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More "Compliment" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the compliment and bent over the unconscious dwarf. With Willis directing every move, he inserted the needle and drew back slowly on the plunger. Twenty-three and one-half cubic centimeters of amber fluid flowed into the syringe before a speck ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... invested Wise Elshie with some qualities which made him appear, in the eyes of the vulgar, a man possessed of supernatural power. Common fame paid David Ritchie a similar compliment, for some of the poor and ignorant, as well as all the children, in the neighbourhood, held him to be what is called uncanny. He himself did not altogether discourage the idea; it enlarged his very limited circle of power, and in so far gratified his conceit; and it soothed his misanthropy, ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... it more simply: "leave now to dogs and apes; Man has for ever." The obscurities were not merely superficial, but often covered quite superficial ideas. He was as likely as not to be most unintelligible of all in writing a compliment in a lady's album. I remember in my boyhood (when Browning kept us awake like coffee) a friend reading out the poem about the portrait to which I have already referred, reading it in that rapid dramatic way in which this poet must be read. And I was profoundly puzzled at ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... me with a flank movement, as it were, I am lost. Uncle passed over my blunder without a smile and went on to say many remarkable things, if sound means anything. However, trust even a deaf woman to prick up her ears when a compliment is headed her way, whether it is in Sanskrit or Polynesian. In acknowledgment I stuck to my flag, and the man's command of quaint but correct English convinced me that I would have to specialize in something more than first ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... first time only the great fifth act of 'Richard III' out of compliment to the people of Gotown, and you will be ...
— A Pirate of Parts • Richard Neville
... Pleased with the compliment to his cleverness the giant chuckled before admitting: "Ay, Loki, the hammer is mine, 'tis very true; and now men will know who ...
— Told by the Northmen: - Stories from the Eddas and Sagas • E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton
... and the officers on shore seeing these preparations, gathered together a number of guards, who assembled upon the sands. We saw that great excitement prevailed, and that messengers were continually going to and fro between the shore and the citadel. Our captain, out of compliment to his Excellency, had provided the vessel with a Russian war-flag, which he had hoisted alternately with the Union Jack, and we agreed that we would attempt our disembarkation under this, the Russian standard! ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... composers. Some one remarked that "certain beauties of Mozart's music had become stale with age." Another agreed, and added, "I defy any one to listen to 'Don Giovanni' after the fourth act of 'Les Huguenots'!" This vulgar compliment enraged Meyerbeer. "So much the worse then for the fourth act of 'The Huguenots'!" he shouted. Of all his own work this Jewish composer loved "L'Africaine" the best, and he made and remade it during a period of seventeen years. In this he was the best ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... Missourians are not the only ones who have to stand persecution because we believe in upholding the Stars and Stripes. I have heard something of your history from our young friend Percival, and assure you that I sympathize with you deeply. I want to compliment you on the courage and skill you showed in helping him escape from those ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon
... observes, no uncommon thing to introduce a compliment to Queen Elizabeth in the body of a play. See "Midsummer's Night's Dream," act ii. sc. 2. See also "Locrine," act v. ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... Tracy ever since she came to the park. 'Not,' as she said to her friend, Edith Hastings, 'for the woman's sake, for she knew her to be vulgar: but because she was a neighbor and the sister-in-law of Arthur Tracy,' And so at last she came, partly out of compliment and partly on business, into which last she plunged at once. She was going to the mountains with Mr. Harrington and Miss Hastings: her cook, who had been with her seven years, had gone to attend a sick mother, and had recommended ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... made your mind up to accept the command of the Opal," said the admiral. "I said it would be so; I was sure of it. I must compliment Mrs Murray, for there are some wives, who don't love their husbands a jot the better, who would have turned the scale the other way. Duty, my lads, duty should carry everything before it," continued the admiral, turning to the midshipmen. "Learn a lesson from your superiors, and never ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... was evidently pleased at the compliment. "It seemed to me that it was the only thing to do," he said, "and I had no time to think of the danger. I have told Sir Ralph De Courcy that I would gladly knight you both, in proof of my admiration ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... sir. Really, I am disposed to accept that as a compliment; for you see, a man of my profession could never succeed unless he had mastered his inclination for an easy life, and had become a stoic. And what else did you happen to decide after this wonderful fit of ...
— The Saddle Boys in the Grand Canyon - or The Hermit of the Cave • James Carson
... swell uncle wants you so special, sir!" said Mrs. Garland, in her harsh, inflectionless voice. "A compliment, I'm sure. And his party all a fizzle unless you come, and his ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... It had just occurred to Slim that Katherine might be persuaded to make a pan of fudge while they waited for the others to return. He leaned back at a comfortable angle and waited for her to digest the compliment. The lake seemed enchanted today, an iridescent pool where fairies bathed. The water had a pale, silvery green tinge, with here and there a great bed of deepest purple encircling a center of bright blue—those contrasts of color which are the ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... is a different affair from giving up youth with all its admirable pleasures, in the hope of a better quality of gruel in a more than problematical, nay, more than improbable, old age. We should not compliment a hungry man, who should refuse a whole dinner and reserve all his appetite for the dessert, before he knew whether there was to be any dessert or not. If there be such a thing as imprudence in the world, we surely have it here. We sail in leaky bottoms ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the war for independence. As to his fitness for conveying such a message, Lafayette attested thus: "To captivate the French fancy, Captain Jones possesses, far beyond any other officer in your service, that peculiar aplomb, grace of manner, charm of person, and dash of character," a compliment better understood when it is remembered that an alliance with France against Great Britain was then ...
— How the Flag Became Old Glory • Emma Look Scott
... that of frequenters of taverns and bagnios—who goes from his home to the City yonder and his friends there, and when he is tired of them returns hither, and expects that I shall kneel and welcome him. And he sends YOU as his chamberlain! What a proud embassy! Monsieur, I make you my compliment ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... Mr. Cox that application was made for information respecting the then Mayor, upon whom there was some hesitation as to whether the honour of knighthood should be conferred. Mr. Cox suggested, in reply, that the honour, although of course nominally given to the Mayor, would really be granted as a compliment to the town, which had chosen him as the chief magistrate. Acting on this suggestion, the Government of the day, as is well known, decided on ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards
... 'No compliment, my lad. You see me in my weakness, and you have the discernment to know me for something better than I seem. You promise to respect me on my own quarter-deck. You are of the right stuff. Do I speak correctly, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... doctors went so far as to congratulate Mr. Dramm upon the tidiness of his handicraft. He told him that in all his experience he had never seen a hanging pass off more smoothly, and that for an amateur, Dramm had done splendidly. To this compliment Uncle Tobe replied, in his quiet and drawling mode of speech, that he had studied the whole thing out ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... leave the verandah, however, without paying a pretty compliment to Milord, one that set him thinking how miserable his life would have been with his three disagreeable daughters if he had not fallen in with this enchantment. He remembered that it had lasted for nearly twenty years, and it was as potent as ever. In what did it consist, he asked himself. ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... favor with the English aristocracy. It was a common event for two gentlemen who were suitors for the hand of the same lady to settle the matter by mortal combat, and this was considered not only proper, but the highest compliment that could be paid the lady's charms. Angry joustings were frequent in places of amusement or even upon the streets. In London the ring in Hyde Park, the back of Montague House, and the Barns Elms were the ...
— Patrician and Plebeian - Or The Origin and Development of the Social Classes of the Old Dominion • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... has our tea now," said Dolf; "it's a sort of delercate compliment to Miss Elsie to eat when she does, and later in de ebenin' arter Mr. Othello comes we might make a brile ob dat chicken in de closet—marster don't eat nothin', and ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... justice of his claims. On the contrary, they may be endorsed precisely because they are false: that is, because he really possesses no other title to the support of common men, than that which is founded upon fellow-feeling or sympathy of character. Many a man, therefore, who receives his election as a compliment from the voters, if he understood the motives of their action, would throw up his office in disgust; for in a large majority of cases, the popular choice, so far from being an assertion of the candidate's peculiar fitness to be singled out from among his brethren, ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... smiling face told that he was gratified by the compliment. To me the sight was painful, for I saw that this youthful tippler was ...
— Ten Nights in a Bar Room • T. S. Arthur
... bowing and smiling to his sincere compliment, "by making all the Irish Fenians, that ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... occasion, I suggested a connection between roses and history and referred to McMaster close behind his American Beauties as an instance in point, at the same time expressing with earnestness my strong admiration of that good writer's work. McMaster rose, his face glowing in response to my emphatic compliment. His speech consisted of only one sentence, "I have one bond with the ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... earlier coins, it is with the right talon now that it grasps the olive-branch, and the left holds three arrows. The quarter-dollar of 1853 has the space above the eagle on the reverse filled with diverging rays. Apollo might not, perhaps, take it as a compliment to be asked to sanction much ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 6, June, 1886, Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 6, June, 1886 • Various
... of wood fastened on it, like a miniature watchman's rattle. The "fun" consists in drawing them down the back of any one you pass, when they make a sound precisely like that of ripping cloth. The women take great delight in this, and as it is only deemed politeness to return the compliment, we soon had enough to do. Nobody seemed to take the diversion amiss, but it was so irresistibly droll to see a large crowd engaged in this singular amusement, that we both burst into ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... Je vous fais mon compliment, Your tendresse becomes you well; Et ne pleurez pas, mon brave, Pour la petite demoiselle. I have had a thousand since; One can always find such game; Et pour dire la vérité, I have ...
— The Breitmann Ballads • Charles G. Leland
... remember chiefly for its marking the time when Hampton Court Chestnuts were usually in full flower. You may guess that we in the Country here have been gaping for rain to bring on our Crops, and Flowers; very tantalising have been many promising Clouds, which just dropped a few drops by way of Compliment, and then passed on. But last night, when Dombey was being read to me we heard a good splash of rain, and Dombey was shut up that we might hear, and see, and feel it. {187} I never could make out who wrote two lines which I never could forget, ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble (1871-1883) • Edward FitzGerald
... black, the prevailing colour being a mixture of black and red, the most common shade being chocolate. Dark complexions, as being most common, are naturally held in the highest esteem. To be told that he is light- coloured, or like a white man, would be deemed a very poor compliment by a Kaffir. I have heard of one unfortunate man who was so very fair that no girl would marry him." One of the titles of the Zulu king is, "You who are black." (61. Mungo Park's 'Travels in Africa,' 4to. 1816, pp. 53, 131. Burton's statement is quoted by Schaaffhausen, ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... deeply hurt the pride of the nouveaux riches as to insinuate that he was not quite fully imbued with the spirit and the knowledge of the country. If you told him he was ignorant of books he might take that as a compliment; if you suggested in a sidelong way that he did not understand horses he would never more ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... train of the Sartiep arrive more servants, bearing dishes of kabobs, herb-seasoned pillau, and various other strange, savory dishes, which, Mr. Gray explains, are considered great delicacies among the upper-class Persians and are intended as a great compliment to me. ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... men, as well as of truth," he murmured as he bent over and gallantly kissed her hand. Una's flush heightened, but she was pleased with the compliment. ...
— The Mermaid of Druid Lake and Other Stories • Charles Weathers Bump
... Peter," cried Dotty, "and please let me return the compliment. I like cold weather. I like winter when there isn't too much ice and bad weather. I always feel good in cold weather. That is one reason I go north ...
— The Burgess Bird Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... beautiful compliment when he said: "If he had had his choice he would rather have been famous as an artist than as a writer; but it was destined that he should paint in colors which will never crack and never need restoration." Thackeray's characters are, indeed, not so much inventions ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... have been to any other lawyer, Starbottle was absolutely relieved by it. The absence of any mirth-provoking correspondence, and the appeal solely to his own powers of persuasion, actually struck his fancy. He lightly put aside the compliment with a wave ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... much freedom and energy (but no wit) on a subject on which I have information and feel interested: but I cannot make an after- dinner speech of compliment, nor talk on a subject which I do not feel I have very maturely considered.... In regard to local government, I think you would disarm the fears or scruples of many excellent and wise persons if you made prominent that you ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... clients in the office, with whom you have made an appointment, sir, and—' 'I haven't the time to see them. Let them go to the devil, and you with them.' Thereupon he arose, as furious as he could be, and looked so much as if he would kick me out at the door, that I didn't wait for the compliment, but hooked it, and told the clients to leave also. They didn't look greatly pleased, I assure you; but for the reputation of the office, I told them that the governor ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... the Florentine ambassadors, who had been sent to congratulate him upon his elevation. Very adroitly he placed by his chair of state the two youths, who passed for Medici, and who were "as dear to him as sons"—Ippolito and Alessandro. In compliment to the Pope, and certainly not from conviction, the fourteen envoys agreed in asking him to send the two boys to Florence, under the charge of a worthy administrator, who should hold the reins of government in ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley
... ancient remnants of Zoroaster's doctrine. How that problem was solved is well known to all who take an interest in the advancement of modern scholarship. It was as great an achievement as the deciphering of the cuneiform edicts of Darius; and no greater compliment could have been paid to Burnouf and his fellow-labourers than that scholars, without inclination to test their method, and without leisure to follow these indefatigable pioneers through all the intricate ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller
... and the Anabasis he had edited and annotated. It was more than probable that there were copies of these learned and valuable works in the Royal Library; for no library could be complete without them. If they were there, the king would graciously inform him of the fact, as the highest compliment that could be paid to his fame as a Greek scholar. To all this, with his left hand upon his heart, with his right extended, palm prone, at an angle of forty-five degrees with his perpendicular, his body bent in a courteous but ...
— Dikes and Ditches - Young America in Holland and Belguim • Oliver Optic
... we gather from Hentzner and other authorities, wore false hair. We are told that ladies, in compliment to her, dyed their hair a sandy hue, the natural colour of the ...
— At the Sign of the Barber's Pole - Studies In Hirsute History • William Andrews
... form of art, as if it were the result of a voluntary surrender of something by the poet to the reader, as if it were an act of moderation on his part. Surely the poet does not proceed on the principle of saying half, and permitting us to say the other half—out of compliment, perhaps, to our understanding, and as a little bribe to our vanity. The more vivid and powerful his expressions, the more must he leave, or rather the more must he give, indirectly as well as directly, to the imagination of the reader. He will sometimes even bestow what ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... took the compliment calmly—did not indeed seem to hear it. She was already scratching out the offending words with a sharp penknife, and daintily rewriting them. Then ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... say, I see, ma'am, says he, you've got a very likely young gentleman here, that's a little out of cash, says he, so I suppose, ma'am, says he, a place, or a pension, or something in that shape of life, would be no bad compliment, ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... at the service I had done them, that they paid me the greatest compliment in their power by offering me a chieftainship, and inviting me to stay with them for ever. I refused the flattering offer, however, as I was quite bent on getting back ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... there are some Americans here who declare themselves ashamed of their country because of the meagerness of its share in the Exhibition. I do not suppose their country will deem it worth while to return the compliment; but I should have been far more ashamed of the prodigality and want of sense evinced in sending an indiscriminate profusion of American products here than I am of the actual state of the case. It is true, as I have already stated, that we are deficient in some things which might have ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... mother to call herself my wife, little simpleton? Do you think that's a compliment to my judgment? She might have given herself out for your governess, as she wishes to pass you ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... introduce you," said Bell, composedly, with a saucy shot at him from her handsome black eyes. "And so I'll be the only girl to get the compliment. ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... kind of noise, as people do when feeding chickens. I walked with the old man, and this demonstration of friendship was repeated several times; it was concluded by three hard slaps, which were given me on the breast and back at the same time. He then bared his bosom for me to return the compliment, which being done, he seemed highly pleased. The language of these people, according to our notions, scarcely deserves to be called articulate. Captain Cook has compared it to a man clearing his throat, but certainly ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... of mere compliment have their turn to be true. A man is occasionally grateful when he says 'Thank you.' It's rather hard upon him that he must use the same words with which all the world declines a disagreeable invitation, don't ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... of opinion that all such things as offences and services, crimes and virtues, are soup prepared from the bones of great-grandfathers, and served in painted pots to Arcadians. All this was concluded with a compliment which was smooth, rounded, exquisite as to style, plan, ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... where you're going, Miss!" snapped the other girl, and before Grace could return the compliment—had she so wished—the two canoes crashed together and both girls were spilled into ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... all this in the best of humor. He even grinned, just as though he might look on it as some sort of compliment. ...
— Motor Boat Boys Down the Coast - or Through Storm and Stress to Florida • Louis Arundel
... and a cloak didn't fit, and that so far, the Defendant, Miss DOROTHY, must consider herself, in a dress-making sense, "non-suited." Mrs. MANLEY had, of course, undertaken to provide fits for her customers, and for having partially failed, her customers determined to return the compliment, by "giving her fits" if possible. So the parties came before Judge BACON, and appealed to His Honour. And the learned Judge mindful of ancestral Baconian wisdom, "Cast a severe eye upon the example"—that is, he examined the dresses most critically,—"but ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 2, 1891 • Various
... in that sense. The word "gentleman," then, will here always be used in its strictly impartial class significance without thought of association with the idea of "Good man" or "Quietly conducted person," and without any more intention of compliment than if one said "peasant" or "mechanic." A gentleman is one who has that kind of culture and habit of life which usually go with some measure of inheritance in wealth and status. That, at any rate, is what is meant when it is here said that Jefferson and his immediate successors were ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... for him," said Aunt Abby Cole, "though I know that's a terrible poor compliment. If she thinks she'll ever break into s'ciety here at the Falls, she'll find herself mistaken! It's a mystery to me why the poor deluded man ever done it; but ain't it wonderful the ingenuity the Lord shows in punishin' sinners? I couldn't 'a' thought out such a good ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... his kiss with an affectionate caress. Hubert's slangy praise was dearer to her than any polished compliment from another source. ...
— The First Soprano • Mary Hitchcock
... at once and raised her hand to his lips, murmuring a compliment as his grandfather might have done. He was only thirty-two, but his face was sallow and lined from trouble and fever. Otherwise he was very handsome, with his golden head and intellectual blue eyes, his haughty profile and tall figure, ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... Flattered by the compliment paid him, the German youth took up the letter and scanned it by the light of the swinging lamp. As he did so, Sack Todd closed the cabin door and motioned to Gasper Pold and Dan Baxter, who stood behind an angle of ...
— The Rover Boys in Southern Waters - or The Deserted Steam Yacht • Arthur M. Winfield
... Mr. Caruthers, were given some framed oil-paintings, and he returned the compliment by offering to take Jack, Mrs. Stevenson's pony, and give him the best of care as long as he lived, promising that no one should ever ride him. To a Danish baker named Hellesoe, who had always sent up a huge cake ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... fuller than usual, but their table was always reserved, and Bobby (who prides himself on his taste in such matters) looked forward to the little compliment he regularly received for the appropriateness of his menu. But on this occasion Madame de Corantin seemed to be oblivious of menu and of Bobby alike. She sat apparently lost in thought, and, eating mechanically what was placed before her, replied with ...
— War-time Silhouettes • Stephen Hudson
... "A very safe compliment," said the Vicomtesse. "Indeed, it sounds too cautious for Mr. Temple. You must have tampered with it, Mr. Ritchie," she flashed. "Mr. Temple is a boy. He needs discipline. He will have too easy a time ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... pardon was not half enough salve to the wounded dignity of Miss Gascoigne. She had been personally offended—that greatest of all crimes in her eyes—and she demanded condign punishment. Nothing short of that well-known instrument which, in compliment to Arthur's riper years, Phillis had substituted for the tied up posy of twigs chosen out of her birch broom—a little, slender yellow thing, which black children might once upon a time have played with, ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... compliment, Bud gulped in surprise. Instead of his chum, he found himself face to face ...
