ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... those lively cheerful individuals on whom amiability had set its unmistakable stamp, and, like most of his kind, his soul's peace depended in large measure on the unstinted approval of his fellows. In hunting to death a small tabby cat he had done a thing of ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... through various paths of thought. She could recall Rosalie's girlhood, and what she herself, as an unconsciously observing child, had known of her character. She remembered the simple impressionability of her mind. She had been the most amenable little creature in the world. Her yielding amiability could always be counted upon as a factor by the calculating; sweet-tempered to weakness, she could be beguiled or distressed into any course the desires of others dictated. An ill-tempered or self-pitying person could alter any line of conduct she ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... hear half of what Sommers was saying on the way to the cabin. His very amiability jarred upon her nervous depression. She had always liked him, and respected his vast learning, but to-day she certainly did not get much comfort out of his converse. She wondered why she had been so light-hearted while Starr was with her showing her how to shoot, and lecturing her ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... doctors warned him that with his corpulence wine was dangerous for him, he drank a great deal. He was only quite at ease when having poured several glasses of wine mechanically into his large mouth he felt a pleasant warmth in his body, an amiability toward all his fellows, and a readiness to respond superficially to every idea without probing it deeply. Only after emptying a bottle or two did he feel dimly that the terribly tangled skein of life which previously had terrified ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... flexibility, richness, and musical tone of that vehicle of thought which could represent with full effect the melancholy tenderness of Tibullus, [Footnote: Albius Tibullus was a poet of singular gentleness and amiability, who wrote verses of exquisite finish, gracefully telling the story of his worldly misfortunes and expressing the fluctuations that marked his indulgence in the tender passion, in which his experience ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... merely howled. Other triumphs were but preparatory to this ultimate triumph, and if she fell short of his ideal, he would take no further interest in her voice. However well she might sing Margaret, he would not really care; as for Lucia and Violetta, it would be his amiability that would keep him in the stalls. To-day her fate was to be decided. If Madame Savelli were to say that she had no voice—she couldn't very well say that, but she might say that she had only a nice voice, which, if properly trained, ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... Up to that time he had made his own industry the butt of much good-natured ridicule, viewing it apparently as a sort of vacation novelty amusing enough while the novelty lasted. But he went from task to task that next day in a methodical, dogged fashion that was farthest of all from amiability. Two or three times Steve, trying to spare him needless effort, attempting to show him how to favor blistered hands and aching back, met with rebuffs so curt that he learned to keep his advice to himself. He knew what end Garry was ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... to his ability as a writer, he possessed fine literary taste; and his personal character was marked by great amiability, courtliness, and patriotism. ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... the latter of whom was destined afterwards to exercise so much influence over his fate. The Duke of Orleans was pleased with the vivacity and good sense of the Scottish adventurer, while the latter was no less pleased with the wit and amiability of a prince who promised to become his patron. They were often thrown into each other's society, and Law seized every opportunity to instil his financial doctrines into the mind of one whose proximity to the throne pointed him out as destined, at no very distant date, to play an important ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... politician than as a statesman in the sense that Pitt, Canning, and Peel were statesmen. He was not made for active life; he was rather a philosopher, wielding power by his pen, casting his searching glance into everything, and leading men by his amiability, his sympathetic nature, his force of character, and his enlightened mind. The question might arise whether Jefferson's greatness was owing to force of circumstances, or to an original, creative intellect, like that of Franklin or Alexander Hamilton. But for the Revolution he might ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord
... told me this I have been turning it over in my mind; and it is particularly vexing not to know more. "Delightful" can be such jargon and mean nothing—or, at any rate, nothing more than amiability. Still, that is something, for one is not always amiable, even when meeting strangers. On the other hand, it might be, from ...
— A Boswell of Baghdad - With Diversions • E. V. Lucas
... heart;—a strong head to perceive and grasp the truth of things, a strong will to select and order the materials for expressing it, and a strong heart, which is tenderness, to give the work a soul of beauty and sweetness and amiability. As a man combines all these strengths, and as, moreover, through the unifying power of imagination, he pours the united life and virtue of them all into his work; so will his worth and honour stand as an artist. For whence should ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... Amiability itself; they know nothing. [Rising and looking down upon FRAYNE.] You see, Chick, all that Miss Fullgarney has to do—if she hasn't already done it—is to tell a trifling taradiddle to Muriel concerning the events of last night. Well, in effect, she has promised ...