— Tom Swift and the Electronic Hydrolung • Victor Appleton
... regarded Luis de Leon as something of a universal genius: an expert in mathematics, in jurisprudence, in medicine—and, though self-taught as a painter—an artist of considerable skill. (This last was a compliment, coming as it did from the future father-in-law of Velazquez.) Evidently Pacheco was a whole-hearted admirer whose enthusiasm needs discounting. However, so far as we can check it, his account seems to be correct in the matter of direct observation. The fact that there ...
— Fray Luis de Leon - A Biographical Fragment • James Fitzmaurice-Kelly
... the Queen, or for Madame Elizabeth? Nothing!" and he became more animated. "And believe me, they are reaping the reward of their betrayal of the Bourbon cause. The sovereigns! Why, they are sending ambassadors to compliment the usurper." ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... early shelter, and the two might perhaps have played an even match at splitting rails. Fillmore, however, strangely adaptive, had taken on a marked grace of manner, his fine stature and mien carrying a dignified courtliness which is said to have won him a handsome compliment from Queen Victoria—a gentleman rotund, well-groomed, conspicuously elegant. Shoulder to shoulder with him rose the queer, raw-boned, ramshackle frame of the Illinoisan, draped in the artless handiwork of a prairie tailor, surmounted by the rugged, homely face. The service, which ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... him that he lost both, except just enough to keep him alive—to go on working. Every now and then he was 'discovered' by a playwright, a critic, or a literary man, but as he never returned a compliment in his life 'discovery' never led very far.... A few people knew that there was a strange man, called Rodd, who wrote masterpieces, but simply would not or could not take advantage of the ordinary commercial machinery to turn them into money or ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan
... broad pieces; and his grace deemed it a point of civility to press the acceptance of the same gratuity upon the member of parliament for the city, by whom it was delivered to him.[41] We may therefore believe, that Dryden received some compliment from the king and chancellor; and I am afraid the same premises authorise us to conclude that it was but trifling. Meantime, our author having no settled means of support, except his small landed ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... heroes are ever flatterers,' returned Fulvia, hastening to appropriate the compliment ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... The compliment, correct in fact as well as honest in intent, was not thrown away on Miss Horn, to whom it was the more pleasing that she could regard it as a just tribute. Malcolm told her all the story, rousing thereby a mighty indignation in her bosom, ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... Hippocrene, with the nine Muses circling about him. Apollo is always spoken of as playing the lyre, but Raphael gives him a violin, because the action in playing that instrument is so graceful. Some think also he meant to pay a compliment to a famous ...
— Raphael - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures And A Portrait Of The - Painter With Introduction And Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... substantial body of fire, the bog-wood a most brilliant flame; and the effect of these great beacons blazing on every hill, sending up volumes of smoke from every point of the horizon, is very remarkable. Ours was a magnificent one, being provided by the landlord as a compliment to his people, and was built on the lawn, as close beside the house as safety would admit. Early in the evening the peasants began to assemble, all habited in their best array, glowing with health, ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... of it is that you can keep your factory open in a district where furs are rather scarce, and you have had very few mishaps. You can take that as a compliment." ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss
... the way up just after the enemy had landed a shell on a wagon loading building material, and wounded were being carried off and the mangled horses had been dragged on one side. As the wounded came by I called my section to attention, the compliment due to wounded men paid ...
— "Crumps", The Plain Story of a Canadian Who Went • Louis Keene
... the tone there was no suspecting the cost of these words to the speaker, and the subject was one in which Letty was at home. In turn she could compliment Miss Walbrook's appearance, duly admiring the toque of prune-colored velvet, with a little bunch of roses artfully disposed, and the coat of prune-colored Harris tweed. In further discussing the length of the new skirts and ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... it a great compliment if Miss Prue had felt so—and that makes me think—I must not delay longer to write her of these new plans of ours. And now, dear little sister, go to Mrs. Macon yourself, and tell her your decision. She is waiting in her ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... not reply. He knew that the compliment was true, but, as before, he ascribed the credit to Manitou because he had made the gift and not to himself who was merely an involuntary agent. The mist and vapors were increasing, drifting toward them in ...
— The Lords of the Wild - A Story of the Old New York Border • Joseph A. Altsheler
... occasion might require. The dispositions were made in so masterly a manner, as to draw forth a hearty eulogium from old Carbajal, who exclaimed, "Surely the Devil or Valdivia must be among them!" an undeniable compliment to the latter, since the speaker was ignorant of that commander's presence in ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... obtrusively aware of his presence. We arrive at an intimate knowledge of his character by confidences that escape egotism by seeming to be made always in the interest of the reader. That we know all his tastes and prejudices appears rather a compliment to our penetration than a proof of indiscreetness on his part. If we were disposed to find any fault with Mr. James's style, which is generally of conspicuous elegance, it would be for his occasional choice of a French word or phrase (like bouder, se reconnait, banal, and the like), ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... forests?" What a proper place for a philosopher to spin out the remnant of his days! The idea had occurred to him; he was persistently urged by his friend William Strahan to carry it into effect; and his other friend, David Hume, made him a pretty compliment on the same theme: "America has sent us many good things, gold, silver, sugar, tobacco; but you are the first philosopher for whom we are beholden to her. It is our own fault that we have not kept him; whence ...
— The Eve of the Revolution - A Chronicle of the Breach with England, Volume 11 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Carl Becker
... said the old Lord, not insensible to the compliment; "we have had some experience, had God sent us grace to improve by it, both in service and in command. There you stand, Quentin, in our honourable corps of Scottish Bodyguards, as esquire to your uncle, and serving under his ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... word, and the angel retired, smiling with mundane satisfaction over the compliment ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... that you cherished a sacred regard for the right of petition. I now find, that you value it no more highly than they do, who make open war upon it. Indeed, you admit, that, in relation to this right, "there is no substantial difference between" them and yourself. Instead of rebuking, you compliment them; and, in saying that "the majority of the Senate" would not "violate the right of petition in any case, in which, according to its judgment, the object of the petition could be safely or properly granted," you show to what destructive conditions ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... of a boy is the highest compliment which may be paid him, for it is proof that he has personal qualities which are the envy and admiration of others, and for general welfare should be shared by all. The boy who so dies is an unconscious ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... I asked him to give each of us a leaf from a fine laurel tree near him; this he did very kindly, and smiled as kindly at my effort at a compliment, in saying to him something about one who had received so many laurels having some to spare to others. I thanked him for his goodness in giving me so much of his time, and bade the venerable man good by, very ...
— Travellers' Tales • Eliza Lee Follen
... and gentle manners she was the only one of the party who exhibited the smallest sign of regret at parting from us. Going up to Jack, she put out her flat little nose to be rubbed, and thereafter paid the same compliment to ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... own, and whose amiable compassion for his sufferings it will be as impossible for us to forget, as it is to express the admiration and gratitude it has inspired. It would, I am convinced, be unnecessary, as well as a very bad compliment to you, Madam, were I to presume to point out anything particular to be done for our poor boy, as I have not the least doubt your goodness and kind intention have long ago rendered every care of ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... would-be optimistic determinist is shown the sheer fatuity of pretending to rejoice in that everything is just as it is—a singular compliment to the "Master Workman"—he executes a volte-face and falls back upon the plea that his doctrine is at any rate a pre-eminently practical one. Instead of vainly deploring imaginary "sins," Determinism would simply have us recognise ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... glance at his repeater, and kissed with courtly grace the fair hand of her who had made him the compliment. "My Lord Bishop of Autun," said he to Monsieur de Talleyrand Perigord, who followed the royal pair, in his quality of arch-chamberlain of the empire, "I pray you look through the gardens, and tell his Excellency Doctor Franklin that the King waits." The Bishop ran off, with more than youthful ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... as a scarcely-expected compliment. The surprise restored her balance. With a sudden flash of her eyes and teeth at Trent over her shoulder, the lady's maid opened ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... justice," said the Saracen, evidently gratified by the compliment, as he had been touched by the implied scorn of the European's previous boast; "from us thou shouldst have had no wrong. But well was it for me that I failed to slay thee, with the safeguard of the king of kings upon thy person. Certain it were, that the cord or ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... that I should go with him is a great compliment, and I thoroughly wish that I could do it. As it is, I must go to Killaloe and retrieve my finances. I daresay, Lady Laura, you can hardly conceive how very poor a man I am." There was a melancholy tone about his voice as he said this, which made her think for the moment ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... much in this woman to compliment. But Jesus picked out one thing that was commendable. He complimented her on the fact that she had told Him the truth. He said, "You have been honest in this. You have no husband. You have had five husbands, but the man ...
— Sermons on Biblical Characters • Clovis G. Chappell
... one of them, taking off his hat and bowing politely, "I am sent by the chief of the port to compliment you on the way you have brought your ship into this loyal port, but to express regret that the regulations he has been compelled to issue make it necessary for you to go over to the southern side of the harbour, there to perform a quarantine for ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... but increased. It differed from that of his sisters, however, in being a tribute to her creative faculties, while Edith's breathless faith pictured her cousin as having passed through as many adventures as Queen Esther. George paid her a characteristic compliment, but chivalrously drew her aside to bestow it. He was not one to ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Queequeg, under the circumstances, this is a very civilized overture; but, the truth is, these savages have an innate sense of delicacy, say what you will; it is marvellous how essentially polite they are. I pay this particular compliment to Queequeg, because he treated me with so much civility and consideration, while I was guilty of great rudeness; staring at him from the bed, and watching all his toilette motions; for the time my curiosity getting the better of my breeding. Nevertheless, ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... free from the evils and turmoils that then agitated the world, and to present an example of the eminence to which men might arrive under the unrestrained influence of sound principles. He now paid me the compliment of saying that he would be happy to include me in this select assemblage who, under a state which he called PANTISOCRACY, were, he hoped, to regenerate the whole complexion of society; and that, not by ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... said Mademoiselle de Vesc. "And Monsieur Villon has paid me a compliment: I neither understand his poetry nor desire to." Her tone was still contemptuous and had in it no thanks to Philip de Commines for his reproof on her behalf. She resented it, rather, since she had no desire to owe him ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... we take up our line of march, pass out of the charming grounds of the Academy, and move through the quiet, rusty, picturesque old town. It has a romantic dulness—Annapolis—which deserves a parting compliment. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... who, as she hated the boy, must love all those who did him any hurt. In this Thwackum had the advantage; for while Square could only scarify the poor lad's reputation, he could flea his skin; and, indeed, he considered every lash he gave him as a compliment paid to his mistress; so that he could, with the utmost propriety, repeat this old flogging line, "Castigo te non quod odio habeam, sed quod AMEM. I chastise thee not out of hatred, but out of love." And this, indeed, he often had in his mouth, or rather, according ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... forget your friends, that's certain," he said, lowering his voice. "That was a delicate compliment, sending my portrait back to the Exhibition. I felt it very ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... No—no, put them Italics in, as I have always done. They show there is truth at the bottom. I like it, for it's what I call sense on the short-cards—do you take? Recollect always, you are not Sam Slick, and I am not you. The greatest compliment a Britisher would think he could pay you, would be to say, 'I should have taken you for an Englishman.' Now the greatest compliment he can pay me is to take me for a Connecticut Clockmaker, who hoed his way up to the Embassy to London, and preserved so much of his nationality, after ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... postilion, as the French say, by frigging my bottom-hole at the same time. He made me most voluptuously discharge in his mouth at the very instant dear Lizzie was pouring into mine her delicious spendings. We lay enraptured for some time before we could stir. Then rising, I wished to return the compliment Mr. M. had paid my prick, by sucking his. ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... her eyes still wet. Then comprehending the compliment of his attendance, acknowledged ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... the story is that after the happy event of the marriage the gipsy had a black gown and a purse of money presented to her by the Duchess as a compliment to her sagacity ...
— The Portland Peerage Romance • Charles J. Archard
... to refer, under an Eastern guise, and with something of Eastern exaggeration of compliment too, to some such ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... but not much. Therefore, the next time she met Kelley she lingered to make conversation with him, rejoicing in his candid eyes and handsome face. She observed also that his shirt was clean and his tie new. "He looks almost like a soldier," she thought, and this was her highest compliment. ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... could," I reminded her gaily. "So you could. Quite a different matter." She took my compliment sweetly, but she said ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... his pocket hitherto. 'There,' said Mr. Tupman, 'on the top of that house.' And there, sure enough, in the leaden gutter of a tiled roof, were Mr. Winkle and Mrs. Pott, comfortably seated in a couple of chairs, waving their handkerchiefs in token of recognition—a compliment which Mr. Pickwick returned by kissing his hand to ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... enjoyed exceptional facilities for qualifying himself as an author; and having the "root of the matter" in him, he published, in rapid succession, poems, sketches, and reviews that were more than sufficient to justify the compliment which the Ettrick Shepherd years afterwards pronounced upon them, when he said, "Man, Henry, it was a great pity ye didna stick to literature; 'od, Sir, ye micht hae ...
— Western Worthies - A Gallery of Biographical and Critical Sketches of West - of Scotland Celebrities • J. Stephen Jeans
... does he talk like that?" said May Gaston with a sigh and a smile. "Forget his audience! The praise of my eyes!" She read the compliment over again almost despairingly. "Yet he doesn't really think me an idiot," she ended. She had made up her mind to forgive him his habit of playing to the gallery, but he need not treat her as though she sat there. She felt able ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... "That's a real compliment, Otto," laughed Jimmie, winking at Dave as he spoke. "When a German admits that any other nation on earth can make good coffee it is going some. The Germans can ...
— Boy Scouts Mysterious Signal - or Perils of the Black Bear Patrol • G. Harvey Ralphson
... have fought a duel, if challenged. "For," she added, "I can see no difference between you and the Baron; nor can I bear that German visage of yours." Upon this the landlord bowed and departed, though he could not have understood the Grandmother's compliment. ...
— The Gambler • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... the sea beat like the spouting of whales. At this cape the Admiral ordered the ships to lower their topsails on the bunt, in homage to the Queen's Majesty; and he here changed the name of his ship, the Pelican, to that of the Golden Hind, in compliment to his patron Sir Christopher Hatton, whose coat of arms bore a golden hind. A sermon being preached by the chaplain, Master Fletcher, and prayer being offered up, the squadron entered the straits, passing along which, with land in sight on both sides, they in a short time made their way ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith
... your bad habits, open your ears to good counsel and your heart to the precepts of morality. You are a savage, Bernard; and, believe me, it is neither your awkwardness in making a bow, nor your inability to turn a compliment that shocks me. On the contrary, this roughness of manner would be a very great charm in my eyes, if only there were some great ideas and noble feelings beneath it. But your ideas and your feelings are like your manners, that is what I cannot endure. I know it ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... which was all the motor could manage, it was late in the evening when we anchored off the naval dockyard in Solheimsvik. Our stay in Bergen happened at the time of the exhibition, and the committee paid the expedition the compliment of giving ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... "Another compliment, Monsieur Calvert! That is the second one you have given me. If you are not more careful I shall begin to doubt your sincerity! I am not jesting, sir," she says, suddenly serious. "I know not quite why I trust you so implicitly, but so it is, and, as sincerity is a ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... and, having received it solemnly from his neighbor, who had drunk to his health, drank in return, and then, turning to his next neighbor, drank to him; the latter then received the cup, returned the compliment, and in the same way passed ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... gilded, showy hall, it had seemed to me quite a grand affair, compared with those in which I had hitherto found employment. Now I shuddered and shivered, and felt the task, always regarded as a compliment to my honesty, to be ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... curious to see how differently the sisters took this compliment—the proud Caliste's lip slightly curled in scorn at it, as a mere kind commonplace; Lisette blushed, and took the praise as all her own; Victorine smiled good-humouredly, and little Mimi archly took up her uncle's words, and inquired "if he had come to Salency, to ...
— The Young Lord and Other Tales - to which is added Victorine Durocher • Camilla Toulmin
... my meaning," he was saying rather loudly: "this is the difference in our outlook on life. If you say 'she dresses well,' you intend a compliment, but to me it is just the reverse. The idea is repellent to me that a woman wastes time, thought, money on her ...
— Ladies Must Live • Alice Duer Miller
... woman was beside him, dark eyes flashing through her mask, red lips wreathed into a smile. The next moment reserve had broken down and he was dancing with her, acquitting himself with sufficient grace to pass muster, and almost as ready with his compliment as she was ...
— The Light That Lures • Percy Brebner
... not Compliment the Brains of other Men, at the Expence of my own, or talk Nonsense because they can understand no other; I think all these Notions and Representations of Hell and of the Devil, to be as prophane as they are ridiculous, ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... been a compliment," she chuckled, as she followed Connie with a second plate of biscuits, "for they always seem to ...
— Billie Bradley on Lighthouse Island - The Mystery of the Wreck • Janet D. Wheeler
... other fellow had his eyes open? Will you tell me that? Where, I say? What's more, where would I be now if I hadn't looked ahead and seen what a marriage with the daughter of Judge Morton would mean to me in the long run?" He felt that he had uttered a very pretty and convincing compliment." I never made a bad bargain in my life, Lou, and it wasn't guess-work when I married you. You, my dear old girl, you were the ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... the good Maritomes remained confounded on hearing the words of the knight-errant, which they understood as well as if he had spoken in Greek, but yet they believed they were words of compliment, and so they thanked him for his courtesy and departed, leaving Sancho and ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)
... fair share of training, of encouragement, of remuneration, and then talk fine nonsense about her instincts and her intuitions,—say sentimentally, with the Oriental proverbialist, "Every book of knowledge is implanted by nature in the heart of woman," and make the compliment a substitute for ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... amongst the two great religious parties in the land—the Protestants and the Catholics,—for when one side got into power they slaughtered their opponents, and when the other became paramount the compliment was returned. The church we have here to describe is dedicated to those English Catholics who, in the stormy days of persecution, were martyred. It is situated on the northern side of the town, in a new and rapidly increasing ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... sano," said the Italian, jingling the four napoleons in his pocket, which had been six on yesterday morning. Then they sauntered up to the Englishman, and both of them touched their hats to him. The Englishman just acknowledged the compliment, and walked off with his companion, who was still ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... flight. Thus he won back to France, no whit the better for his expedition, and the only mark of his passage which he left behind him was an obscene ailment, which, with the coming of the French into Italy, first manifested itself in Europe, and which the Italians paid them the questionable compliment of calling "the French disease"—morbo ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... the young woman's reserve ungracious, or was it only natural that in her particular situation she should not have a flow of compliment at her command? I noticed that Mrs. Nettlepoint looked at her often, and certainly though she was undemonstrative Miss Mavis was interesting. The candle-light enabled me to see that if she was not in the very first flower of her youth she was still a handsome ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... nothing to say, Mr. Meyer, except that I do not love you or any living man, and I never shall. I thank you for the compliment you have paid me, ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard
... bildin. I writ him not to mention it. The Col. says it is fortnit we live in a intellectooal age which wouldn't countenance such infamus things as occurd in this Tower. I'm aware that it is fashin'ble to compliment this age, but I ain't so clear that the Col. is altogether right. This is a very respectable age, but it's pretty easily riled; and considerin upon how slight a provycation we who live in it go to cuttin each other's throats, it may perhaps be doubted whether our intellecks is so ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 5 • Charles Farrar Browne
... toward their sex, and he has regularly insisted upon carrying his researches beyond that period of green girlhood which appears to be all of a woman's life that can interest the popular fiction-mongers. He knows, without anywhere putting it precisely into words, that the elaborate language of compliment used by Americans toward women, though deriving perhaps from a time when women were less numerous on the frontier than men and were therefore specially prized and praised, has become for the most part a hollow language. The pioneer ...