— The Gay Lord Quex - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur W. Pinero
... who has known it and has often sought that spot for the sake of its ancient associations, and of the sweet solace they have found in the solitude, or for the noble view of the sacred city from its summit, will not deplore this fatal amiability of the authorities, this weak desire to please every one and inability to say no ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... delighted at the failure of Polly's scheme to sew him in his tent, that he simply radiated amiability, and spent the whole morning helping Elsie and Margery with a set of elaborate dinner- cards, ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... whole air of the youth was that of goodness. I do not think that the impression made by him forecast his career, or, in any degree, the leadership which he afterwards held in his Church. But everybody who knew him at that time must recall his charming amiability. ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... Will you make me the pleasure and the honour to come and do the ouverture of the hunt at my chateau to-morrow, Sunday—my auto will call for you about six of the morning. We will be about ten guns, and I count on the amiability of my partridges and my hares to make you pass a beautiful and good day. Will you accept, dear sir, the assurance of my sentiments the ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith
... small for her monstrous bulk; her profile, pure Greek, the eyes ox-like, the cups full of feeling, with heavy accents beneath them. Her face, almost slim, had planes eloquent with surface meanings upon the cheeks and chin, while the mouth, sweet for a large woman, revealed amiability quite in accord with the expression of the eyes. These were the glory of her countenance, these and her resonant black hair. Isolate this head from the shoulders, from all the gross connotations of the frame, and the trick would be done. So ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... on the 23rd of October 1893. His remains were brought to Sofia, where they received a public funeral, and were eventually deposited in a mausoleum erected in his memory. Prince Alexander possessed much charm and amiability of manner; he was tall, dignified and strikingly handsome. His capabilities as a soldier have been generally recognized by competent authorities. As a ruler he committed some errors, but his youth and inexperience and the extreme difficulty of his position must be ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... the end of the seventeenth century, was in the habit of telling visitors that he entered the playhouse as a servitor. Malone recorded in 1780 a stage tradition 'that his first office in the theatre was that of prompter's attendant' or call-boy. His intellectual capacity and the amiability with which he turned to account his versatile powers were probably soon recognised, and thenceforth his ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... With characteristic amiability, combined with that courage which had caused impatient people, who snubbed her in vain, to say she had the hide of a rhinoceros, Miss Luscombe had accepted the blow of Rathbone's proposal—the proposal which she had taken for an offer of marriage, but which was really an offer ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson
... long a subject of patient suffering from disease, for many years an elder of the Presbyterian church, and died peacefully on the 13th of April, 1846, aged seventy-two years. His wife, Catharine, a lady of great amiability and worth, died on the 17th of December, ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... ever-growing liberality, by the way, in speaking of this matter of temper. In old age, he said that the world certainly does get on in minor morals: that when he was young "everybody had a temper"; whereas now no such thing is allowed; amiability is the rule; and an imperfect temper is an offence and a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... the artist or poet, those countless restrictions which once ruled all this fairy-world [459] and shaped the soul of it, he cannot but admire and love their best results: the simplicity of old custom,—the amiability of manners,—the daintiness of habits,—the delicate tact displayed in pleasure-giving,—the strange power of presenting outwardly, under any circumstances, only the best and brightest aspects of character. What emotional poetry, for ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... each time an explanation had been asked concerning the state of France, the Englishman openly drew out a note-book and requested those about him, the wine merchant, the abbe, or the young noble to repeat their remarks; to which each had complied with an amiability equal to the courteous tone of the request. He had noted down the most important, extraordinary and, picturesque features of the robbery of the diligence, the state of Vendee, and the details about ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... flowed into another channel. She dreaded her husband in his black rages, but she feared him more now in his unusual amiability. Perhaps he would strike Tobey when he saw him. She ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... "Jack's" amiability, too, was a permanent condition. Apparently no one could make him angry or resentful. For this reason, he was the target for many pranks perpetrated ...