— Contemporary American Novelists (1900-1920) • Carl Van Doren
... Christian, that I may return the Compliment, seem to have been Scholar to Epicurus, or brought up in the Catian School. For what's more delicate or nice than ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... language better than he could speak it, returned a laughing bow at Ben's compliment but made no further reply. Possibly he was scant of breath at ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge
... "I shall be happy to show you over it." Then he turned to Mary. "I am afraid it would be no compliment to you. Ladies are not interested ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... don't you know, what I mean is, that's what I wanted to say, you know,' I turned round and soothed him. I said I didn't love him. He said, 'No, no, of course not.' I said he had paid me a great compliment. He said, 'Not at all,' looking very anxious, poor darling, as if even then he was afraid of what might come next. But I reassured him, and he cheered up, and we walked back to the house together, ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... are now almost wholly dispensed with. Persons who meet at a friend's house are ostensibly upon an equality, and pay a bad compliment to the host by appearing suspicious and formal. Some old-fashioned country hosts yet persevere in introducing each new comer to all the assembled guests. It is a custom that cannot be too soon abolished, and one that places the last unfortunate visitor in ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... tar was not slow to return the compliment with a grasp that was still less childlike—at the same time he ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... Dickinson afforded the ladies an opportunity to attest their admiration for her as a representative woman, which they did, giving her a public breakfast, September 14. Their honored guest appreciated the compliment; and in an earnest and eloquent speech referred to it, saying that although she had received many demonstrations of the kind, this was the first ever given her ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... explorer, and a historian; and who shone unsurpassed for knightly graces and accomplishments amid the stars of the court. Such instances were not rare and prodigious. Raleigh was not the Crichton of his age; if the compliment belongs to anyone peculiarly, it is Sidney; but as we read over the list of distinguished persons to whom Spenser addressed dedicatory stanzas to be "sent with the Faerie Queene," we become more and more at a loss to distinguish the greatest among them; and we could ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... would have thy consent, But faith I never could compliment; I can say nought but 'hoy, gee ho,' Words that belong to the cart and ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell
... well that a man should be agreeable. Pleasantness is always a pleasing thing. And a sensible man, seeking by honest means to make himself agreeable, will generally succeed in making himself agreeable to sensible men. But although there is an implied compliment, to your power, if not to your personality, in the fact of a man's taking pains to make himself agreeable to you, it is certain that he may try to make himself so by means of which the upshot will be to make him intensely disagreeable. You know the fawning, sneaking manner which an occasional ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... their fine cider. The best cider in Massachusetts—that which brought the highest price—was known as the Arminian cider, because the minister who furnished it to the market was suspected of having Arminian tendencies. A very telling compliment to the cider of one of the first New England ministers is thus recorded: "Mr. Whiting had a score of appill-trees from which he made delicious cyder. And it hath been said yt an Indyan once coming to hys house and Mistress Whiting giving ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... He urged a compliment upon her only once more that day; but she gratefully took it to bed with her: "You're just like this glade—make a fellow feel kinda calm and want to be good," he said. "I'm going to cut out—all this boozing and stuff— Course you understand I ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... rector's great amazement, and inward indignation, the object of his sermon seemed to take it as a personal compliment. Mr. Mordacks not only failed to wince, but finding himself particularly fixed by the gaze of the eloquent divine, concluded that it was from his superior intelligence, and visible gifts of appreciation. Delighted with this—for he was not free from vanity—what did he do ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... Would it not imply almost that Christ himself could not righteously sacrifice himself, especially when we consider that the Romanists would have a right to say, that Christ himself had commanded it? But Bellarmine's conceit [9] is so absurd that it scarce deserves the compliment of a serious confutation. For if sacramental being be opposed to natural or material, as 'noumenon' to 'phaenomenon', place is no attribute or possible accident of it 'in se'; consequently, no alteration of place relatively to ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge
... the governor with our arrival, and to request the necessary stores and refreshments; which were readily granted. As soon as the officer came back, we saluted the garrison with thirteen guns, which compliment was immediately returned with an ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... his blarney, sorr," put in the mate eagerly, bursting into a roar of merriment, although blushing purple with delight the while at the skipper's compliment. "Why, sorr, whin I go to slape sometimes, the ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... excessively commonplace person, and had invited him to her social gatherings out of courtesy to Overtop; but her artist eye saw in him a fitness for the fat man. Matthew was delighted with the implied compliment to those talents for the stage which every man supposes himself to possess in some degree, and cheerfully undertook ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... Spartan brevity (compare Thucydid.), acknowledging at the same time that there may be occasions when long discourses are necessary. The family of Megillus is the proxenus of Athens at Sparta; and he pays a beautiful compliment to the Athenian, significant of the character of the work, which, though borrowing many elements from Sparta, is also pervaded by an Athenian spirit. A good Athenian, he says, is more than ordinarily good, because he is inspired by nature and not manufactured by law. The love ...
— Laws • Plato
... Mademoiselle Pearl was the better of the two, a hundred times better, daintier, prouder, more noble. I was surprised at my observation. They were pouring out champagne. I held my glass up to the queen and, with a well-turned compliment, I drank to her health. I could see that she felt inclined to hide her head in her napkin. Then, as she was dipping her lips in the clear wine, everybody cried: "The queen drinks! the queen drinks!" She almost turned purple ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... critical a navigation, the further examination was given up, and we bore up to coast along the eastern shore; but, from the shoalness of the water, we were obliged to sail at so great a distance that its continuity was by no means distinctly traced. The inlet was named Exmouth Gulf, in compliment to ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King
... imitation of her old friend and school-fellow; but that having some compunctions of conscience on the subject, inasmuch as I had always been rather kindly disposed to both of them, they had thought it better in the first instance to pay me the compliment of asking whether I would have any objection to their being married in the usual matter-of-fact manner. There now, Mr. Pickwick, if you can make it convenient to reduce your eyes to their usual size again, and to let me hear what you think we ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... which occupied a whole column of a newspaper, and needed three men to read, with a boy for the "envoy." But this ditty was not thought to have seriously affected the voting classes in any direction. LEGION was now usually spoken of as "the versatile Mr. LEGION," a compliment which never failed to annoy him hugely. Sated with popular applause, he turned into a vein of new poetry, and produced The Song of the Spud, which, his admirers averred was "racy of the soil." A grand English Opera, on the Pilgrimage of Grace, was performed, at immense ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, November 12, 1892 • Various
... be very affectionate. Perhaps it marks out a better disposition of heart than all the studied phrases which are in use among us, and which politeness almost always makes use of at the expense of sincerity. After this first compliment, many other friendly questions are asked about the health of the family, mentioning each of the children distinctly, whose names they know," ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... fine as could be imagined, and it was spent with a more cheerful feeling than we had experienced since we quitted the depot on the Lachlan. The river running through the valley was named Bell's River, in compliment to Brevet Major Bell, of the 48th Regiment; the valley Wellington Valley; and the stream on which we ...
— Journals of Two Expeditions into the Interior of New South Wales • John Oxley
... but the chief whom they wish to punish is my uncle.(480) He is the more to be pitied, because nobody will pity him. They are not fond of a formal message which the States General have sent to Sir Robert, "to compliment him on his new honour, and to condole with him on being out of the ministry, which will be ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... mantles his face whenever he recalls the circumstance of one of Custer's staff coming to his quarters after the parade, to convey with the general's compliments the pleasant information that General Sheridan had personally requested him to compliment the officers and men of the regiment, on its excellent appearance and soldierly bearing on the review. Only a short time before, General Kilpatrick had sent a similar message after seeing the regiment at brigade drill. How cheering these messages were; ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... to return this bitter, but unintentional mockery of compliment. He bowed his head, and remained a moment silent; then, motioning to his train, four of his officers approached, and kneeling beside Ferdinand, proffered to him, upon a silver buckler, the keys of ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... heretofore published." The author was, moreover, permitted to present his book in person to the sovereign. For this purpose he repaired to Versailles, and after having well delivered himself of his compliment to royalty, perceived that he had forgotten to bring the book which he was to present; he was, nevertheless, favourably received, and loaded with presents. But it is added, that, on his return, he also lost, by his absence of mind, the purse full of gold which ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... to represent a camp of the Alemanni, surprised and seized by Roman warriors. In this there was a covert compliment to Caesar, who, after a doubtful victory over that valiant people, had assumed the name of Alemannicus. Part of the gladiators, clothed in skins, represented the barbarians, and wore long flowing wigs of red or yellow hair; others played the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... know how you contrive, mother, always to say the most disagreeable things; the marvellous way in which you pitch on what will, at the moment, wound me most, is truly wonderful. I compliment you on your skill, but I confess I am at a loss to understand why you should, as if by right, expect me to remain here to serve as a target for the arrows of ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... noticing the delicate compliment that the Judge had paid her. In her heart she was really concerned for fear she might not be able to get on friendly terms ...
— The Merriweather Girls in Quest of Treasure • Lizette M. Edholm
... carefully avoiding every advance, which could indicate the slightest partiality in favor of either of the belligerent powers to the prejudice of the others," cannot be too much admired. But it would be paying an ill compliment to that penetration, for which her Majesty is so justly celebrated, to suppose, that she did not also from that very moment clearly discover the importance of the American revolution, at least to all the maritime powers of Europe, and that it was the only basis, upon which ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various
... young, the timid, the half-informed—to her alone he did not disdain to exhibit all the stores of his knowledge, all the best and brightest colours of his mind. She modestly wondered at so strange a preference. Perhaps a sudden and blunt compliment which Maltravers once addressed to her may explain it. One day, when she had conversed more freely and more fully than usual, he broke in upon her with this ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... were as well served abroad as the King of Spain is here," she said aloud, that the retreating ambassador might hear the dubious compliment; and for my lord's ear alone she added under her breath: "The spy! Philip of ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... exclaimed King, proudly, strutting about the room, elated with the compliment. "It's worth while having an uncle who says things like that to you," and the others willingly ...
— Marjorie's Maytime • Carolyn Wells
... glass of wine and a dinner like this an insult," he said, "'pon my word I don't know what you'd call a compliment." ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... officers were cordially received by Governor Plattenberg, who expressed the deepest regret to hear of the loss of Cook, and requested that he should be sent a portrait of the Captain to place in a blank space he pointed out between two portraits of De Ruyter and Van Tromp—a gracious compliment. Sailing from Simon's Bay on 9th May, the trades were picked up on the 14th, and on 13th June the line was crossed in longitude 26 degrees 16 minutes West. The coast of Ireland was sighted on 12th August, and an attempt ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson
... Tony for his kind feeling for me, and assured him that I considered it a compliment that he had called his dog ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... first month of a news so far deriv'd, And that to hear and bear news brave folks liv'd, As being a carriage special hard to bear Occurrents, these occurrents being so dear, They did with grace protest, they were content T' accost their friends with all their compliment, For Hymen's good; but to incur their harm, There he must pardon them. This wit went warm To Adolesche's brain, a nymph born high, Made all of voice and fire, that upwards fly: Her heart and all her forces' nether train Climb'd to her tongue, and thither fell her brain, Since it could go no ...
— Hero and Leander and Other Poems • Christopher Marlowe and George Chapman
... such things, I suppose they are useful in their way; but let nobody ever imagine that they are a form of pleasure. People smearing each other over with stupid flattery, and most of the company being in dread of receiving some compliment which should oblige ...
— Friends in Council (First Series) • Sir Arthur Helps
... more bewildered than ever. He was incapable of conceiving of such falsehood as the other's. It seemed to him now that Prudence might be mistaken, and have converted a mere compliment into an insult, so contrary appeared, the intimations which she had made to what was to be expected from the years and gravity of the Assistant. The freedom with which Spikeman spoke of kissing the girl confirmed the idea, and Philip fancied ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... over the same route as you avoid ambuscade and widen your field of reconnaissance. 2. Report any special features of military value that you have seen to your C.O. 3. Compliment ...
— Military Instructors Manual • James P. Cole and Oliver Schoonmaker
... an immense compliment. I've the greatest respect for nonsense, I owe it so much; and I really think if nonsense were banished, the earth would ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... and mementoes, various portraits of Pestalozzi and his wife, manuscripts and so forth. The simple-hearted woman who did the honours was quite overcome by our knowledge of and interest in her pedagogical hero, but she did not return the compliment. I asked her if the townspeople knew about Friedrich Froebel, but ...
— Penelope's Postscripts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... of six tyrants instead of one. Your agent is to wheedle, and your bailiff to bully him; the one must promise, and the other threaten; but if both fail, you must try him yourself. Should he become intractable under all this, you must take purer measures.—Compliment him on his wife—praise and admire his children—play upon his affections, and corrupt him through his very virtues—for that will show that you love your country and her people better than your own interests. Place a promise of independence on one side of him, but a ruined cottage ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... expect the compliment of you?" asked Miss Incledon, looking at her in surprise; "I did not know that you were on such ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... that should resound For ever awful in Britannia's ear: "Religion crowns the statesman and the man, Sole source of public and of private peace." This truth all men must own, and therefore will, And praise and preach it too:—and when that's done, Their compliment is paid, and 'tis forgot. What highland pole-axe half so deep can wound? But how dare I, so mean, presume so far? Assume my seat in the dictator's chair? Pronounce, predict (as if indeed inspir'd), Promulge my censures, lay out all my throat, ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... just in time to enter directly in the rear of a lady and gentleman, whom he saw coming up the street. "Miss Stanhope invited me to call again, without particularizing how soon, and I can turn my speedy acceptance into a compliment to their music, without even a white lie, for it does sound extremely attractive to a lonely, ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley
... been considerable disturbance among the crowd, between the partisans of Charles and Montgolfier; each party extolled its hero, and did everything possible to detract from the merits of the rival inventor. But whatever ill-feeling might have existed was swept away by Professor Charles with a compliment. When he was ready to ascend, he walked up to Montgolfier, and, with the true instinct of French politeness, presented him with a little balloon, ...
— Wonderful Balloon Ascents - or, the Conquest of the Skies • Fulgence Marion
... Butzbach as novice-master represented the humanities, and was called upon for a poem. Readiness was not his strong point; as a preacher he never could overcome his nervousness. He asked leave to retire to his cell, and there in solitude wrung out some verses of compliment; which found such favour that, to his regret, he was often ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen
... direct the current of legislation which flowed smoothly or turbidly before him. The resolution of thanks to the Speaker, moved by a member of the minority, and passed unanimously by the House, was no unmeaning compliment, but was an honor fairly ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... that was not enough for one day, to test her power over me, to-night she made me dance with her. And now I feel like a fool as I think of Etty playing a waltz for us, at Flora's request, and giving me a long, serious look as I approached the piano to compliment her playing. I could not utter a word. I answered her gaze with one as sober, and more sad, and came away to my room, to have some talk with my ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... in your own party in the University. Our Society, in fact, considers you to be distinguished Confessors in that all-momentous occupation; and I have thought I could not pay yourself individually, whose name has lately honourably appeared in the papers, a better compliment than to get you elected a member of our Truth Society. And here is your diploma," he added, handing a sheet of paper to him. Charles glanced his eye over it; it was a paper, part engraving, part print, part manuscript. An emblem of truth was in the centre, represented, not by a radiating ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... tried. "I wonder, sir, how much you'd take to go home?" I once heard a master ask of a red-coated stranger who was certainly more often among the hounds than he need have been. "Nothing on earth, sir, while you carry on as you are doing just at present," said the stranger. The master accepted the compliment, and the ...
— Hunting Sketches • Anthony Trollope
... stationed there was roused is not to be wondered at, the history given by the natives of Amine's escape appeared so miraculous. From the Commandant to the lowest servant, every one was waiting to receive her. The beauty of Amine, her perfect form, astonished them. The Commandant addressed a long compliment to her in Portuguese, and was astonished that she did not make a suitable reply; but as Amine did not understand a word that he said, it would have been more surprising if ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... commodore, this matchless new boat"—he paused to let the compliment sink in, his eye wandering to Watson, who had sauntered down from the texas roof—"this Votaress, swept past everything that had backed out at New ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... of the youthful author of the "Abuse of Satire" had transpired, Peter Pindar, faithful to the instinct of his nature, wrote a letter of congratulation and compliment to his assailant, and desired to make his acquaintance. The invitation was responded to, and until the death of Wolcot, they were intimate. My father always described Wolcot as a warm-hearted man; coarse in his ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... stationed to act as occasion might require. The dispositions were made in so masterly a manner, as to draw forth a hearty eulogium from old Carbajal, who exclaimed, "Surely the Devil or Valdivia must be among them!" and undeniable compliment to the latter, since the speaker was ignorant of that commander's presence in the ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... keeping with his chivalric nature, Morgan, instead of picking up his fallen mask and covering his face immediately, so that Madame de Montrevel could only have retained a fleeting and confused impression of it—Morgan replied to her compliment by a low bow, leaving his features uncovered long enough to produce their impression; then, placing d'Assas' flask in Madame de Montrevel's hand—and then only—he replaced his mask. Madame de Montrevel understood the young ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... The question pierced to the very marrow of his soul, but it was put with the utmost suavity and courtesy, and honeyed with a compliment to the young lady, too, so that there was no avoiding a direct and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... consists of a relation of how the gentleman prowled by moonlight in a garden, while the lady, in an agitated disorder, peeped out of her lattice in "a most charming Dishabillee." Alas! there was a lock to the door of a garden staircase, and while the lady "was paying a Compliment to the Recluse, he was dextrous enough to slip the Key out of the Door unperceived." Ann Lang!—"a sudden cry of Murder, and the noise of clashing Swords," come none too soon to save those blushes which, we hope, you ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse
... after marriage, took the name Matilda in compliment to Henry's mother), daughter to Malcolm King of Scotland by Margaret, granddaughter of Edmund Ironside, had been brought up by her aunt Christina, and placed in Romsey Abbey for security against ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... silence followed. Tom, the irrepressible, broke it with a slap on the shoulder and the grateful compliment,—"Old Trib, ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... were a kind of wandering Medusa's heads, and their look caused an instant horror which was immediately followed by death. In Shakspeare's play of "Richard the Third," Lady Anne, in answer to Richard's compliment on her eyes, says, "Would they were basilisk's, to strike ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... from the compliment and the honor of it, I feel added gratification and added pleasure that I should be invited to write a foreword for the first American edition of Miss Daisy Ashford's second book. You see, I claim the distinction of having been the first person in America ...
— Daisy Ashford: Her Book • Daisy Ashford
... basing his objections on the ground that the bill violated the provisions of the fundamental railroad law of the state. He was opposed by Tammany Hall, led by John Kelley, who declared that the labor element disliked him. Kelley's reputation, however, was such that his hostility seemed like a compliment and gave force to General Bragg's assertion, in seconding the nomination of Cleveland, that his friends "love him most for the enemies he has made." The first ballot proved that the Governor was stronger than his competitors, Senator Bayard, Allen G. Thurman, Samuel J. Randall ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... subject, master and servant, and the rest which I have already repeated, he makes no exception, but sums up the whole with commanding "all to be subject one to another." Whence we may conclude that this subjection due from all men to all men is something more than the compliment of course, when our betters are pleased to tell us they are our humble servants, but understand us ...
— Three Sermons, Three Prayer • Jonathan Swift
... would not insist on his declaration of love, that she knew to be untrue, as if the compliment of it must be a balm to a spirit ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... more manner, and your clothes were fashionably made, you would far excel the city girls," he said, a compliment which ...
— Cousin Maude • Mary J. Holmes
... accepted his compliment graciously and walked across the grass to the drive, where her car panted almost noiselessly, as is the way of good cars, and he put her in with the manner of a jeweller putting a precious diamond pendant into a case. He watched the car disappear, and considered that some men are undeservedly ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... opinions he himself then entertained. He speaks in one place, in his assumed character of an Englishman, of the solidity and purity of our ethics as giving a superior tone to our moral feelings as contrasted with the French. He goes out of his way to compliment George III. One of the personages in the novel was tempted to admit something to his credit that he did not deserve. The love of truth, however, finally prevailed. But it was not because the man himself had any innate love of truth, but because ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... as great a defect as the lack of the word compliment would be in these smooth-spoken times, but still the want is felt, and the feeling is shown by such awkward expedients as the expression 'a left-handed compliment.' Then, besides, they might give the seal of legitimacy to a fine lot of words and phrases, the need of which is shown by their being spontaneously invented, and universally adopted by the vulgar; but ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... Englishman, to be sure! When people, driven by dire necessity, had their heart in their mouth at the very notion of encountering that rough sea, here was a person who thought of crossing and returning for no reason on earth—a trifling compliment to his friends—a pleasure excursion—a break in the monotony of ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... except by reputation. Numbers of them asked me whether the General in front was Longstreet; and when I answered in the affirmative, many would run on a hundred yards in order to take a good look at him. This I take to be an immense compliment from any ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... of a father, as well as a most pleasing compliment to his wife, when, on being asked by a friend what he intended to do with his girls, he replied: "I intend to apprentice them to their mother, that they may learn the art of improving time, and be fitted to become wives, mothers, heads of families, and useful members of society." Equally just, ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... will see that the commander of the guard is furnished with the parole and countersign before retreat in case they are to be used, and will inform him of the presence in post or camp of any person entitled to the compliment. (32) ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... "No. It is a compliment to you, gentlemen, for our government apparently places a higher value on you than on us, and is very chary of swelling Frederick's armies by the release of prisoners. Somehow your king seems to make double use of his soldiers. He fights a battle ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty
... The little compliment pleased John, and he answered, "You shall do just as you wish, darling! I would give up everything to see you look as you ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... not really displeased by the compliment, which was evidently sincere. "I believe anyone would have done just what ...
— The Camp Fire Girls on the Farm - Or, Bessie King's New Chum • Jane L. Stewart
... has been slowly and painfully accomplished, the extremities in question are not less small but infinitely less graceful than the select and naturally-formed pair which this person sees before him." And at the ingeniously-devised compliment (which, not to become large-headed in self-imagination, it must be admitted was revealed to me as available for practically all occasions by the really ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... Lutchester suggested, "that he has done what certainly seems the most reasonable thing—gone straight off to the War Office with his formula and forgotten all about us. Let us return the compliment and forget all ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... a proposal of marriage would be the greatest compliment that a man could pay a girl. But the proposal of the man in front of her did not seem in the least complimentary. She realized—with the only feeling of irony she had ever known, that this proposal was her very first. And she was looking upon it as an insult. With a tiny ...
— The Island of Faith • Margaret E. Sangster
... ambassador at Constantinople. Clever Lady Mary, however, entirely declined to be subjugated by the pathetic fallacy, and sent back a matter-of-fact epitaph for John Hewet and Sarah Drew, which, though it wound up with a compliment to her correspondent, can hardly have gratified him. But there is one letter of this time the sincerity of which is undoubted. It is Pope's announcement to Martha Blount of his father's death. "My poor Father dyed last night," ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... downcast eyes, softly sparkling through the veil of their long lashes, gave extra warmth to the ambrosial wine,—and he could not refrain from occasionally whispering a tender flattery or delicate compliment in the ear of one or other of his sylph-like servitors, though they all appeared curiously unmoved by his choicely worded adulation. Now and then a pale, flickering blush or sudden smile brightened their faces, but for the most part they maintained a demure and serious ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... as though he considered this a dubious compliment, since it seemed to imply that Toby must have at times doubted the truth of his assertion. But Jack, after examining the earth oven, declared that it was ...
— Jack Winters' Campmates • Mark Overton
... to see you again, Mr. Hendrickson." There was more than a parting compliment in her tones as she said these words. "I have never thought you stupid." What pleasure he derived from repeating these sentences over and over again! Early in the evening he called ...
— The Hand But Not the Heart - or, The Life-Trials of Jessie Loring • T. S. Arthur
... view from its summit. A range of peaks bore N. 57 degrees W.; another range, with undulating outline, was seen to the south-east; and another less prominent range bore N. 45 degrees W. The hill is in latitude 23 degrees 10 minutes, and bears the name of Mount Stewart, in compliment to Mr. Stewart, veterinary surgeon of Sydney, to whom I am indebted for great ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... epigram "Ad Gulielmum Shakespeare" (1599), in which "Romeo" and "Richard" share the praises with the narrative poems. From this time on, publishers of the plays recognize Shakespeare's reputation by generally placing his name on the title-page: a form of compliment which the author probably did not appreciate when it was extended, as in the case of The Passionate Pilgrim (1599), to pirated works, some of which were meant to be private, and others were ...
— The Facts About Shakespeare • William Allan Nielson
... But her attention was speedily diverted by the squabble going on in the corner; for Fanny, forgetful of her young-ladyism and her sixteen years, had boxed Tom's ears, and Tom, resenting the insult, had forcibly seated her in the coal-hod, where he held her with one hand while he returned the compliment with the other. Both were very angry, and kept twitting one another with every aggravation they could invent, as they scolded and scuffled, ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... customary in Teheran even for foreign business houses to illuminate their premises lavishly, and the Atabeg Azam or Prime Minister and other high officials go during the evening to pay calls in order to show their appreciation of the compliment to their sovereign, and admire the decorations of the leading ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... so," I answered, blushing at the compliment, "for I love hunting, and when there are so many wild things it does not matter if we kill a few. I shot these for you and ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... Leigh (see her letter to Hodgson, Nov., 1816, Memoirs of Rev. F. Hodgson, 1878, ii. 41), Murray paid Lady Byron "the compliment" of showing her the transcription of the Third Canto, a day or two after it came into his possession. Most probably she did not know or recognize Claire's handwriting, but she could not fail to remember that ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... not forget your friends, that's certain," he said, lowering his voice. "That was a delicate compliment, sending my portrait back to the Exhibition. I felt it ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... seven we take up our line of march, pass out of the charming grounds of the Academy, and move through the quiet, rusty, picturesque old town. It has a romantic dulness—Annapolis—which deserves a parting compliment. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... silence followed. Tom, the irrepressible, broke it with a slap on the shoulder and the graceful compliment— ...
— Hospital Sketches • Louisa May Alcott
... gaiety of a watering-place, or the bustle of a crowded sea-port. But generally, its landscapes are more distinguished for beauty than sublimity, and hence the very appropriate designation of "THE GARDEN OF ENGLAND!" an emphatic compliment cheerfully paid by the thousands annually visiting its shores for pleasure or for health: and perhaps there is scarcely another spot in the kingdom, of the same narrow limits, which can concentrate more of those qualities that at ...
— Brannon's Picture of The Isle of Wight • George Brannon
... and sharp profile was bending over several symmetrical and shadowy curls. "I sez to Mariar, 'Mariar' sez I, 'praise to the face is open disgrace" I heard no more. Dreading some susceptibility to sincere expression on the subject of female loveliness, I walked away, checking the compliment that otherwise might have risen unbidden to my lips, and have brought shame and sorrow to ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... cooks like you, Chris," said Charley soothingly, and the vain little darky grinned at the compliment. ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... recklessness and mockery; still, no base or wicked passion had yet stamped there its fatal impress. He was the perfect type of the Parisian, as the term is generally applied, whether in the army, in the provinces, on board a king's ship, or a merchantman. It is not a compliment, and yet it is far from being an insult; it is an epithet which partakes at once of blame, admiration, and fear; for if, in this sense, the Parisian is often idle and rebellious, he is also quick at his work, resolute in danger, and always terribly satirical ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... remarkable prophecy was fully borne out by the race, in fact, so close a description might almost have been written after the race—a great compliment to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, July 9, 1892 • Various
... "Merci du compliment!" Her jangling laugh rang out as if a stick had been smartly rattled down the keys of a piano. But her eyes were wet. His own eyes reverted to his reflection in the toilet-glass. Now his sudden bellow made ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... him, when I was starting on my trip, at the very time when he was making his maiden effort at selling a bill to the man for whom he had been working. Of course this was a push-over for him because his old employer gave him an order as a compliment. ...
— Tales of the Road • Charles N. Crewdson
... be remembered that the "above" and "below" in the priest's house were only terms of compliment, and, as Denis McGovery was standing in the hall,—that is, at the open door of the very room in which Judy McCan had been announcing his attendance,—he, of course, had heard what had passed; therefore, when Father John said "let ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... all the country—I speak of his followers only—for their leader, no doubt, scoured the land far and wide, seeking to swell his troop. These alone were ready to step between the oppressor and the oppressed. Surely they were the very best men you could select to be hung. That was the greatest compliment which this country could pay them. They were ripe for her gallows. She has tried a long time, she has hung a good many, but never found ...
— A Plea for Captain John Brown • Henry David Thoreau
... was a captain in the line and a major by brevet, with which rank he was assigned to the military command of the corps of Cadets at West Point. This appointment, ever conferred on men of talent, is the highest compliment an officer of the service of the United States can receive in time of peace. To Worth it was doubly grateful, because he was not an eleve of the institution. Ten years after the battle of Niagara, Major ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various
... the day before his nomination for governor. He fell far, and if left alone will be not, what he might have been, George I. to William of Orange, lineal heir to Jackson, through Van Buren. The wiseacres in New York speak of him with compliment, 'this distinguished statesman;' yet they bring all their small artillery to bear upon him, and give notice that he is demolished. The praise they bestow is very ill concealed, but less injurious to us than their warfare, conducted in their mode."—Letter of W.H. Seward to Thurlow Weed, ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... father of her interview with Mrs. Charmond, and the disclosure that had been whispered in her startled ear.) "Since Edgar is come," he continued, "he might have waited in till I got home, to ask me how she was, if only for a compliment. I saw him go ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... a dull wife, for this last compliment is a reply, full of polite alacrity, to a letter from her asking for a little flattery. How assiduously, and with what a civilized absence of uncouthness, of shame-facedness, and of slang of the mind, ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... would the minute I looked at you," said the Signorina confidently, which was a compliment or not, the way one looked at it. "But, say; I've got a better scheme than that, one that will let you make a little money instead of contributing. I understand the Orpheum has next week dark, through yesterday's failure of The Married ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... killing of a boy is the highest compliment which may be paid him, for it is proof that he has personal qualities which are the envy and admiration of others, and for general welfare should be shared by all. The boy who so dies is an unconscious patriot. This is proved sufficiently by the fact that only what are considered ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... countenance of the young Indian for a moment, as he listened to a compliment which gratified him much; but the grave expression which was natural to him instantly returned, as he said, "Arrowhead has hunted in the Rocky Mountains where the men are treacherous; he has learned to ...
— Away in the Wilderness • R.M. Ballantyne
... of us beasts to women when they appeal to us. Had the position been reversed and had I been speaking to Viola as she was to me, she would have been all sweetness, accepting my jealous anxiety as a compliment, recognising how sure a ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... who was perfectly well acquainted with the trim of his captain, did not choose to carry on the altercation any further; but taking up his can, drank to the health of the stranger, who very courteously returned the compliment, without, however, presuming to join in the conversation, which suffered a considerable pause. During this interruption, Mr. Hatchway's wit displayed itself in several practical jokes upon the commodore, with whom he knew ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... for the goose is sauce for the gander," quoted the fun-loving Rover. "What's the good of living if you can't return a compliment now ...
— The Rover Boys at College • Edward Stratemeyer
... Oh, wots the good of talkin to you? If I wasnt a poor soldier I could punch your head for forty shillins for a month. But because youre my commanding officer you deprive me of my right to a magistrate and make a compliment of giving me two years ard sted of shootin me. Why cant you take your chance the ...
— Press Cuttings • George Bernard Shaw
... continually in childish trebles - and his lady wife, a heavy, comely dame, without a word to say for herself beyond good-even and good-day. Harum-scarum, clodpole young lairds of the neighbourhood paid him the compliment of a visit. Young Hay of Romanes rode down to call, on his crop-eared pony; young Pringle of Drumanno came up on his bony grey. Hay remained on the hospitable field, and must be carried to bed; Pringle got somehow to his saddle about 3 A.M., and (as Archie stood with the lamp on the upper doorstep) ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... will take it as a compliment when I say that Beck of Beckford (ALLEN AND UNWIN) should form part of the holiday equipment of all of us whose brows are not too exalted to enjoy it. In her unostentatious way Miss FRANCIS knows how to provide ample entertainment, and she has nothing to learn ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 7th, 1920 • Various
... Italian national air, which isn't an anthem, but a quick march, and so lacks dignity. The "Wacht am Rhein" made a half-hearted effort to be present, but in the night we had the Emperor's own "Sang an Aegir," stuck in the middle of a Wagner programme. Beyond this, compliment could scarcely go. ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... the most fashionable coffee-houses in the city, she has had an opportunity of watching those who frequent it; and without a compliment, I need not say that she soon distinguished you as the handsomest amongst them, and indeed, as the man most to her fancy whom she had ever seen. My brother,' said the old woman, 'is the owner of the coffee-house, ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... I make you my sincere compliment upon the article, [Footnote: 'Dissolution of Parliament,' by Reeve. It appeared in the July number of the Review.] and thank you for giving me an early read of it. It is by far the ablest defence I have yet seen for the ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... paused, as for applause. And Dominic, who had remained standing during this prolonged oration—no suggestion having been made on the present occasion that he should be seated—proceeded to acknowledge the peculiar compliment just paid him, with somewhat ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... Ciceronian age. He was an intimate friend of Piso, the Consul of B.C. 58, to whom two of his epigrams are addressed. Cicero, /in Pis./ S 68 foll., where he attacks Piso for consorting with /Graeculi/, almost goes out of his way to compliment Philodemus on his poetical genius and the unusual literary culture which he combined with the profession of philosophy: and again in the /de Finibus/ speaks of him as "a most worthy and learned man." He is also referred to by Horace, 1 /Sat./ ii. 121. Thirty-two of his epigrams, chiefly ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail
... every hat or costume they have seen, quite unaware that they were stared at themselves, till Charley told them people thought they had come fresh out of Lady Bountiful's goody-box, which piece of impertinence they took as a great compliment to their wisdom and excellence. To be sure, the fashions are distressing enough, but Metelill shows that they can be treated gracefully and becomingly, and even Avice makes her serge and hat look fresh and ladylike. ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... held in a room, the walls of which were adorned with many beautiful paintings, a well-known college president was called upon to respond to a toast. In the course of his remarks, wishing to pay a compliment to the ladies present, and designating the paintings with one of his characteristic gestures, he said: "What need is there of these painted beauties when we have so many with us ...
— Good Stories from The Ladies Home Journal • Various
... of Old Nick, as we all knows," cried a miner, and this intended compliment was acquiesced in by ...
— Buffalo Bill's Spy Trailer - The Stranger in Camp • Colonel Prentiss Ingraham
... average boy's good opinion of himself. Nothing could have appealed to him more subtly than this man's bluff, curt flattery. He was being met man to man by a man of the world. No boy is proof against the compliment that he is a man, to be dealt with as a man and equal of older, more experienced men. Jeffrey ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher
... of amusement passed like a ray of light through his eyes, but his face was entirely grave as he ignored the compliment. ...
— Exit Betty • Grace Livingston Hill
... I cannot disguise it. My grace; I may appropriate the compliment; but as for my beauty, it ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... it, but the Lark doesn't quite come off.) I shall next try to give you those two sweet singers, the Male and Female Canary—the gentleman in the stalls with the yellow 'air will represent the female bird on this occasion, he must not be offended, for it is a 'igh compliment I am paying him, a harmless professional joke. (The Canaries obtain but tepid acknowledgments.) I shall now conclude my illustrations of bird-life with my celebrated imitation of a waiter drawing the cork from a bottle of gingerbeer, and drinking ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 100, 13 June 1891 • Various
... wildness, which made his wife uncommon and interesting, did not exist in him, but he was rather proud of it in her, and had been heard to say more than once, "Addie's a regular gipsy," as if the statement were a high compliment. He was a tall, well-built, handsome man of fifty-two, with gray hair and moustache, an agreeable tenor voice, which was never used in singing, and the best-cut clothes in London. Although easily kind he ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... perfectly well, in matters of this kind, these very delicate diplomatic considerations, I do not care whether it is a question of fifty shillings a week or fifty thousand a year. You once paid me the very great compliment of offering me rank, position, and almost everything that a girl, from the merely material point of view could ask for. I refused, because I felt certain that you and I did not love each other—however much we may have liked and respected ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... laughed outright. "Have I always lived at Les Chouettes?" he said. "However, she is a pretty girl, fair, graceful, distinguished. Riette had more to tell me about the younger ones; that was only natural. Of course I have only exchanged a compliment with Mademoiselle Helene. She looked to me cold and rather haughty—or melancholy, perhaps. When have you spoken to her, Angelot? or is it merely the sight of her which has ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... figure takes command of the Army of Italy and leads that memorable campaign to the conquest of Italy before he was thirty. Promptly nicknamed "The Little Corporal" by his army, the term was speedily turned from one of derision to positive affection. Napoleon himself accepted it as a compliment. He learned to understand his men, to fraternize with them, to bring out the best ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... The French fabric is said to have been first introduced during the early part of the sixteenth century at Avignon, then a papal diocese, and to have been so called in compliment to the reigning pope. A fabric constructed with a silk warp and a filling of wool heavier than the silk which gives it a corded surface. Poplin manufacture was introduced into Ireland in 1693 by a colony of fugitive French Huguenots. The industry concentrated at Dublin, where ...
— Textiles • William H. Dooley
... distinguished him in all his social relationships. I was introduced to him by our host across the dinner-table, and he immediately plunged into a discussion about newspapers and distinguished journalists who were known to me personally. I remember he paid a great compliment to the Standard, saying that it was a newspaper he always liked to read because he always found it to be fair and honest. "When I read a bad leader in the Standard," he said, "I say to myself, Mr. Mudford must be taking a holiday." I duly reported this saying to Mudford afterwards, ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... unless fresh color, and dimples, mean countrified, when I should think the term a compliment.' Then he turned to Great ...
— Princess Polly's Gay Winter • Amy Brooks
... those who fancied that in bowing the eyes of the cibolero were directed on the fair Catalina de Cruces; and some went so far as to assert that she smiled and looked content; but that could not be. The heiress of the rich Don Ambrosio smile to a compliment from ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... that. I guess I know an old man when I see one," she said, and blushed scarlet when he answered in his courtly way, "Pardon me, madam, but Shylock is my daughter. She will appreciate your unstudied compliment." ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... sir," said he, "to compliment you on being so handy with your fists. You precious nearly did for me, I ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... was not to be turned aside by the little compliment. "It isn't any reason to be cheerful. I mean, Peggy, that this affair with Claire has just helped to show me what ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... thinking of that; no one else would have done it! No one will dream what it means, and it will be great fun, letting them make it out. We must keep it a dead secret from Mr. Hoskins, and let her surprise him with it when he comes for her that evening. It will be a very pretty way of returning his compliment, and it will be a sort of delicate acknowledgement of his kindness in asking her, and in so many other ways. Yes, you've hit it exactly, Owen; she shall ...