— Crossing the Plains, Days of '57 - A Narrative of Early Emigrant Tavel to California by the Ox-team Method • William Audley Maxwell
... fear Douglas." The younger, Douglas, was a man whom some people would have called plain. But the dark sallow face, with its irregular features, was illuminated by an expression of mingled intelligence and amiability, which possessed a charm for all ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... goddess than a woman." Her student life has been marked by seriousness and deep religious feeling. She is a member of the First Presbyterian Church of Buffalo. She was deeply loved by her teachers, more for her solidity of character and amiability of disposition than for exceptionally brilliant intellectual traits, though her ...
— The Truth About America • Edward Money
... might have been in the rear." The same person also testifies to Beckwith's care of his men, extending even to minute particulars about clothing. Also, that he was a great favourite with his brother officers on account of his intelligence and amiability. After recovering somewhat from his wound he returned to England, and visited America during this time. Shortly after his arrival in England from the latter place he sought out his old companions in the army, and among others he called on ...
— The Vaudois of Piedmont - A Visit to their Valleys • John Napper Worsfold
... excellent qualities which the friends of John Martin knew him to possess. Rectitude of principle, abhorrence of injustice and intolerance, deep love of country, the purity and earnestness of a saint, allied with the kindliness and inoffensiveness of childhood; amiability and disinterestedness, together with a perfect abnegation of self, and total freedom from the vanity which affected a few of his compatriots—these they gave him credit for, but they were totally unprepared for the lion-like courage, the boldness, and the promptitude displayed ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... realize that never for a moment had the proud smile wavered. She was beginning to feel as though an elastic band had been stretched for hours under her nose and behind her ears, and the sole comment her lofty amiability had drawn forth had been a reference to the famed animal ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... I wish to vie with Mr. Allen's unrivalled polemic amiability and be as conciliatory as possible, I will not cavil at his facts or try to magnify the chasm between an Aristotle, a Goethe, or a Napoleon and the average level of their respective tribes. Let it be as small as Mr. Allen thinks. All that I object to is that he should think ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... proper snuff-box, but only a box turned of bone, shaped like a powder-flask. When they take snuff, they throw back their head, insert the point of the flask in their nose, and shake a dose of tobacco into it. They then, with the greatest amiability, offer it to their neighbour, he to his, and so it goes round till it ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... The studied amiability of these remarks struck Faversham as surprising, he hardly knew why. Suddenly, a ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... said of any man, his misfortune rather than his fault. But it was his fault rather than his misfortune that he permitted himself to be dragged in a day into a line of conduct which the sober judgment of years had disapproved. He is usually and most justly regarded as a man of great amiability of character; of unquestionable integrity in all the purely personal relations of life; of more than ordinary intellectual ability of a solid, though not brilliant, quality; and a diligent student of the science ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay
... know what you'll think of me, and what I've come for," said Alvina, with hurried amiability. Arthur lifted his blue eyes to her, and Mrs. Witham appeared in the ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... that horrible Turk, Jacob Asdrubal, the Old Bailey barrister, the terror of witnesses, the bane of judges,—who was gall and wormwood to all opponents. It was said of him that "at home" his docile amiability was the marvel of his friends, and delight of his wife and daughters. "At home," perhaps, Mr. Daubeny might have been waved at, and have forgiven it; but men who saw the scene in the House of Commons knew that he would never forgive ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... any other teacher, and heard me play the first movement. It was frightfully hard, but I had studied it so much that I managed to get through with it pretty successfully. Nothing could exceed Liszt's amiability, or the trouble he gave himself, and instead of frightening me, he inspired me. Never was there such a delightful teacher! and he is the most sympathetic one I've had. You feel so free with him, and he develops the very spirit of music in you. He doesn't ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... not all of a punitive nature. There were two medals in the school, one for spelling, the other for amiability. They were awarded once a week, and the holders wore them about the neck conspicuously, and were envied accordingly. John Robards—he of the golden curls—wore almost continuously the medal for amiability, while Sam Clemens had a ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... came back we had a good supper, and Maton pleased me both by her appetite and amiability. When we had finished I affectionately asked her if she would like to share my bed, and she replied as tenderly that she was wholly mine. And so, after passing a voluptuous night, we rose in the morning the ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... volunteered Eph, with suspicious amiability, holding out his hand, which the Frenchman took daintily. "I'm a 'shoveleer' myself, and this awkward, gawky looking boy ...