— A Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories • William D. Howells
... in joke or for the sake of compliment, though to no one there accrues loss or gain in consequence, nevertheless is altogether unworthy: for thus the Apostle admonishes, 'Putting aside lying, speak ye truth.' For therein is great danger of lapsing into frequent and more serious lying, and from lies in joke men gain the habit of ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... he is "boun' for Gloster" (not Gloucester, with the leave of the Universal Schoolmaster),[27] he but speaks like Chaucer or an old ballad-singer, though they would have pronounced it boon. This is one of the cases where the d is surreptitious, and has been added in compliment to the verb bind, with which it has nothing to do. If we consider the root of the word (though of course I grant that every race has a right to do what it will with what is so peculiarly its own as its speech), the d ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... money and goes away: war is over. The peasant tells me that he has served in the campaign of 1716, and that he was at the defence of Corfu. I compliment him, and ask him to find me a lodging and a man able to prepare my meals. He answers that he will procure me a whole house, that he will be my cook himself, but I must go up the hill. No matter! He calls two stout fellows, ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... not enough for one day, to test her power over me, to-night she made me dance with her. And now I feel like a fool as I think of Etty playing a waltz for us, at Flora's request, and giving me a long, serious look as I approached the piano to compliment her playing. I could not utter a word. I answered her gaze with one as sober, and more sad, and came away to my room, to have some talk with my real self. Now ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... Marzavan excited the prince's curiosity so far, that he vouchsafed to open his eyes, and look upon him. Marzavan, who had a great deal of wit, laid hold of that opportunity, and made his compliment in verse extempore; which nevertheless he did in such a disguised manner, that neither the king nor grand vizier understood any thing of the matter. However, he represented so nicely what had happened ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... this side of her compliment exposed, did not return the smile, and went to her chair in the green-room without taking ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... him. In vain he protested that she was the "dearest" and "littlest" of his "little loves"—in vain he asserted that she was his patron saint, and that it was his soul's delight to pray to her; she accepted the compliment with her eyes fixed upon the manger. When he had exhausted his whole stock of endearing diminutives, adding a few playful and more audacious sallies, she remained with her head down, as if inclined to meditate upon them. This he declared was ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... would not mind in the least, and she ran out bareheaded into the hot sunlight. Good Indian leaned forward a little in his chair so that he could watch her running across to the shack where she had a room or two, and he paid her the compliment of keeping her in his thoughts all the time she was gone. He felt, as he had done with Peppajee, that he had not known Miss Georgie at all until to-day, and he was a bit startled at what he was ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... hard to find a higher compliment to Paoli and his friends, considering the source from which these words emanated. They were all poor and they were all in debt. Even now, in the age of reform, they saw their most cherished plans thwarted by the presence in every town of garrisons composed of ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... 'any body,'" thought Cornelia, "I should have said he meant to compliment. How funny he is! just like a boy in some ways. I believe I know more than he ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... Penhaligon, who always pitied bachelors. On an impulse she said, "An' when you've done, Mr Nanjivell, there'll be fried eggs an' bacon, if you're not above acceptin' the compliment ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... merely talk with her I don't think that will do it," he said, decidedly. "She's been with you all winter, has seen just how a girl should behave,"—he did not know what a thrill of happiness this bluntly sincere compliment gave his hearer—"and she hasn't taken it in a bit. She needs something to bring her to her senses. I'd rather not tell you my plan, for if you can assure her afterward that you weren't in it, you ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond
... 1700 to 1846, published especially in Germany; meaning, as is the fact, that there are some in it published elsewhere. According to the English, all classics printed in Germany, and all the adjacent countries, in all times, are to be found in the catalogue. I pass over the implied compliment to this country, namely, that while a true description is required in Germany, a puff both in time and space is wanted for England. I dwell on the injurious effect of such alterations to literature, and on the trouble they give to ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 51, October 19, 1850 • Various
... proposals, heaps of flowers every day, had to split up each dance several times at a ball, and all that kind of thing. It was a shock to find out why. To her face, they called her 'Princess,' and she was pleased with the nickname at first, poor thing. She took it for a compliment to herself. But she came to know that behind her back it was different; she was the 'Manitou Princess.' You see, the money, or most of it, came because father owned the biggest silver mines in Colorado, and he named the principal one 'Manitou,' after ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... in her teens when he came to Portsmouth. The President was the staple of her conversation during the last ten years of her life, which she passed in the Stavers House, bedridden; and I think those ten years were in a manner rendered short and pleasant to the old gentlewoman by the memory of a compliment to her complexion which Washington probably never paid ...
— An Old Town By The Sea • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... resemblance; and being deprived of all that, according to Bayes, goes "to elevate and surprize," it must make amends by displaying depth of knowledge and dexterity of execution. We, therefore, bestow no mean compliment upon the author of Emma, when we say that, keeping close to common incidents, and to such characters as occupy the ordinary walks of life, she has produced sketches of such spirit and originality, that we never miss the excitation which depends upon a narrative of uncommon events, arising ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... She saw what Drouet liked; in a vague way she saw where he was weak. It lessens a woman's opinion of a man when she learns that his admiration is so pointedly and generously distributed. She sees but one object of supreme compliment in this world, and that is herself. If a man is to succeed with many women, he must be all in all ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... Sebastian Cabot in 1497, and more than two centuries afterwards received the name of St. John, by which it is still designated in old maps. It received the name of Prince Edward Island in compliment to the illustrious father of our Queen, who bestowed great attention upon it. It has been the arena of numerous conflicts during the endless wars between the French and English. Its aboriginal inhabitants have here, as in other places, melted away before the whites. About three hundred remain, ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... him a "high-minded boy," likewise "a blossoming hero," also "a babe of prowess;" all which epithets, styles and titles, are in quite the vein of Falstaff addressing Prince Hal. Then, in return, Siegfried can hit on no better compliment than to style her "a Sun" and "a Star." Having thus exhausted their joint-stock of complimentary endearments, they throw themselves into each other's arms. On which situation the Curtain ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 18, 1892 • Various
... the Madonna, to whom votive offerings are being brought, to signify those who have recourse to her for benefits: together with other bizarre fancies, which were conceived by the fruitful brain of M. Giovanni Pollastra, the friend of Rosso and a Canon of Arezzo, in compliment to whom Rosso made a most beautiful model of the whole work, which is now in my house at Arezzo. He also drew for that work a study of nude figures, which is a very choice thing; and it is a pity that it was never finished, ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 05 ( of 10) Andrea da Fiesole to Lorenzo Lotto • Giorgio Vasari
... dancing, I was refreshing my memory with a little exercise; but if I had known there was a sick person below, by Christ! I would have sooner danced a hornpipe upon my own head, than walk the softest minuet over yours.' — My uncle, who was not a little startled at his first appearance, received his compliment with great complacency, insisted upon his being seated, thanked him for the honour of his visit, and reprimanded me for my abrupt expostulation with a gentleman of his rank and character. Thus tutored, I asked pardon of the knight, who, forthwith starting ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... He proceeded to ask me whether I had turned upon him, in this debate, from the consciousness that I should find an overmatch, if I ventured on a contest with his friend from Missouri. If, Sir, the honorable member, modestiae gratia, had chosen thus to defer to his friend, and to pay him a compliment, without intentional disparagement to others, it would have been quite according to the friendly courtesies of debate, and not at all ungrateful to my own feelings. I am not one of those, Sir, who esteem any tribute of regard, whether light and occasional, or ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... together with other places of emolument, whereas they now can only have one apiece. The second cause is that the number of the Cardinals has been increased to seventy-five, and that the foreign powers have ceased to compliment them with large presents and Benefices, as was the wont of Charles V. and the French crown.' In the last of these clauses we find clearly indicated one of the main results of the concordat established between ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... after this plain statement, either for the purpose of collecting his thoughts or giving his young warriors time to weigh and appreciate the compliment, he continued— ...
— The Prairie Chief • R.M. Ballantyne
... its summit. A range of peaks bore N. 57 degrees W.; another range, with undulating outline, was seen to the south-east; and another less prominent range bore N. 45 degrees W. The hill is in latitude 23 degrees 10 minutes, and bears the name of Mount Stewart, in compliment to Mr. Stewart, veterinary surgeon of Sydney, to whom I am indebted for great ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... ignoring the compliment. "Where are we scheduled to walk?—or are we to have something to say about ...
— A Rebellious Heroine • John Kendrick Bangs
... became proverbial as the symbol of sweetness. It was the highest compliment that the shepherd ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... her letter to Hodgson, Nov., 1816, Memoirs of Rev. F. Hodgson, 1878, ii. 41), Murray paid Lady Byron "the compliment" of showing her the transcription of the Third Canto, a day or two after it came into his possession. Most probably she did not know or recognize Claire's handwriting, but she could not fail to remember that but one short ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... ten days, and, as the village did not make up a bag for London, there being very few letters excepting those from the great house, the letter-bag from the house, and the despatch-box, were handed direct into our travelling post-office. But in compliment to the presence of the Premier in the neighbourhood, the train, instead of slackening speed only, stopped altogether, in order that the Premier's trusty and confidential messenger might deliver the important box into my own ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens
... a general titter. Mrs. Colonel Poyntz hushed it with a look of severe surprise. "What is there to laugh at? All women would be men if they could. If my understanding is masculine, so much the better for me. I thanked Mr. Vigors for his very handsome compliment, and he then went on to say that though Mrs. Ashleigh would now have to leave Kirby Hall in a very few weeks, she seemed quite unable to make up her mind where to go; that it had occurred to him that, as Miss ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Not the least interesting incident of the evening was his observing, when the dinner was about half over, a model of a locomotive engine placed upon the centre table, under a triumphal arch. Turning suddenly to his friend Sopwith, he exclaimed, "Do you see the 'Rocket'?" The compliment thus paid him, was perhaps more prized than all ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... ingenious compliment! In order to avoid having to see or hear from his fiancee for six months, he is willing to go and stay among the dirtiest and most ...
— The Pot Boiler • Upton Sinclair
... Benson paid a marked compliment to the old hall in which he was speaking, and the liberty of speech allowed within its portals. Total Abstinence was the one thing needed throughout the land. There could be no such thing as moderate ...
— Fifteen Years in Hell • Luther Benson
... Jack," was the skipper's compliment. "Yes, you might make your way for'ard without interference,—but the fo'castle hatches are stoutly guarded. Again, should my brave fellows find exit, they are weaponless, unready. Moreover, they have been crammed in that dark hole, drenched ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... honare of the fracas. I vas vait on monsieur a—choses, and make ma compliment avec beaucoup de grace, ven monsieur vas read de news papier; so I say, is your honare ready for be dress? De great man say, "No—, d—n de barbare." [In a low voice.] I tell de parsone, sare, I have promise 'pon honare for dress one great man vat is belong ...
— The Politician Out-Witted • Samuel Low
... you compliment me?" she said to the weary child, who, sick with yesterday's weeping, and the close confinement of to- day, had laid her aching head upon the ...
— Dora Deane • Mary J. Holmes
... explained that Mr. Landsborough, having been out of town, had not yet arrived at the meeting but was expected shortly. In the meantime he called upon Mr. McKinlay to respond to the compliment which had just been paid to himself and his brother explorer. He also requested the meeting to excuse Mr. McKinlay from making any statement with respect to his journey as he felt bound in the first place to communicate the particulars ...
— Journal of Landsborough's Expedition from Carpentaria - In search of Burke and Wills • William Landsborough
... who ever came to the house,—or for any old people either, for that matter. It was his household throne, and there he sat with no more idea of abdicating in favour of any comer than King George at St James's. But he was glad to see his friends; and had paid them the unwonted compliment of shaving on a week-day, and putting on his Sunday coat. The united efforts of wife and children had failed to persuade him to make any farther change in his attire; to all their arguments on this head ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell
... But they must belong to a period earlier than that of David. The rulers of Hamath who made alliance with David bear Semitic names. The crown-prince came himself to Jerusalem, bringing with him costly vessels of gold and silver and bronze. His name was Hadoram, "Hadad is exalted;" but out of compliment to the Israelitish king, the name of Hadad was changed into that of the God of Israel, and he became known to history as Joram. A common enmity united Hamath and Israel. The war with Ammon had brought David into conflict with Zobah, an Aramaic kingdom which under Hadad-ezer ...
— Early Israel and the Surrounding Nations • Archibald Sayce
... a difference oncet, I'm not standin' on my dignity. Nothin' like that. You're offerin' me a big chance—the biggest I'm ever likely to get. When you pick me to boss the A T O under yore orders, you pay me a sure-enough compliment, an' I'd be plumb glad ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine
... have resented such familiarity with June's cheek on the part of Mr. Walker, or even Mr. Bentley, she took it as an act of condescension and compliment on the part of the Governor's son, ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... rifle, he fired at random. His bullet came near striking a Mexican sentinel who was on duty, and who was making his rounds. The sentinel was very naturally startled by this unaccountable noise in the camp, and supposing that the Indians had, unobserved, crept within the lines, he returned the compliment by discharging his piece in the direction of the supposed danger. The report of these firearms had the effect of arousing the entire command. The men were quickly on their feet and ready for active service. In the confusion which ensued, several more rifles were fired, but fortunately no harm was ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... ingenious hands, until at last he stood bare, so to speak, he that had come so richly clothed in fraud and falsehood. His counsel began an argument, but the court declined to hear it, and threw out the case, adding a few words of grave compliment for Joan, and referring to her as "this ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... jostled for entrance to his cell, and the poor devil fainted three times at the heat caused by the throng of his admirers. So long as his fate hung in the balance, Walpole could not take up his pen without a compliment to the man, who claimed to have robbed him near Hyde Park. Yet a more pitiful rascal never showed the white feather. Not once was he known to take a purse with his own hand, the summit of his achievement being to hold the horses' heads while his accomplice ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... can understand how the features of your kind friend have touched the tenderest chords of your heart, and I respect your study fidelity to your conscience in refusing to let me paint this bud in your hair; but you must also do me the justice to believe that I meant no hollow compliment when I searched for it among the florists. Must I throw this one away, too?" he asked, with a glance that was very ardent for a friend; "for since I obtained it for you, it must receive its fate at ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... surprised that the boss had paid him even this grudging compliment, and as he sat beside the big stove, puzzled over the peculiar glance that ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... determined that he shall have more wives than others, in order that he may have as many children as possible. And at a feast he shall have more to eat; we have the authority of Homer for honouring brave men with 'long chines,' which is an appropriate compliment, because meat is a very strengthening thing. Fill the bowl then, and give the best seats and meats to the brave—may they do them good! And he who dies in battle will be at once declared to be of the golden race, and will, as we believe, become one of Hesiod's guardian angels. He shall be worshipped ...
— The Republic • Plato
... anyone in the school, even Drummond. Joe Bevan was delighted with his progress, and quoted Shakespeare volubly in his admiration. Jack Bruce and Francis added their tribute, and the knife and boot boy paid him the neatest compliment of all by refusing point-blank to have any more dealings with him whatsoever. His professional duties, explained the knife and boot boy, did not include being punched in the heye by blokes, and he did not intend ...
— The White Feather • P. G. Wodehouse
... stand persecution because we believe in upholding the Stars and Stripes. I have heard something of your history from our young friend Percival, and assure you that I sympathize with you deeply. I want to compliment you on the courage and skill you showed in helping him escape from those guerrillas ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon
... ambassador to a set of regicides, whose hands are still reeking with the blood of a slaughtered monarch? No, sir, the British character is too noble to run a race of infamy; nor shall we be the first to compliment a set of monsters who, while we are agitating the subject, are probably bearing through the streets of Paris—horrid spectacle—the bloody victim of their fury." The master of the rolls, Sheridan, Windham, Burke, Sir William Young, and others took part ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... hailed by Dorothea from the summerhouse. She had run the unsuspecting Miss Clark very hard to arrive at the psychological moment. Joining them there, he was duly presented to Jennie Clark, and Dorothea, accepting the courteous fashion in which he acknowledged the introduction as an indirect compliment to herself, was elated. Jennie was certainly very pretty. She tossed back her long curls and talked to Amiel with an occasional droop of her long lashes, and Dorothea, beaming upon them both, had no notion that, hovering above her in the quiet twilight, the green- ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... which was a contraction of Stephen. St. Stephen was always represented in the Catholic pictures of the saints, as a very handsome man, and Buckingham being handsome too, James called him Steeny by way of a compliment. Steeny called the king his dad, and used to sign himself, in his letters, "your slave and dog Steeny." There are extant some letters which passed between the king and his favorite, written, on the part of the king, in a style of grossness ...
— Charles I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... the passages now adduced, it was understood to refer to the honour of the emperor's patronage, obtained through the means of Mecaenas; otherwise, such language to the minister might have excited the jealousy of Augustus. But whatever foundation there may be for this conjecture, the compliment was compensated by the superior adulation which the poets appropriated to the emperor, whose deification is more than insinuated, in sublime intimations, ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... for the oligarchy of the hardness as well as the brightness of the diamond. Like a sonneteer addressing his lady in the seventeenth century, he seems to use the word "cold" almost as a eulogium, and the word "heartless" as a kind of compliment. Of course, in people so incurably kind-hearted and babyish as are the English gentry, it would be impossible to create anything that can be called positive cruelty; so in these books they exhibit a sort of negative cruelty. They cannot be cruel in acts, but they can be ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... subjects. In 1828 he wrote an impromptu to M. Pradel, who had improvised a Gascon song in honour of the poet. The Gascon painter, Champmas, had compared Jasmin to a ray of sunshine, and in 1829 the poet sent him a charming piece of verse in return for his compliment. ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... the doctor's wife, not propitiated by the compliment. "Herbert," she said, "here are a couple of handkerchiefs I bought in the village yesterday. I hope ...
— Try and Trust • Horatio Alger
... arrived—you are ignorant of the ways and means here. 'Tis a wretched place. I know at your age one loves to be snug and quiet. What if you move your lodgings? Come, be my visitor. (BUTLER makes a low bow.) Nay, without compliment! For a friend like you I have ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... guests, and Spero timidly drew near to the young girl and offered her his arm. Jane hesitated for a moment to take it, and looked expectantly at the vicomte. She waited, no doubt, for a compliment or some word from him. As Spero remained silent, a satisfied smile crossed the classical features of the diva, and placing her hand on his arm she carelessly said: ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume II (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... anxious to get up to her, would not lose way by again yawing to fire; and we had to receive her shot without returning the compliment. ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... autumn of 1862 and called on Mr. Longfellow, who had been entertained at his father's house in Cincinnati, the poet said to him: "It is worth that makes the man; the want of it the fellow" —a compliment that almost dumfounded his young acquaintance. It is certain that Longfellow addressed a poem to Mrs. Longworth which will be found in the collection of his minor poems, and in which he ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns
... misfortune, and one of them is that a man invariably prides himself upon possessing the quality he hasn't got. That's a perfectly safe rule," she annotated along the margin of her story. "I used to compliment an artist upon his art and an Apollo upon his beauty—but it never worked. They always looked as if I had under-valued them, so now I industriously praise the folly of the wise and ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... England, of Drummond: He has brass to declare in open court that the Utah laws are founded in ignorance, and has attempted to set some of the most important ones aside,... and he will be able to appreciate the merits of a returned compliment some day." ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... The strife about the cup continued amid the unending bows of the gentleman, and the equally unending curtseys of Petrea, until a passing waltzing couple gave a jostle, without the least ceremony whatever to the compliment-makers, which occasioned a shake of the tea-cup, and revealed to Petrea the last thing in the world which she had imagined, that the cup was not empty! Shocked and embarrassed, she let go her hold, ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... for the most part, are only readers; whence it comes that they almost always find fault with us on wrong grounds, or compliment us without reserve ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... wine-cellar and thy house," murmured Abi Fressah, when he could get in a word. "I have no business of consequence to transact this afternoon. I could not pay thee a better compliment than to ...
— Jewish Fairy Tales and Legends • Gertrude Landa
... highly-decorated shield was borne behind him, the three garbs and the lions being chiefly conspicuous in the marshalling: the former, the original bearing of Hugh Lupus, was often used by the constables of Chester, in compliment to their chief lord. Its shape was angular, and suspended from the neck by a strap called guige or gige, a Norman custom of great antiquity. A huge broadsword was carried by his armour-bearer, the person of the chief being without any further means of impediment or defence than a French stabbing ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... however, but has gone so far as to concede that he had a very pleasant evening—which is going a long way for him—and to say that you are a very agreeable young man. There! I didn't intend to tell you that, but you have been so good that perhaps so much as a second-hand compliment is no more ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... wishes to compliment Marcus he declares one or other of his letters has the true Tullian ring. Marcus gives his nights to reading when he ought to be sleeping. He exercises himself in verse composition and on ...
— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius
... "the ladies and your father beg that, unworthy as I am to dance on the same floor as you, that yet, as a compliment to Mr. Flick, we go through some of the Spanish ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... Giddings, who was far from as ignorant of these processes as he led his visitors to suppose. "Boys, I wish to compliment you very highly upon this piece of work. When I first looked at the schedule and saw that an airplane meeting its requirements would make this trip squarely around the world in seven and a half hours less than ten days I could scarcely credit my senses, and I figured ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... the caress took away from the comparison any idea of disrespect, and the girls laughed at the odd conceit,—Lizzy, at least, not a little proud of the implied compliment. Mr. Alford left them, to attend to his affairs, and they went on with their romp,—running on the top of the smooth wall beside the meadow, gathering clusters of lilac blossoms from the fatherly great posy that grew on the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... welcome, and Eobanus describes a banquet to which he invited them, entertaining them with serious talk and light-hearted jest. But it was at no light cost to Erasmus' time: for when his admirers left five days later, he had been cajoled into writing six letters of compliment, two to the travellers themselves and four more to friends at Gotha and Erfurt. But this was not the only cost. Eobanus imbued others of the Erfurt circle with his hero-worship; and next year came two more, Jonas and Schalbe, to trouble Erasmus' leisure, when he was taking a spring holiday ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen
... closed by Capt. Currier's sharp voice calling Sambo to bring the peas. He hastily obeyed the summons, as he did so displaying by his open smile his ivory teeth to Sarah, who returned the compliment in ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... doubtful compliment had come down so early that morning believing that Mrs. McGuire was confined to her bed with rheumatism. Seeing the object of her solicitude up and about, she would have returned without knowing what had happened; but Bugsey's remarkable ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... examined one another nearer. They discovered that Henrik had become considerably paler as well as thinner, which Henrik received as a compliment to his studies. Jacobi wished also a compliment on his studies, but it was unanimously refused to him on account of his blooming appearance. He protested that he was flushed with the weather, but that availed nothing. Louise thought privately to herself that Jacobi ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... barbers, nor the mode of the occasional caller at our house, whose pronunciation seemed an individual exception; but an entire assemblage holding intercourse in dainty Parisian, exquisite as the famous dialect of the Brahmans. There was the graceful compliment, the antithetic description, the witty repartee. One could say the poetical or sententious without being insulted by a stare. Some of the ladies were beautiful, some were not, but they had for the most part a quite ideal degree of grace and many of them a kind of dignity ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... constructed on a given tune, and the verse has even a trace of pulpit eloquence. But the play contains, through all its length, unmistakeable traits of Shakspeare's hand; and some passages, as the account of the coronation, are like autographs. What is odd, the compliment to Queen Elizabeth is ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 50. Saturday, October 12, 1850 • Various
... in the Throne Room before lunch.... Oh, and there's just one thing. My Court have got an impression—I'm sure I don't know why—that we're quite old friends. If you wouldn't mind—er—addressing me as 'Selina' now and then.... Not at all, I assure you, I should consider it a compliment—from you.... Then I shall hope to see you later on in the Throne Room.... It's in the left wing, down the great corridor; you can't miss it because of the ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... was made Queen's Counsel, and on his retirement from practice, because of ill health, in 1883, a farewell banquet was given him by the bar in the hall of the Inner Temple, probably the most notable compliment paid in England to any orator since the banquet to Berryer. He died ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... came to me with the compliment that he found there was no such thing as carrying a public-spirited project through without my being concern'd in it. "For," says he, "I am often ask'd by those to whom I propose subscribing, Have ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... leader, no doubt, had scoured the land far and wide, seeking to swell his troop. These alone were ready to step between the oppressor and the oppressed. Surely they were the very best men you could select to be hung! That was the greatest compliment their country could pay them. They were ripe for her gallows. She has tried a long time; she has hung a good many, but never ...
— The Story of the Innumerable Company, and Other Sketches • David Starr Jordan
... nor write,) at a time when it was necessary to bribe him into peace. Violante, usually called the Muse, the other attendant of the Princess, a mistress of the vocal and instrumental art of music, was actually sent in a compliment to soothe the temper of Robert Guiscard, the Archduke of Apulia, who being aged and stone-deaf, and the girl under ten years old at the time, returned the valued present to the imperial donor, and, with the selfishness which ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... in glad defiance of her own consciousness. "Well, I was trying to make you compliment me; I'm not going to deny it. But I must say I got my come-uppance: you didn't say a thing I cared for. But you ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... not Bayard complete?" said Marie laughing. "I am sure we should be obliged; it is an age since we received a compliment here ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... is not an equal compliment to me. But why should Americans be different from English people? We went over from England only ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... you told me. It is a wonderful encouragement, for I know now that you speak as a man of education, of cultivation. You must have seen the highest class of stage interpretation, and, I am sure, have no desire merely to flatter me. You do not speak as if you meant an idle compliment. Oh, you can scarcely conceive how much success will spell to me, Mr. Winston," her voice growing deeper from increasing earnestness, her eyes more thoughtful, "but I am going to tell you a portion of my life-story in ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... proposition of Bolivar with eloquent words, incidentally praising the victorious general and his troops. Among the persons who came to compliment him was an old foe named Mariano Montilla, a colonel in the army. Bolivar knew well how to discover real qualifications even in the hearts of his enemies, and he availed himself of this opportunity to establish strong bonds of friendship between himself and his former foe. He ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell
... the same, Down from his mountain came; And in a solitary place, They met each other, face to face. It would have made the boldest tremble; What did our man? To play the Gascon The safest seem'd. He put the mask on, His fear contriving to dissemble. The bear, unused to compliment, Growl'd bluntly, but with good intent, 'Come home with me.' The man replied: 'Sir Bear, my lodgings, nearer by, In yonder garden you may spy, Where, if you'll honour me the while, We'll break our fast in rural style. I've ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... proceeding on the road; and I could neither retreat nor turn round, to give him room to pass. Seeing it was a Frank who stopped his way, he gave me a violent blow on my stomach. Not being accustomed to put up with such salutations, I returned the compliment with my whip across his naked shoulders. Instantly he took his pistol out of his belt; I jumped off my ass; he retired about two yards, pulled the trigger, fired at my head, singed the hair near my right ear, and killed one of his own soldiers, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... said, 'you've got the ways of wild-cats and spinsters the world over.' This was an unwilling compliment. 'And I'll say this for you, whatever else I canna say, you've got sperit enough for the ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... more genuine compliment, and he did not hesitate to give the old man two pieces of gold instead of one, and then immediately retired from the spot, passing through the crowd with the tin-plate instrument under his arm. He had scarcely gone ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris
... I know that the country will exist whatever party may be in power. I know that all our blessings do not come from laws, or from the carrying into effect of certain policies, and probably I could pay no greater compliment to any country than to say that even eight years of Democratic rule cannot ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... gate to welcome the guests, who were cantering up with a curtain of dust behind them, they laughed over Banjo's compliment. ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... be only civil to receive his guest in the same style. His uniform was therefore got out, brushed up, and put on, in advance of the visit. The Flag Officer, knowing General Taylor's aversion to the wearing of the uniform, and feeling that it would be regarded as a compliment should he meet him in civilian's dress, left off his uniform for this occasion. The meeting was said to have been embarrassing to both, and the ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... absurd to take the man's word seriously; indeed, he probably believed he had paid her a compliment. Alaire assured herself that Longorio's attentions were inspired merely by a temporary extravagance of admiration, characteristic of his nationality. Doubtless he had forgotten all about her by this time. That, too, was characteristic of Latin men. Nevertheless, the possibility ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... have less merit both as poetry and natural history, but they are older, and doubtless the latter poet benefited by them. Burke admired them so much that, while on a visit to Edinburgh, he sought the author out to compliment him:— ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... {obscure}. VMS fans sometimes refer to Unix as 'Runix'; Unix fans return the compliment by expanding VMS to 'Very Messy Syntax' or 'Vachement Mauvais Syst'eme' ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... "Missus Compliment, ma'am, I'se been out all night in search of Miss Caterpillar, without finding of her. Is she come ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... choice of two trains returning. But he could not hide or belittle this confidence of his employer in him. It was the care of several thousand perishable dollars and the control of men. It was a compliment. There were more steers than men to be responsible for; but none of the steers had been suddenly picked from the herd and set above his fellows. Moreover, Chicago finished up the steers; but the new-made ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... 'Not,' as she said to her friend, Edith Hastings, 'for the woman's sake, for she knew her to be vulgar: but because she was a neighbor and the sister-in-law of Arthur Tracy,' And so at last she came, partly out of compliment and partly on business, into which last she plunged at once. She was going to the mountains with Mr. Harrington and Miss Hastings: her cook, who had been with her seven years, had gone to attend a sick mother, and had recommended as a fit person to take her place the woman who had ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... composed a Distich, containing the Praise of Augustus, and a Compliment on his good Fortune, fix'd it on the Palace Gate, without any Name subscrib'd. Augustus, making strict Enquiry after the Author, and Virgil's Modesty not suffering him to own the Verses, one Bathillus, a Poet of a mean Reputation, owned himself the Author, and received Honour ...
— Observations on the Florid Song - or Sentiments on the Ancient and Modern Singers • Pier Francesco Tosi
... because when a woman's fire has gone out, owing to her having been out at work all day, she just runs into some neighbour's hut where there is a fire burning, and gives compliments, and picks up a burning stick from the fire and runs home. From this comes the compliment, equivalent to our "Oh! don't go away yet," of "You come to fetch fire." This will be said to you all the way from Sierra Leone to Loanda, as far as I know, if you have been making yourself agreeable in an African home, even if the process may have extended over a ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... the fields and rivers, and nothing would so deeply hurt the pride of the nouveaux riches as to insinuate that he was not quite fully imbued with the spirit and the knowledge of the country. If you told him he was ignorant of books he might take that as a compliment; if you suggested in a sidelong way that he did not understand horses he would never more ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... name which is old among the hills; I have carved my way to a colonelcy under the Stuart flag, where promotion, like kissing, has often gone by favour, yet sometimes by merit. The Prince himself, when he gave me my rank, called me the Black Colonel in compliment to my beard, which nobody has ever singed. The Black Colonel I remained when the Stuart army melted in the bloody furrows of Culloden, and in truth I have, and need not deny it, left my name in many quarters. I took it with me when I sought the ...
— The Black Colonel • James Milne
... (Above the last-named picture.) A single recumbent figure in a not very interesting landscape, deserving less attention than a picture of St. Martin just opposite to it,—a noble and knightly figure on horseback by Pordenone, to which I cannot pay a greater compliment than by saying that I was a considerable time in doubt whether or not ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... proscribed and banished for entertaining the political views of his father. Dr. Byles was a noted wit, and so ready with his puns and sarcasms that seldom did anyone try to match him in this line without coming off the worse for the conflict. When Seabury paid him the compliment of a visit, he received him very cordially, and said, with a mixture of irony: "I am happy to see in my old age a bishop on this side the Atlantic, and I hope you will not refuse to give me the right hand of fellowship." To which the Bishop replied: "As you are a ...
— Report Of Commemorative Services With The Sermons And Addresses At The Seabury Centenary, 1883-1885. • Diocese Of Connecticut
... pays the Church of Rome, with its monks and preaching friars, the compliment of having, at an early period, expelled from the land all spirits of an inferior and less holy character. The verses are curious as well as picturesque, and may go some length to establish the existence of doubts concerning the general belief in fairies among the well-instructed ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... produced no effect. Andrea Dandolo, in his answer to it, alleges the thousand and one affronts and outrages which Venice had suffered from Genoa. At the same time he pays a high compliment to the eloquence of Petrarch's epistle, and says that it is a production which could emanate only from a mind inspired by the ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... January 1801, a promotion of flag-officers took place, in order, it was said, to include the name of Sir James Saumarez; and this flattering compliment was immediately followed by a further honour, in his being ordered forthwith to hoist his flag on board his old ship, the Caesar; while Lieutenant Henryson, who was senior in that ship, was promoted to the rank of commander. Sir James being ordered to fit ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez, Vol. I • Sir John Ross
... popular with most of the members of her Form, she was never on very good terms with Flossie Taylor. Flossie had a sharp tongue, and liked to make sarcastic remarks; and though Honor would promptly return the compliment, and often "squash" the other completely, continual bickering did not promote harmony between the pair. Flossie was occasionally capable of certain dishonourable acts, which always drew upon her Honor's utmost indignation and scorn. The latter could not tolerate cheating or copying, ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... Baroness sure enough.... She knows a Syvorotka but declines to give his rank or whereabouts.... She tells me that this place was founded by Count Tatischshev in 1721 ... when Catherine was a baby.... The Monastery of 'Our Lady of Tikhvin' looming up before me is a very graceful compliment to the Mosque of St. Sophia it resembles in so many ways.... fine place to radio from to friends at Odessa ... especially if the NUN has been obeying orders.... Lvov is out of the way, over in the city ...
— Rescuing the Czar - Two authentic Diaries arranged and translated • James P. Smythe
... He carried on little conversations with the Senorita in broken English. The Senorita's English was pretty, but not very idiomatic. The Senator imitated her English remarkably well, and no doubt did it out of compliment. He also astonished the company by speaking at the very top of a voice whose ordinary tone was ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille
... defeat the satyr of a false waggish lover, who might compare her colour, when she looked like a ghost, to the blowing of the rose-bud, by blushing herself into a bloom of beauty; and might make what he meant a reflection, a real compliment, at any hour of the day, in spite of his teeth. It has a prevailing power with me, whenever I ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... could no more help telling him that this was the highest compliment ever paid me than I have been able to help telling you ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... dozen at night-time than the first lieutenant did between day and night fishing; however, Jack did not fish for some time afterwards. But it so happened, that the first lieutenant was asked on shore to dine with the port-admiral; and, although he seldom left the ship, he could not refuse such a compliment, and so he went. As soon as it was dark, Jack thought his absence too good an opportunity not to have a fish; so he goes into the mizen-chains, and drops his line. Well, he fished (but I don't know whether he ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... for three years as Calixtus III., little need be said, except that his pontificate prepared for the greatness of his nephew, Roderigo Lenzuoli, known as Borgia in compliment to his uncle. The last days of Nicholas had been imbittered by the fall of Constantinople and the imminent peril which threatened Europe from the Turks. The whole energies of Pius II. were directed ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... slavery and barbarism, which still lingers to blight and destroy in some dark and distant parts of our country, would have made our assembling here the signal and excuse for opening upon us the flood-gates of wrath and violence. That we are here in peace to-day is a compliment and a credit to American civilization, and a prophecy of still greater enlightenment and progress in the future. I refer to the past, not in malice, but simply to place more distinctly in front the gratifying and glorious change which has come both to our white fellow citizens ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... friendship would sometimes suggest, with the cheerful cynicism which springs from a shallow dealing with imperial interests, that merit such as his could find its fitting sphere only if he were the sole occupant of the Numidian throne.[877] The words may often have been spoken in jest or idle compliment; although some who used them may have meant them to be an expression of the maxim that a protectorate is best served by a strong servant, and that a divided principality contains in itself the seeds of disturbance. Others went so far as to suggest ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... Micmac tongue. He could not believe his ears. Then he saw that they were using larger stones, instead of mud and turf, in their operations—and floating them down the pond as if they were corks. He had never heard of such a thing before, in all his wilderness experience. He was just about to compliment the Boy on this unparalleled display of engineering skill, when one particularly large beaver, who was hoisting a stone as big as himself up the face of the dam, let his burden slip a little. Then began a terrible struggle ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... smitten!" they cried, as they turned them over, like spectators who applaud at a game they can all understand. Specially did they compliment me on my axe-work. Never had anything like it been seen in Plassenburg. The head of the yearling calf was duly exhibited, when the neatness of the blow and the exactness of the aim at the weakest jointing ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... sure she can," Swann hastened to conciliate him. "All I meant was that she hardly struck me as 'distinguished,'" he went on, isolating the epithet in the inverted commas of his tone, "and, after all, that is something of a compliment." ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... gesticulating fashion of southerners, to whom a special service at the Church is like a new comedy at the theatre,—women with coloured kerchiefs knotted over their hair or across their bosoms—men, more or less roughly clad, yet all paying compliment to the Saint's feast-day by some extra smart touch in their attire, if it were only a pomegranate flower or orange-blossom stuck in their hats, or behind their ears. It was a mixed crowd, all of the working classes, who are proverbially called ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... Empire; the Barberry Ape, so called from feeding exclusively on Barberries; the Chimpanzee—an African corruption of Jump-and-see, the name given to the animal by his first European discoverers in compliment to his alertness; the Baboon, a melancholy brute that, as you may observe from his visage, always has the blues; to say nothing of a legion of Red Monkeys, ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, Issue 10 • Various
... you have them begin with—with a proposal to keep you as mistresses? Is not their proposal a compliment to both of you, as well as to me? Can anything be more polite than this? And do they not prove the honesty of their intentions by wishing to enter ...