— The Submarine Boys for the Flag - Deeding Their Lives to Uncle Sam • Victor G. Durham
... her countenance or deportment; and, if she was not called a queen, she might as well be any ugly old woman. The Princess Charlotte of Wales I thought pretty; she has small features, regular, pale complexion, great amiability of expression and condescension of manners; the Princess Elizabeth is extremely corpulent, and, from what I could see of her face, was ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... "Plenty of people wish well to any good cause, but very few care to exert themselves to help it, and still fewer will risk anything in its support. 'Someone ought to do it, but why should I?' is the ever reechoed phrase of weak-kneed amiability. 'Someone ought to do it, so why not I?' is the cry of some earnest servant of man, eagerly forward springing to face some perilous duty. Between these two sentences lie whole centuries of moral evolution." True enough! and between these ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... he, nodding his huge square-cut head. This amiability in the matter of leave taking was unusual. Trina put the dishes down and came up to him, her little chin, once so adorable, in ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... her elder sister. Before the actress of the evening had been five minutes on the stage, Norah detected, to her own indescribable astonishment, that Magdalen had audaciously individualized the feeble amiability of "Julia's" character, by seizing no less a person than herself as the model to act it by. She saw all her own little formal peculiarities of manner and movement unblushingly reproduced—and even the very tone of her voice so accurately ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... of the office." Consequently, Mr. McInnes was removed from office, and the Dominion government appointed in his place Sir Henri Joly de Lotbiniere, who has had large experience in public affairs, and is noted for his amiability and discretion.] ...
— Canada under British Rule 1760-1900 • John G. Bourinot
... town of Luca, he felt that indescribable sense of a welcoming in the mere outward appearance of things, which seems to mark out certain places for the special purpose of evening rest, and gives them always a peculiar amiability in retrospect. Under the deepening twilight, the rough-tiled roofs seem to huddle together side by side, like one continuous shelter over the whole township, spread low and broad above the snug sleeping-rooms within; and the place one sees for the first time, and must tarry in but for a night, ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater
... condition of the provinces. "This sick man will die in our arms," he said, "without our wishing to kill him." He also left no doubt in the royal mind as to the utter incompetency of the archduke for his office. Although he had much Christianity, amiability, and good intentions, he was so unused to business, so slow and so lazy, so easily persuaded by those around him, as to be always falling into errors. He was the servant of his own servants, particularly of those least disposed to the king's service and ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... spokes again with disdainful obedience, and the red-faced man was moving forward grunting to himself, when through the open skylight the hail "On deck there!" arrested him short, attentive, and with a sudden change to amiability in the ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... bit,' and went back to camp. And the dog that had done it all, 'Tommy', the great, idiotic mongrel retriever, came slobbering round Dave and lashing his legs with his tail, and trotted home after him, smiling his broadest, longest, and reddest smile of amiability, and apparently satisfied for one afternoon ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... summer when he is happy and gay, his song is extremely soft and agreeable, while it grows very mournful and plaintive as cold weather approaches. He is mild of temper, and a peaceable and harmless neighbor, setting a fine example of amiability to his feathered friends. In the early spring, however, he wages war against robins, wrens, swallows, and other birds whose habitations are of a kind to take his fancy. A celebrated naturalist says: "This bird seems incapable of uttering a harsh note, or of ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph [March 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... Borasdine asked. Further along were two women putting fish upon poles for drying, and a third was engaged in skinning a large salmon. The women did not look up from their work, and were not inclined to amiability. They had Mongol features, complexion, eyes, and hair, the latter thick and black. Some of the men wear it plaited into queues, and others let it grow pretty much at will. Each woman I saw had it braided ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... Justice to Phil's amiability of character requires, however, that we should state that he never sought to terminate an argument with his fists unless he was invited to do so, and even then he invariably gave his rash challenger fair warning, and offered to let him retreat if so disposed. But when injustice ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne
... the Professor, with his wonted amiability, "which you are not. No, I can only call it a senseless and ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... Henrietta was altogether herself, save for a pretty pensiveness, and emerged with all her accustomed amiability from ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... features of the land useful for sea-marks, of villages and tribes and modes of barter and precautions to take: with the instructive tales about native chiefs dyed more or less blue, whose character for greediness, ferocity, or amiability must have been expounded to him with that capacity for vivid language which seems joined naturally to the shadiness of moral character and recklessness of disposition. With that sort of spiced food provided for his anxious thought, watchful for strange men, strange beasts, strange ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... and who daily, in the privacy of his own apartment, examined his soft cheeks by the aid of his sisters' "back-hair glass." He was a handsome boy, too; tall, and like David—"ruddy, and of a fair countenance;" and his face, though clouded then, bore the expression of general amiability. He was the eldest son in a large young family, and was being educated at one of the best public schools. He did not, it must be confessed, think either small beer or small beans of himself; and as to the beer and beans that his family thought of ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... comparatively tardy. The epistles of the lady, through the partiality of her brother, were frequently shown to Clive, and they bespoke her to be what from all accounts she was—a woman of very superior understanding, and of much amiability of character. Clive was charmed with her letters, for in those days, be it remembered, the fair sex were not so familiarized to the pen as at the present period. At that time, to indite a really good epistle as to penmanship and diction, was a formidable ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... said no word to his companion about that Barbara Golding who played such a gracious part in the home of the Osgoods. He had arranged the movement of the story to his fancy, but would it occur in all as he hoped? With an amiability that was almost malicious in its adroit suggestiveness, though, to be sure, it was honest, he had induced the soldier to talk of his past. His words naturally, and always, radiated to the sun, whose image was now hidden, but for whose memory no superscription on monument or cenotaph ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the silence that neither desired but both were too stubborn to break; but it could not break the habit of being together. So Bud was perfectly aware of the fact that he would be missed, and he was ill-humored enough to be glad of it. Frank, if he met Bud that day, was likely to have his amiability tested to ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... was perennially importuning Laurence to take a stroll down to Booyseus, "Just for a constitutional, you know." And the latter would laugh, and good-naturedly acquiesce. It was a cheap way of setting up a character for amiability, he would say to himself satirically; for as yet Holmes hardly suspected he was almost as powerfully drawn thither as Holmes was himself—more powerfully, perhaps—only, with the advantage of years and experience and cooler brain, he had ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... on his recovery, he has afterwards exhibited the most undoubted sorrow and repentance. How often is the same disposition exhibited by children from the same cause, and how speedily, on recovering their health, is their amiability restored! So we must not be over-harsh in judging of the poor elephants, who have not the reasoning powers even of ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... the age of eight years. A lady who had remarked the amiability of his manners and his precocious natural abilities, recommended him to the Bishop of Auxerre. Through the influence of this prelate, Fourier was admitted into the military school which was conducted at that time by the Benedictines of the Convent of St. Mark. There he prosecuted his literary ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... general not small—the mouth invariably adorned with two rows of brilliant white teeth,[16] and their long black hair, arranged in plaits, falls gracefully over the bosom and shoulders. Add to all this a captivating grace of manner and deportment, joined to an exceeding degree of gentleness and amiability, and it will be readily admitted that the Limena is a noble specimen ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... natural amiability of his disposition eminently fitted him for the high social position he attained; but the fervor he felt for his work made him forget everything foreign to it until the hour arrived when he must leave his painting-room. He was fond of receiving ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... than the romantic emotions of either a wife or a husband. Though she had ceased to love George, she could still be amiable to him; and it occurred to her at times that if one had to choose between the two not necessarily inseparable qualities of love and amiability, George was not losing greatly by the exchange. When, however, at the end of three months, George's capricious symptoms disappeared as suddenly as they had come, and his attentions lapsed into casual expressions of a nonchalant kindness, she drew a ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... he was not sure that he wanted them. Yet he had always thought that he possessed a strong paternal instinct, an interest in young life, in opening problems. Had that all, he wondered, been a mere interest, a thing to exercise his energy and amiability upon, and had his enjoyment of it all depended upon his real detachment, upon the fact that his responsibility was only a temporary one? It was all very bewildering to him. Moreover, his quiet and fertile imagination flashed suddenly through pictures of ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson
... sir—my dear Mr. Wyant—you find me in an abominable position—that, as a man of honor, I immediately confess. I have taken advantage of you—yes! I have counted on your amiability, your chivalry—too far, perhaps? I confess it! But what could I do? It was to oblige a lady"—he laid a hand on his heart—"a lady whom I would die to serve!" He went on with increasing volubility, his deliberate English swept away by a torrent of Italian, through which Wyant, with some difficulty, ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 1 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... entertainment which combined two of his abiding interests, public debate and private theatricals. That was a setting in which he could completely exemplify his favourite recipe for the modern world, that it should be approached in a spirit of intellectual ferocity and personal amiability. But what marked his own contributions to these affairs was the intellectual "ferocity," in the weight and content of his criticism. Most of the eminent men who consented to take part came to play a game for the sake of the Hospitals, and because they rarely unbent like that in public they were ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... much loved by all who were brought into contact with him was his great amiability, thorough kindness of heart: his care was always not to hurt or wound another's feelings; and even in the heat of debate, and under great provocation, I never heard him utter an unkind word, or put a harsh construction on the conduct of any one, ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... fine spaniel and a cross of the terrier and bull dog. In our days of polish and refinement, we had a Lord Stair, a Sedley, a Sir John Stepney, a Sir William Hamilton, and many others, as our ambassadors, representing our nation as the best bred in the world; and by their grace and amiability, gaining the admiration of the whole continent. We had, in remoter times, our Lords Bolingbroke, Chesterfield, and Lyttleton, our Steele, &c, the celebrated poets, authors, and patterns of fashion and elegance of the ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... or ware, or yo, or boku, according to rank or circumstance, but in the language of woman, it is warawa. And women's language is very soft and gentle; and I do not think it is possible to translate such softness and amiability of words into any other language. So I can only give you an imperfect ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... telling me the other day of the martyrdom he had suffered from this class. He spoke with much feeling, as he is the soul of amiability, but somewhat short-sighted and afflicted with a hopelessly bad memory for faces. For the last few years, he has been in the habit of spending one or two of the winter months in Washington, where his friends put him up at one club or another. Each winter on ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory
... haven't had a medal yet?' and repeating to all of them: 'Ah! If I belonged to the committee, I'd make them walk straight.' He sent every one away delighted, closed the door behind each visitor with an air of extreme amiability, through which, however, there pierced the secret sneer of an ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... talents had made him indispensable in every company, declared that for that day he was the marquise's cavalier, a title which his sister-in-law, with her usual amiability, confirmed. Each of the huntsmen, following this example, made choice of a lady to whom to dedicate his attentions throughout the day; then, this chivalrous arrangement being completed, all present directed their course towards the ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE GANGES—1657 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... his privy adviser to win Clotilde, Lucien found the courage of the parvenu; he came to the house five days in the week, he swallowed all the affronts of the envious, he endured impertinent looks, and answered irony with wit. His persistency, the charm of his manners, and his amiability, at last neutralized opposition and reduced obstacles. He was still in the highest favor with Madame de Maufrigneuse, whose ardent letters, written under the influence of her passion, were preserved by ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... was a fine figure of a woman, so long as he viewed Niafer through the closed window of Ageus. Dom Manuel looked contentedly enough upon the wife who was the reward of his toil and suffering in Dun Vlechlan, and the child who was the reward of his amiability and shrewdness in dealing with the stork, all seemed well so long as he regarded them ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... end of his cigarette, and gave a lift of shoulder, which might mean anything or nothing, and so was irritating to a degree. He did not pursue the subject further, and so several belated retorts were left tickling futilely the tongues of the Happy Family—which does not make for amiability. ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... spruce in his attire. Evidently he intended to pass the night at the Priory, since they had let the trap go back to the village. She was glad that he had come, for his presence would act as a restraint upon the Girdlestones. In spite of her guardian's amiability at breakfast, she could not forget the words which he had used the morning before or the incident of the poison bottle. She was as convinced as ever that he meant mischief to her, but she had ceased to fear him. It never ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... her sharply; suddenly suspecting that his auditor was not perfectly sympathetic. She smiled a little at the images passing through her mind, and Leonard, taking her remark for badinage, allowed his own features to relax to their original amiability. ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... people he behaves simply, almost modestly, but with dignity; they find him rather a bore, but respect him for being, as they say, 'a perfect gentleman.' With Russians he is more free and easy, gives vent to his spleen, and makes fun of himself and them, but that is done by him with great amiability, negligence, and propriety. He holds Slavophil views; it is well known that in the highest society this is regarded as tres distingue! He reads nothing in Russian, but on his writing table there is a silver ashpan in ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... feared Bough, and shrunk from his anger with unutterable terror. But the blow of his heavy hand was more bearable than his smile and his jesting amiability. Now, when she went down to the kraals on an errand, or to the orchard or garden for fruit or vegetables, or to the river for water as of old, she heard his light, cautious, padding footsteps coming after her, and would ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... appropriate it to myself. And each one of us ought to help to remedy the guilt, and just because others do not do so. The fact that society is guilty aggravates the guilt of each member of it. "Someone ought to do it, but why should I? is the ever re-echoed phrase of weak-kneed amiability. Someone ought to do it, so why not I? is the cry of some earnest servant of man, eagerly forward springing to face some perilous duty. Between these two sentences lie whole centuries of moral evolution." Thus spoke Mrs. Annie Besant ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... gather when other bees are idle. I have this fall secured from Mr. Frank Benton a Carniolan queen, and shall try crossing the Carniolans with the Syrians. Perhaps we can thus secure a strain with the amiability of the Carniolan, and the ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 1, January 5, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... sense, the bosom friend of Jesus. Probably it was not because of any special gentleness or amiability on John's part, though he may have had something of these traits. It was more likely because of the deep, intelligent sympathy between the two, a sympathy not only of personality, but deeper and stronger because of a mental and spirit likeness growing ...
— Quiet Talks on the Crowned Christ of Revelation • S. D. Gordon
... It is offering a great deal both on her part and her husband's to take charge of these two, but it would never do. She is almost a child herself,—a bride and beauty under twenty,—excessively admired, very likely to have her head turned. No, it would be too absurd. All her kindness, amiability, desire to make Marian her friend and companion, would only serve to ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... verdict of the world. No novelist has more deeply imbued his work with his own genius and spirit, and none have had a more beneficent genius, nor a more beautiful spirit to impart than the author of "The Deserted Village." The exquisite style, the delicate choice of words, the amiability of sentiment, so peculiarly his own, and so well suited to express the simple beauty of his thoughts, give a charm to the work which familiarity can only endear. Dr. Primrose, preserving his simplicity, his modesty, and his nobility of character ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... must be set down to Sylvia's credit that the circumstance of successful competition gave her no satisfaction. She often heartily wished Eleanor out of it. She could never meet the candid sweetness of the other's eyes without a qualm of discomfort, and she suffered acutely under Eleanor's gentle amiability. ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... two alarms, and had to retire on a fort one night. Almost immediately we were sent off to our kopjes, where we spend our nights. The kopjes round here are really horrible things: to ascend and descend them one requires legs of flexible iron, and the amiability and patience of Job. At night one has to pick and choose a little, before getting a satisfactory "doss." To arrange your couch you must, of course, remove all the movable stones, and as regards the fixtures it is strange how in a short time one's body seems instinctively to accommodate itself ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... and the amiability of his face began to cloud over. He sat up very suddenly and spread his plump hands ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... a Hawaiian lady of high character and extreme amiability, and both King and Queen have been exemplary ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... which was in some sense just, necessarily gave a tone to her language and a coloring to all her thoughts, such as good sense and amiability should equally strive to suppress and conceal—unless, as in the case of Margaret Cooper, the individual herself was without due consciousness of their presence. It had the effect of discouraging and driving from her side many a good-natured damsel, who ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... and loquacity; the oddest fact about its members being withal that it didn't make them bores, I seem to feel as I look back, or at least not worse bores than sundry specimens of the other growth. There can surely never have been anything like their good faith and, generally speaking, their amiability. I should have but to let myself go a little to wish to cite examples—save that in doing so I should lose sight of my point; which is to recall again that whether we were all amiable or not (and, frankly, I claim it in a high degree ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... might be ill without a word said; but we are well, and sing better than in France. The air is excellent, and this is a terrestrial paradise, where the difficulties and troubles of life come so lovingly, that the more one is piqued, the more one's heart is filled with amiability." ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... though not wholly insensible to the brilliant prospects opened to him in such a connection, yet, to do him justice, Mainwaring would have been equally entangled by a similar avowal from a girl more his equal in the world. It was rather from an amiability bordering upon weakness, than from any more degrading moral imperfections, that he had been betrayed into a position which neither contented his heart nor satisfied ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... in any way sought to run counter to his former partner; on the contrary, it arose simply from the fact that Charles was the more capable man of the two. And as Alphonse had now to work on his own account, it was soon clear to any one who observed him closely, that in spite of his promptitude, his amiability, and his prepossessing appearance, he was not fitted to be at the head of an ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors • Various
... happily wedded, Mr. Thome and his wife were overwhelmed with sorrow by the sudden death, on the last day of April, 1869, of their second daughter, Mrs. Maria E. Murphy, wife of Mr. Thos. Murphy, of Detroit. A lady of singular amiability, purity, and Christian excellence, she was endeared by her sweet graces to rich and poor, to young and old, throughout ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... in New York. The whole country was in alternate emotions of hope and despair as the daily bulletins announced the varying phases of the illustrious patient's condition. The people also were greatly impressed at his wonderful self-control, heroic patience, endurance, and amiability. ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew
... life has now become so inextricably entangled. He was standing on the kerb, and staring at the number on the door in a doubtful way, as I opened it. His eyes—they were dull grey eyes, and reddish under the rims—fell to my face, and his countenance immediately assumed an expression of corrugated amiability. ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... stern, imposing-looking personage that Mr. Verdant Green had expected to see in the ruler among dons, and the terror of offending undergraduates, the master of Brazenface was a mild-looking old gentleman, with an inoffensive amiability of expression and a shy, retiring manner that seemed to intimate that he was more alarmed at the strangers than they had need to be at him. Dr. Portman seemed to be quite a part of his college, for he had passed the greatest portion of his life ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... shown by her making a trip, in the summer of 1824, to Vermont and back—a distance of sixteen hundred miles. The journey had to be performed by stage, and consumed two months in going and returning. She made a second journey to New England when Rutherford was nine years old. Her amiability of disposition made her the favorite guest at the homes of her neighbors. The straightened circumstances of a family deprived of its head required the aid of industry and economy. She was known, in village parlance, as a "good manager." Afflictions which would ...
— The Life, Public Services and Select Speeches of Rutherford B. Hayes • James Quay Howard
... no sense of humour. Lack of this sense is everywhere held to be a horrid disgrace, nullifying any number of delightful qualities. Perhaps the most effective means of disparaging an enemy is to lay stress on his integrity, his erudition, his amiability, his courage, the fineness of his head, the grace of his figure, his strength of purpose, which has overleaped all obstacles, his goodness to his parents, the kind word that he has for every one, his musical voice, his freedom from aught that in human nature is base; and then to say what ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... activity A venerable and interesting figure It is curious and interesting Gives the impression of aloofness Perfectly void of offence Regard with misgiving A stroke of professional luck An unscrupulous adventurer He spoke with extreme reticence Robust common sense Deficient in amiability Done with characteristic thoroughness A vein of philanthropic zeal Definite, tangible, and practical Too much effusive declamation A man of keen ambition It gives infinite zest Singular qualifications for public life ...
— Talks on Talking • Grenville Kleiser
... and Mrs. Morgan were there for a couple of weeks in the winter—that she was never more sweet and gracious and lovely than in this first season at the capital. I don't know that the town was raving, as they said, about her beauty and wit—there is nothing like the wit of a handsome woman—and amiability and unostentatious little charities, but she was a great favorite. We used to talk about it by the fire in Brandon, where everything reminded us of the girl we loved, and rejoice in her good-fortune and happiness, and get rather heavy-hearted in thinking that ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
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