— The Pretentious Young Ladies • Moliere
... "Metrical compliment is an ample reward for my strains; you are one of the few votaries of Apollo who unite the sciences over which that deity presides. I wish you to send my poems to my lodgings in London immediately, as I ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... young gentleman quite as much as our young gentleman interested them. He made friends with them all—especially with the ladies, who all agreed that he was a most charming and accomplished youth. This good opinion became permanent when Oliver had paid each in turn the compliment of rising from his seat when any one of them entered the room, as much a habit with the young fellow as the taking off of his hat when he came into a house, but which was so rare a courtesy at Miss Teetum's that each ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... Allardyce meant his compliment to fetch Gourlay. But Gourlay knew his Allardyce, and was cautious. It was well to be on your guard when the Deacon was complimentary. When his language was most flowery there was sure to be a serpent hidden in it somewhere. He would ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... gabbled it. When he had got as far as, 'Well, don't you know, what I mean is, that's what I wanted to say, you know,' I turned round and soothed him. I said I didn't love him. He said, 'No, no, of course not.' I said he had paid me a great compliment. He said, 'Not at all,' looking very anxious, poor darling, as if even then he was afraid of what might come next. But I reassured him, and he cheered up, and we walked back to the house together, ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... Which nothing but the soul of man Is capable to entertain. 110 For what can earth produce, but love To represent the joys above? Or who but lovers can converse, Like angels, by the eye-discourse? Address and compliment by vision; 115 Make love and court by intuition? And burn in amorous flames as fierce As those celestial ministers? Then how can any thing offend, In order to so great an end? 120 Or heav'n itself a sin resent, That for ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... and in our House! she's very fair— and yet how dull and blasted all her Beauties seems, when they approach the fair Cleonte's— I cannot shun a tedious Compliment; to see the fair Clarinda [Goes to Clarinda.] here, is a Happiness beyond my Hope; I'm glad to see her kind to the Sister, who always treated the Brother with ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... weeks later the proverbially "unlucky Smith" was ordered to report at the office of the Admiral Commanding, and he had a sharp struggle to maintain a becoming composure when he heard the terse compliment and the mention of a recommendation from that austere officer, coupled with the intelligence that the zeppelin had dropped into the sea off the ...
— Submarine Warfare of To-day • Charles W. Domville-Fife
... the King of Denmark with a compliment, nor would they admit the King of Spain when he was most potent in the Netherlands, tho afterward, when it was too late, they desired the help of the ragged staff; nor of the Duke of Anjou, notwithstanding ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume V (of X) • Various
... a fine compliment, following it with the condolences usual on such occasions, upon hearing I had been committed to prison. He then inquired of what part of Italy I was a native. "Piedmont," was the reply; "I am from Saluzzo." Here I was treated to another compliment, on the character and genius ...
— My Ten Years' Imprisonment • Silvio Pellico
... their allies, under the command of these princes, marching in regular step and in the close array of disciplined troops, accompany their king. He arrives at Thebes, and presents his captives to Amen-Ra and Mut, the deities of the city, who compliment him, as usual, on the victory he has gained, and the overthrow of the enemy he has "trampled ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students - Painting, Sculpture, Architecture • Clara Erskine Clement
... he emulated, never deigned to appear at the hippodrome; it was a way he had of showing his contempt for a nation. Antipas might have imitated his sovereign in that, only he was not sure that Tiberius would take the compliment as it was meant. He might view such abstention as the airs of a trumpery tetrarch, and depose him there and then. He was irascible, and when displeased there were dungeons at his command which reopened ...
— Mary Magdalen • Edgar Saltus
... In about an hour the Parrot flew away, promising to return the next day. In short, he returned every day and continued to compliment and ...
— Old French Fairy Tales • Comtesse de Segur
... his oats at this compliment. He sat up like a major, his chest out, his mustache as big on his thin face as a Mameluke's. It always made Lambert think of the handlebars on that long-horn safety bicycle that he came riding ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... the implied compliment quite seriously, 'I am not a centenarian, but I am two-and-thirty, Mr. Armstrong, and in the course of two-and-thirty years one may do a very considerable amount of living. I say it advisedly, as one grows older the recognition ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... great ancestor Sir Patrick, to whose memory he, amongst other instances of generosity, erected a handsome marble stone in the church of Castle Rackrent, setting forth in large letters his age, birth, parentage, and many other virtues, concluding with the compliment so justly due, that 'Sir Patrick Rackrent lived and died a monument of old ...
— Castle Rackrent • Maria Edgeworth
... deeper and more effective on her inclination because it was now obvious that his visits were made for her sake. This accomplished man condescended to think of a young girl, and take the pains to talk to her, not with absurd compliment, but with an appeal to her understanding, and sometimes with instructive correction. What delightful companionship! Mr. Casaubon seemed even unconscious that trivialities existed, and never handed round that small-talk of heavy men which is as acceptable ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... shoulder, for he was side on to me, fired. I never made a cleaner shot or a better kill in all my small experience, for the great buck sprang right up into the air and fell dead. The bearers, who had all halted to see the performance, gave a murmur of surprise, an unwonted compliment from these sullen people, who never appear to be surprised at anything, and a party of the guard at once ran off to cut the animal up. As for myself, though I was longing to have a look at him, I sauntered back to my litter ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... reply. Fully embarked upon this perilous voyage, and steering wide and clear of any treacherous shore of intelligence or fancied harbor of understanding and rest, he kept boldly out at sea. He said that, while his loving adversary in this battle of compliment had disarmed him and left him no words to reply to his generous panegyric, he could not but join with that gallant soldier in his heartfelt aspirations for the peaceful alliance of both countries. But while he fully ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... proudest compliment of her life. The deserted "Idylls of the King" company came and sat at a safe distance and watched her, wide-eyed. Tommy Page ...
— The Cricket • Marjorie Cooke
... with her the marechal, to render the compliment less severe; for I was moreover so sure of him, that I never had a doubt in my mind of the continuation of his friendship. Nothing that intimidated me in madam la marechale, ever for a moment extended to him. I never have ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... in the embassy, he could see it under favorable circumstances, at a very moderate cost. He was impetuous, spoiled by too much flattery, and incapable of imagining that Paul could consider his visit in any light but that of a compliment. Accordingly he had come, and ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... judgment in the whole debate. He spoke nothing to the purpose. It was too late to dispute, and he was obliged to yield, but I have observed that fools yield only when they cannot help it. We tried his patience a third time by the appearance of Marechal de La Mothe, who passed the same compliment upon the company as De Bouillon had done. We had concerted beforehand that these personages should make their appearance upon the theatre one after the other, for we had remarked that nothing so much affects the people, and even the ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... our friend, your president, mixes me up with Judge Thurman on account of the fact that our names sound very much alike. I consider such a mistake the highest compliment that could be paid me; for the great ability, intense sagacity and entire purity of your distinguished fellow-citizen, in the highest offices of the land, have placed him, in my estimation, in the first rank of able and noble men. I like ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... happier life! Adrian Bond, a dozen, a hundred other men would have known how to give her credit for her kindly intentions toward the less fortunate, would have found a ready way to praise her, to compliment her.... ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... I want to say and what they ought to say. But when they come at me with a flank movement, as it were, I am lost. Uncle passed over my blunder without a smile and went on to say many remarkable things, if sound means anything. However, trust even a deaf woman to prick up her ears when a compliment is headed her way, whether it is in Sanskrit or Polynesian. In acknowledgment I stuck to my flag, and the man's command of quaint but correct English convinced me that I would have to specialize in something more than first thought if I was to cope with this ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... C.H. Richards, D.D., of Madison, Wis. Subject, "Making Life Beautiful." The address was admirable in thought, style and delivery, and greatly delighted the vast audience of citizens and students. Dr. Richards paid a high compliment to the graduates, and those who had furnished the music for the occasion. The commencement dinner called forth very pleasant reminiscences of the early days, and many confident predictions concerning; the growth of the ...
— American Missionary, August, 1888, (Vol. XLII, No. 8) • Various
... lengthy silence which followed the conclusion of the detective's reconstruction of the crime. "It has been quite entrancing to listen to your syllogistical skill. You would have made an excellent Crown Prosecutor." The chief constable's official mind could conceive no higher compliment. "Your statements seem almost too incredible for belief, but undoubtedly you have made out a case for the further investigation of this crime. What do you ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees
... in with an army contractor, who might be disposed to relieve Dirck and myself of some portion of our charge. Luck again threw us in the way of Guert Ten Eyck, who seemed to live in the public street. In the course of a brief conversation that took place, as a passing compliment, I happened to mention a wish to ascertain, where one might dispose of a few horses, and of two or three sleigh-loads ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... hadn't told me you were Russian, I should have wagered that you were Parisian! You have that... I don't know what, that..." and having uttered this compliment, he again gazed at him ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... 1849, the first two volumes of Macaulay's History were issued, Miss Edgeworth, then in her eighty-third winter, was greatly delighted to find her name, coupled with a compliment to one of her characters, enshrined in a note to chap. vi. But her gratification was qualified by the fact that she could discover no similar reference to her friend, Sir Walter Scott. The generous ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson
... countenance and soft languishing blue eye, which sets half the delicate bosoms that surround him palpitating between hope and fear; then a glance at his well-shaped leg, or the fascination of an elegant compliment, smilingly overleaping a pearly fence of more than usual whiteness and regularity, fixes the fair one's doom; while the young rogue, triumphing in his success, turns on his heel and plays off another battery on the next pretty susceptible ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... their time, and their time came a few months later, when a company of American actors came to Toronto. A band concert had been given. When the British national air struck up, all hats were off. Then some one called for "Yankee Doodle," and in compliment to the visitors, when the American air struck up, Matthews shouted out for "hats off." For this sin the legislative council ordered the lieutenant governor to cut off Matthews' pension, and, to the everlasting shame of Sir Peregrine Maitland, the advice was taken, though Matthews had twenty-seven ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... "I do not wish to under-rate your genius in the least, but I should like to pay a compliment to ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... Achilles was false too, as he did not always keep his word. He reminds Hippias that he never wastes time over the brainless, though he listens carefully to every man. In fact, his cross-examination is a compliment. He never thinks the knowledge he gains is his own discovery, but is grateful to any who can teach him. He believes that unwitting deceivers are more culpable than deliberate tricksters. Hippias finds it impossible to agree with him, whereupon ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... remarked, "In the beginning God created man in His own image, and man has ever since been returning the compliment by creating God in his." But what else can we do? It follows from what has already been said that we know nothing and can know nothing of God except as we read Him in the universe, and we can only interpret the universe in terms of our own ...
— The New Theology • R. J. Campbell
... skillful, I'm afraid; but Dr. Murray says I did no harm, and that's really a good deal of a compliment from him." ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... scarce any single piece in the collection seemed legible throughout. Less valuable and more modern, though curious from their eccentricity, there lay, in company with the music, several pieces of verse, addressed by some Orcadian Claud Halcro of the last age, to some local patron, in a vein of compliment rich and stiff as a piece of ancient brocade. A peremptory letter, bearing the autograph signature of Mary Queen of Scots, to Torquil McLeod of Dunvegan, who had been on the eve, it would seem, of marrying a daughter of Donald of the Isles, gave the Skye chieftain, ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... short, but authentic, hints in the Fasti of Idatius (Chron. Scaliger. p. 52) are stained with contemporary passion. The fourteenth oration of Themistius is a compliment to Peace, and the consul ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... whisper of a blame. I will not pretend to argue with you the impropriety and offence of a Gothic revenge. But it is necessary upon a subject so important as that which now employs my pen, to be honest and explicit. It is not a time for compliment, it is not a moment for disguise and fluctuation. Whatever were the merits of the contest, I cannot forget that your hand is deformed with the blood of my husband. My lord, you have my sincerest good wishes. I bear you none of that ill will and covert revenge, that are equally the disgrace of ...
— Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin
... cheese and ale to their hearts' content. It is still the custom (says Mr. Nichols) to forward the Archbishop annually a set of the Company's almanacks, and some also to the Lord Chancellor and the Master of the Rolls. Formerly the twelve judges and various other persons received the same compliment. Alas for the mutation of other things than almanacs, however; for in 1850 the Company's barge, being sold, was taken to Oxford, where it may still be seen on the Isis, the property of one of the College boat clubs. At the upper end of the hall is a ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... rhythm; here the lines are constructed on a given tune, and the verse has even a trace of pulpit eloquence. But the play contains, through all its length, unmistakeable traits of Shakspeare's hand; and some passages, as the account of the coronation, are like autographs. What is odd, the compliment to Queen Elizabeth is in the ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 50. Saturday, October 12, 1850 • Various
... even the very best of light literature! Do they not, in their majesty, consider it infra dig. to review such works, and have not two or three pages bestowed upon them been considered as an immense favour on their part, and a high compliment to the authors? Notwithstanding which, we have here twenty-seven pages of virulent attack upon my light and trifling work. Does not the Edinburgh reviewer at once shew that the work is not light ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... very humble Servant, Major, they are delicate Stones indeed; but what Service must I do you in return of so great a Compliment? ...
— The Fine Lady's Airs (1709) • Thomas Baker
... very night that Willard Eaton, the county attorney, spoke to my father saying, "Richard, whenever that boy of yours finishes school and wants to begin to study law, you send him right to me," which was, of course, a very great compliment, for the county attorney belonged to the best known and most influential firm of lawyers in the town. At the moment his offer would have seemed very dull and commonplace to me. ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... Similar attacks were made on the other settlements, and a state of almost incessant warfare prevailed, in which Boone showed such valor and activity that he became the terror of his savage foes, who, in compliment to his daring, christened him "The Great Long-Knife." On one occasion when two Indian warriors assailed him in the woods he manoeuvred so skilfully as to draw the fire of both, and then slew the pair of them, ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... worthy of the trust, I am proud to say, we neither broke the knees nor the wind of the spirited animal which had us in tow, nor did we smash the ketureen; on the contrary, we arrived at our journey's end with both in such excellent condition as to extort a compliment upon our skilful driving from our somewhat surprised but by no means disconcerted hostess. We also faithfully delivered the message anent the saddle-horse, and then, feeling that we had done our whole duty ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... genius for once in our lives, we are not going to lose the opportunity of sitting at its feet," added Lady Holmhurst, with a little movement towards her which was neither curtsey nor bow, but rather a happy combination of both. The compliment was, Augusta felt, sincere, however much it exaggerated the measure of her poor capacities, and, putting other things aside, was, coming as it did from one woman to another, peculiarly graceful and surprising. ...
— Mr. Meeson's Will • H. Rider Haggard
... Sir James Hall's group, in compliment to the President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. They lie in longitude 124 46' E. and latitude ...
— Account of a Voyage of Discovery - to the West Coast of Corea, and the Great Loo-Choo Island • Captain Basil Hall
... kind of correspondence between the firmness with which we grasp, the tenacity with which we hold, the assurance with which we believe, these great truths, and the rock-like firmness and immovableness of the evidence upon which they rest. It is a poor compliment to God to come to His most veracious affirmations, sealed with the broad seal of His Son's life and death, and to answer with a hesitating 'Amen,' that falters and almost sticks in our throat. Build rock upon rock. Be sure of the certain things. Grasp with a firm hand the firm stay. Immovably ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... the abolition would ruin the West Indian islands. In doing this he paid a handsome compliment to the memory of Mr. Pitt, whose speech upon this particular point was, he said, the most powerful and convincing of any he had ever heard. Indeed they, who had not; heard it, could have no notion of it. It was a speech, ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... have ground his teeth in impotent rage at this speech which, to his accustomed ears, rang false from beginning to end, yet was cloaked in terms intended to convey a compliment to himself. But, instead, he smiled the equivocal smile with which many a speech of like tenor had been greeted, ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... loved me. There were no difficulties in the way of our marriage, which was arranged for the following spring. Indeed, my second trial took place on the very date we had selected. It was my duty to use poor Alan gently. Even his foolish and unreasonable jealousy was a compliment." ...
— The Stowmarket Mystery - Or, A Legacy of Hate • Louis Tracy
... vewy kind, Miss Florence. I thought it a great compliment. I don't know how it is, but evewybody takes me for an ...
— Adrift in New York - Tom and Florence Braving the World • Horatio Alger
... neared a dry sandbar in the middle, a volley was fired at us by a band of Indians, who that moment rode to the water's edge. The balls whistled very near, but without damage; I felt an involuntary twitch of the neck, and wishing to return the compliment instantly, I stooped down, and the company fired over my head, with what execution was not perceived, as the Indians immediately retired out of our view. This had passed in half a minute, and we were astonished to see, a little above, among some bushes on the same bar, the party ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... the young lady, vivaciously, "I do not take your praise for a compliment. I protest I am acquainted with no young gentleman who would not defer his enjoyment of heaven to the ...
— Stolen Treasure • Howard Pyle
... be "silver cooped," and the art of silver cooping was not only practised at home, it was world-wide. In whatever waters a British man-o'-war cast anchor, there the crimp appeared, plying his crafty trade. His assiduity paid a high compliment to the sterling qualities of the British seaman, but for the Navy it spelt ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... practices at the range, and platoon and company training in general. The keen pleasure with which the men turned to drill and small company schemes after the months of trench monotony was very noticeable. A splendid compliment was paid to D Company by the Corps Commander, who met them one day on the march. Stopping their commander, Captain Attride, he said that he had never seen a finer body of men in France; that he was proud of them, and that they had every right to ...
— The War Service of the 1/4 Royal Berkshire Regiment (T. F.) • Charles Robert Mowbray Fraser Cruttwell
... storm while she was under the hypnotic influence of priceless glittering things for bodily adornment, which render so many women easy to take, he had recognized her as intelligent and paid her the compliment of treating her as such, had stated his case and waited for the time when the blaze of love would set her alight and bring ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... Directors. On his arrival in England, he found himself an object of general interest and admiration. The East India Company thanked him for his services in the warmest terms, and bestowed on him a sword set with diamonds. With rare delicacy, he refused to receive this token of gratitude, unless a similar compliment were paid to his friend ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... unsympathetic. It seemed to him that the simple country life was unbearably insipid; he found there neither wit nor affairs: to see day after day the same faces, to listen to the same talk either on country subjects that were distasteful to him, or, out of compliment to himself, political subjects that were unfamiliar to the conversationalists, was a very hard burden, and he counted such things as the price he must pay for his occasional duty visits to his parents. He could not help respecting ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... Chapman began to display an ambition for vulgar show, such as well-bred people never indulge in. She never failed to remind her friends that she was brought up in Boston, where everything was very refined. She regarded it as a compliment to herself that she had an intellectual husband. He had a big head, if he was small, and could carry any number of books in it. That was what Boston people liked. Her thoughts seemed continually navigating between religion and the fashions. She had no deep affection or love for any one, not ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams
... one duty before him. He must marry money. The heir of fourteen thousand a year may indulge himself in looking for blood, as Mr Gresham did, my dear"—it must be understood that there was very little compliment in this, as the Lady Arabella had always conceived herself to be a beauty—"or for beauty, as some men do," continued the countess, thinking of the choice that the present Earl de Courcy had made; "but Frank must ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... me with the compliment that he found there was no such thing as carrying a public-spirited project through without my being concern'd in it. "For," says he, "I am often ask'd by those to whom I propose subscribing, Have you consulted Franklin upon this business? And what does he think of ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... find myself remembered and written of by such a man gave me a thrill of pleasure I can never forget. I put down the book, and lay there thinking how proud I was, and ought to be, at the revelation of this compliment. What an incentive to a youngster ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles
... for the compliment you pay me," she answered. "I like you very much, Sir Thomas—and I like you just now more than ever—but I could not marry you. I should not make you happy, and I should not be happy myself. The truth is——" thinking a moment, "each of us really belongs to a ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... said: "Well, after paying my kid brother such a left-handed compliment, I feel I must continue my work on that ...
— Polly and Eleanor • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... The boyish compliment pleased Mrs. Goddard. It was long since any one had flattered her, for flattery did not enter into the squire's system for making ...
— A Tale of a Lonely Parish • F. Marion Crawford
... consider it a great compliment if Miss Prue had felt so—and that makes me think—I must not delay longer to write her of these new plans of ours. And now, dear little sister, go to Mrs. Macon yourself, and tell her your decision. She is ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... as a potentate in STYLE. But literary perfection, whether in prose or poetry, is a fragile quality, an afflatus irregular, independent, unamenable to orders; the official tributes of a Laureate we compliment at their best with the northern farmer's verdict on the pulpit ...
— Biographical Study of A. W. Kinglake • Rev. W. Tuckwell
... his day, and went to her, as that he might easily do, for she had neither father nor mother to oppose. Well, when he was come, and had given her a civil compliment, to let her understand why he was come, then he began and told her that he had found in his heart a great deal of love to her person; and that of all the damsels in the world he had pitched upon ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... did say that—honest Injun. At least, I've Henri de la Mole's word for it. His sister was at school at the convent of the Virgin of Tears with Lady Monica Vale. Lady Monica supposed the other day that we were both French, which is a compliment to your accent. She said she wished she could find out 'who was the brown man with the eyes.' I'm a fool to have told you that though, eh? It can't do you any good, and will probably ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... leaving the whole apartment to myself. Thinks I, Queequeg, under the circumstances, this is a very civilized overture; but, the truth is, these savages have an innate sense of delicacy, say what you will; it is marvellous how essentially polite they are. I pay this particular compliment to Queequeg, because he treated me with so much civility and consideration, while I was guilty of great rudeness; staring at him from the bed, and watching all his toilette motions; for the time my curiosity ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... attention to him. "No one ever paid you such a compliment as that before, my good Stumpy," he observed. "If everyone saw you in that light, you'd be a great ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... her modest air and gentle manners, she was the only one of the party who exhibited the smallest sign of regret at parting from us. Going up to Jack, she put out her flat little nose to be rubbed, and thereafter paid the same compliment to Peterkin and me. ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... appreciate that. It is a very great compliment," he answered, slowly. "I want you two little girls to come over whenever you can. I am always here on Saturday afternoons. Will you ...
— A Sweet Little Maid • Amy E. Blanchard
... did not put her hand before her mouth, which I took as a compliment: and the young Florentine was gracious ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... that if there were a bridge they could save 30s. a year each, by buying their tea and sugar at Rotherhithe; and so singular are the usages of trade, that the ladies of Rotherhithe would benefit their husbands equally, and return the compliment, by consuming the bread of Limehouse. The shores of Kent were pining for the beef of the opposite bank, and only too anxious to give in return the surplus stock of ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... "'Twas no compliment," I denied; and, indeed, I meant it. Then I asked where I was, and to whom indebted, though I had long since guessed the ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... know you can pay no one a higher compliment than to place him in the position of a teacher to you? I picked that idea up somewhere, and I put it in practice by asking Mr. Tucker for information as to hardware and hardware houses. He was soon talking warmly and as if he was enjoying himself, and I was wondering ...
— A Man of Samples • Wm. H. Maher
... name of the youthful author of the "Abuse of Satire" had transpired, Peter Pindar, faithful to the instinct of his nature, wrote a letter of congratulation and compliment to his assailant, and desired to make his acquaintance. The invitation was responded to, and until the death of Wolcot, they were intimate. My father always described Wolcot as a warm-hearted man; coarse in his manners, and rather rough, but eager to serve those whom ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... Buckingham lived together, that the king always called Buckingham Steeny, which was a contraction of Stephen. St. Stephen was always represented in the Catholic pictures of the saints, as a very handsome man, and Buckingham being handsome too, James called him Steeny by way of a compliment. Steeny called the king his dad, and used to sign himself, in his letters, "your slave and dog Steeny." There are extant some letters which passed between the king and his favorite, written, on the part of the king, in a style of grossness and indecency ...
— Charles I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... ponderous bow as he presented his work of art. Lena was so impressed by this compliment that she wrote it out while it was fresh in her memory, and when Dick came home, she read it to him. He gave a great bellowing laugh that grated harshly on Lena's nerves; and then at sight of her reproachful eyes, he drew himself together ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... "We appreciate the compliment you have paid us in believing that we still play fair." There was in both his tone and action a touch of the bluff heartiness of the naval officer, which was natural to him, and showed that he had ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... a little door that opens into an infinite hall where you may find what you please. Men, thinking to detract, say: 'People read more in this or that work of genius than was ever written in it,' not perceiving that they pay the highest compliment. If we pick up the finger and nail of a real man, we can decipher a whole story—could almost reconstruct the creature again, from head to foot. But half the body of a Mumboo-jumbow idol leaves us utterly in the dark as to what the rest was like. We see what ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner
... really was a heavy one, and it was hardly to be wondered at that Manuela should be a little peevish about it,—Rita drew from it a substantial box of chocolate, and a tin of biscuits. "My child, we breakfast!" she announced. "If kings desire to breakfast more royally, I make them my compliment. For free Cubans, bread and chocolate is a feast. Feast, then, Manuela mine. Eat, and ...
— Rita • Laura E. Richards
... go with us as far as St. Andrews. It gives me pleasure that, by mentioning his name, I connect his title to the just and handsome compliment paid him by Dr. Johnson, in his book: 'A gentleman who could stay with us only long enough to make us know how much we lost by his leaving us[157]. 'When we came to Leith, I talked with perhaps too boasting an air, how pretty the Frith of Forth looked; as indeed, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... to return the compliment. I ask no more. Let me see how cleverly you will carry off pretty Mollie. I never want to see her under this ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... to be the highest compliment that an Englishman can pay to an American; and doubtless he intends it as such. All the praise and good will that an Englishman ever awards to an American is so far gratifying to the recipient, that it is meant for him ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... great pleasure to be able to take my Thanksgiving dinner to-day with so many who have done so much for the glory of New York at this Exposition. I particularly wish to compliment those of our own building who have always been so courteous and nice to me, and by so doing have aided the New York Commission in making the New York State building the ...
— New York at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis 1904 - Report of the New York State Commission • DeLancey M. Ellis
... and I was whirred away, over streams, below great hanging rocks; but I thought not of the grandeur of the rocks nor of the beauty of the streams, for through my mind was running the delicious music of the first compliment that had ever been paid me. And I realized that I had outgrown the age of my awkwardness, that strength was of itself a grace to be admired, that I should feel thankful rather than remember with bitterness the days of my humiliation. ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... hour is often prolonged to seven so as to allow more men to be present than would be the case if the time were restricted to the early afternoon. In these busy days few men are at liberty to make afternoon calls, and it is always a compliment to a girl if her tea includes a sprinkling of black coats. Whatever hours are decided on, they should be engraved on the cards sent out two weeks before the tea. These are of the form and size of an ordinary visiting-card and include the daughter's name below that of her mother's. If she is the ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens
... led the grand dames of New France through the mazes of a Versailles quadrille. From a child, indeed, Quebec had conned the worldly wisdom of Fontainebleau. Her wholesome reputation for the social graces is reflected in the compliment paid by George III. to the first Canadian lady who had the honour to be presented at the Court of St. James's: "Madame, if the ladies of Canada are at all like you, I ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... on the old woman's fingers and toes, 'It makes music wherever I go.' Is not that a pretty compliment? Polly Wharton's brother gave it to me. Ah, if my ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... of the compliment which unmistakably was begrudged. Nevertheless, the laugh stopped short at his lips, and his gray eyes were sober as they looked down upon his friend. The "puffic' fibbous" was distinctly worse for wear, that morning. His eyes were heavy, ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... cabinet. I will not say that by adding to Congress the men who usually form the President's cabinet, a weight would be given equal to that which the withdrawal of the British cabinet would take from the British Parliament. I cannot pay that compliment to the President's choice of servants. But the relationship between Congress and the President's ministers would gradually come to resemble that which exists between Parliament and the Queen's ministers. The Secretaries of State and of the Treasury ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... Lucullus imposed upon them. From thence sailing into Egypt, and, pressed by pirates, he lost most of his vessels; but he himself narrowly escaping, made a magnificent entry into Alexandria. The whole fleet, a compliment due only to royalty, met him in full array, and the young Ptolemy showed wonderful kindness to him, appointing him lodging and diet in the palace, where no foreign commander before him had been received. Besides, he gave him gratuities and presents, not such as were usually given to men ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... earnest, hard-working, and religious, he had a following even in his teens; and it is noticeable that a choice lot of young and keen intelligences of Eton and Christ Church formed themselves into a small social sort of club, styled, in compliment to ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... Miss Manly! For heaven's sake, if you have no better opinion of my constancy, pay not so ill a compliment ...
— The Contrast • Royall Tyler
... but I confess to you that that has not prevented me from being surprised that you could entertain a thought which did so great an injury to our friendship. As to believing that you said this to one, and wrote it to the other, simply for the sake of paying them an agreeable compliment, I have too high an esteem for your courage to be able to imagine that complaisance would cause you thus to betray the sentiments of your heart, especially on a subject in which, as they were unfavorable to me, I think you would have the more reason for concealing them, the affection which ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... Christian Science so-called, the sect of Mrs. Eddy, is the most radical branch of mind-cure in its dealings with evil. For it evil is simply a LIE, and any one who mentions it is a liar. The optimistic ideal of duty forbids us to pay it the compliment even of explicit attention. Of course, as our next lectures will show us, this is a bad speculative omission, but it is intimately linked with the practical merits of the system we are examining. Why regret a philosophy of evil, a mind-curer would ask us, if I can put you in possession ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... coughing to cover it up. Hank Porter stepped on Hampden's boot with great force. Hampden in turn nudged Siddons, who alone of all the group displayed no emotion. Never before had these men heard Cowan indulge in compliment. Something had come over him. His moustache actually looked a little more like a man's moustache. In fact, Yancey thought, the blasted thing was ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke
... practice of shaking hands with all and every person whose vote is solicited, whether they be old friends or the acquaintance of the moment.' There are, we are told, 'cases when such buxom familiarity is out of place—when it assumes too much the appearance of vulgar cajolery to be received as a compliment.' Elsewhere we come across an instructive bit of talk between an Irish maiden lady of a certain age, and one of the gentlemen who desires her 'vote and interest.' The lady protests that she does not know the difference between the Whigs, the ...
— By-ways in Book-land - Short Essays on Literary Subjects • William Davenport Adams
... bowed low before his cousin, who joined him in the laugh at the unexpected form that her intended compliment ...
— In Blue Creek Canon • Anna Chapin Ray
... corresponding character. It is our ordinary experience to meet with some obsolete nondescript classic, or some defunct theological treatise of alike infinitesimal worth, in a sumptuous morocco garb, bestowed on it by the author as a compliment to his sovereign, or by the sovereign as an oblation to his mistress. In those princely establishments for which such things were destined and reserved, it was necessary that all the constituent features ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt
... Lord Westborough's compliment?" said the young nobleman, advancing towards Lady Flora; and drawing his seat near her, he entered into that whispered conversation so significant of courtship. But there was little in Lady Flora's manner by which an experienced eye would have detected the bride elect: no sudden blush, no downcast, ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... a reply to Bayle in the Histoire des Ouvrages des Savants for July 1698. As in all his references to Bayle, he is studiously polite and repays compliment for compliment. The following are perhaps the principal points ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... cordially for your remarks, and I rejoice to find you act so entirely in the spirit I had anticipated. I trust you will continue to speak with freedom, which is the best compliment as well as the best service you ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... and nervousness that raged perpetually within him. He would stand for some time casting lamb's-eyes at the object of his affections—to the amorous audacity of the full-grown sheep he never soared—then suddenly, without the slightest provocation, he would discharge at her a compliment, elaborate, long-winded, Grandisonian, as a raw recruit fires his musket, shutting his eyes, and incontinently take to flight, without waiting to see the effect of his shot. If he had spent half the time and pains on his sermons that he did on his small-talk (I believe he used to write out three ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... In the Wildcat's compliment Honey Tone's effort to unload from the wreckbound train of chance found defeat. He rode along, hope springing eternal, until his financial ...
— Lady Luck • Hugh Wiley
... young lady, was by this time in tears. His evident distress, and her recognition of the great compliment he had paid her, would have commanded almost any return save the one he asked. But the sacrifice was too great. She had not thought it would ever be necessary to change their relation ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 1 • Various
... the coast of Madagascar, and over one hundred from the Mauritius, lies the beautiful island to which its French owners have given the name of Reunion. It was formerly known as 'Ile de Bourbon,' out of compliment to the family name of the French monarchs, but at the time of the Revolution the island was renamed, and became Reunion. It is of small size, only thirty-five miles long by twenty-eight broad; but it contains a range of fine mountains, some as much as ten thousand feet high. These ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... say we lose poor Persigny, which is a real loss—but he would resign. Walewski behaved ill to him. The Emperor has, however, named a successor which is really a compliment to the Army and the Alliance—and besides a distinguished and independent man, viz. the Duc de Malakhoff.[19] This is ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... the proposition of Bolivar with eloquent words, incidentally praising the victorious general and his troops. Among the persons who came to compliment him was an old foe named Mariano Montilla, a colonel in the army. Bolivar knew well how to discover real qualifications even in the hearts of his enemies, and he availed himself of this opportunity to establish strong bonds of friendship between himself and his former foe. ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell
... in the end I had my say, and presented the medals, which were accepted by the King with his usual kindness, and by the Queen, when her feelings had found expression, with sufficient complaisance. Both were good enough to compliment me on my entertainment; but observing that the Queen quickly buried herself again in her pillows and was inclined to be peevish, I cut short my attendance on the plea of fatigue, and left them at liberty to receive the very ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... he returned to the University and remained there for two years when South Africa recalled him. As soon as he could be spared he went back to his college and, eight years after matriculation, completed his undergraduate course. It was a high compliment to the value of a Pass Degree at Oxford, where, however, he formed the opinion, which was not publicly divulged until his will was opened twenty-one years later, that Oxford Dons were ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... her from an sthetically critical standpoint. I remember that I was interested and surprised when, after I had already known her over a year, I heard an old gentleman referring to her as "that lovely child." It flattered me like a personal compliment, but it ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... principles which are involved in this question; and I must say, that, considering that gentlemen opposite are upon this occasion the partisans of a gigantic innovation,—the most gigantic and the most dangerous that has been attempted in modern times,—I may compliment them upon the prudence they show in resolving to be its silent partisans." After this emphatic exordium, which electrified the House, and was followed by such a tempest of applause as for some time to drown the voice of the speaker, he proceeded at once to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... my gardener came upon a man in the garden and fired. The man returned the compliment by kicking him in the groin and causing him great pain. I set off, with a great mastiff-bloodhound I have, in pursuit. Couldn't find the evil-doer, but had the greatest difficulty in preventing the dog from tearing two policemen down. They were coming towards us ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... asserted in Thoresby's History of Leeds, page 255, that "he had two Christian names, James-Edward, supposed to have been bestowed upon him in compliment to the Pretender;" and he is so named on his sepulchral monument. But, as he always used but one; as he was enregistered on entering College at Oxford, simply James; and, as the double name is not ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... is nothing spoken of her which she was not equal to, if not superior, and if there had not been more true history in her praises than compliment, her father never would have suffered ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... externally agreeable, of bending in all indifferent matters to the whims and wishes of superiors, and of saying what they think Signori like. This habit, while it smoothes the surface of existence, raises up a barrier of compliment and partial insincerity, against which the more downright natures of us Northern folk break in vain efforts. Our advances are met with an imperceptible but impermeable resistance by the very people who are bent on making the world pleasant to us. It is the very ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... and with much grace of manner took and kissed her hand. "Mr. Rand, now I understand the pride in your voice! Madam, I wish my daughter Theodosia were with me. She is my pride, and when I say that you two would be friends, I pay you both a compliment!" ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... 'Thou hearest the complaint of these young men; what hast thou to say in reply?' Now he was stout of heart and ready of speech, having doffed the wede of faint-heartedness and put off the apparel of affright; so he smiled and after paying the usual ceremonial compliment to the Khalif, in the most eloquent and elegant words, said, 'O Commander of the Faithful, I have given ear to their complaint, and they have said sooth in that which they avouch, so far as they have set out what befell; and the commandment of God is a decreed decree.[FN129] But I ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous
... which will exalt him to the skies. The judicious emendation of the late Bishop of Chichester, who for Me doctarum, reads Te doctarum, removes all objection; and adds beauty to the Ode by the fine compliment it contains to Maecenas." ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... the doctor, "your Napoleon, of whom Parker is so afraid, said we were a nation of shopkeepers. We accept the compliment, and our only regret is that we are unable to return it. You have three national failings which will always prevent you from being dangerous commercial competitors: you are economical, you are simple and you are hard-working. That is what makes you a great military people; the French ...
— General Bramble • Andre Maurois
... the utility and excellence of many of them. I mention this because there are some Americans here who declare themselves ashamed of their country because of the meagerness of its share in the Exhibition. I do not suppose their country will deem it worth while to return the compliment; but I should have been far more ashamed of the prodigality and want of sense evinced in sending an indiscriminate profusion of American products here than I am of the actual state of the case. It is true, ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... York desired to pay Paine's memory a compliment and on opening up the street parallel with Grove, they called it Reason Street, for the "Age of Reason." This was objected to by many bigots (who had never read the book) and some tactful diplomat ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... had been mothering and ruling the whole of my father's village—or they wouldn't treat me so. Mercifully I held my tongue. But one day it came to a crisis. I had had to get things ready for an operation, and had done very well. Dr. Marshall had paid me even a little compliment all to myself. But then afterwards the patient was some time in coming to, and there had to be hot-water bottles. I had them ready of course; but they were too hot, and in my zeal and nervousness I burnt the patient's elbow in two places. Oh! the fuss, and the scolding, and the humiliation! ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... morning, When cloudy was the weather, I chanced to meet an old man clothed all in leather. He began to compliment, and I began to grin. How do you do, and how do you do? And ...
— The Little Mother Goose • Anonymous
... of umpires of the National League and the American League it is but fair to render a compliment for their work of last season. Some of them made mistakes but the general average of work on the part of the ...
— Spalding's Official Baseball Guide - 1913 • John B. Foster
... Captain afterwards, when we got to know him well, and it tickled him greatly. He declared it was the finest compliment he had ever received, and took Walter high in his ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... snobbish superiority, but to the females he was affability itself. The reader will scarcely believe that I have seen this weird animal squat gravely in front of one of the opposite sex, extend his right paw and tap her playfully on the jowl, the compliment being returned by an affectionate lick on Tchort's right ear. But this is a fact, and only one of many extraordinary eccentricities which I observed amongst our canine friends while journeying down the coast. Tchort, however, was a sad thief and stole everything ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... term constituted a high compliment in Peter's estimation and the evident satisfaction that it afforded to Stella seemed to confirm the impression. He retired looking as well pleased as ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... the apartment after the evening salutation, and was about to pay the same compliment to Captain Dalgetty, but observing him deeply engaged in the discussion of a huge pitcher filled with brandy posset, he thought it a pity to disturb him in so laudable an employment, and took ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... testimony went rag by rag to ruin under her ingenious hands, until at last he stood bare, so to speak, he that had come so richly clothed in fraud and falsehood. His counsel began an argument, but the court declined to hear it, and threw out the case, adding a few words of grave compliment for Joan, and referring to ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... he occasionally turns my garden borders with a neat hand enough. He and I hold frequent converse, and people here, I have been told, think we have certain points of sympathy. Although this is not meant for a compliment, I take it for one. The poor faithful creature's brain has strange visitors; now 't is fun, now wisdom, and now something which seems in the queerest way a compound of both. He lives in a kind of twilight which obscures objects, and his remarks seem to come from another world ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... Phil rather a slender cause for compliment, but he said nothing, since it seemed clear that the computation was beyond his ...
— The Errand Boy • Horatio Alger
... yo'self in the good cause," replied Gilet, pointing to the poker game. "Oneasy lies the head that wahs an office, suh." And Gilet bowed over his compliment. ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... Grow was announced as receiving 90 votes,—a majority of all the members. Two members appeared from Virginia. The other Confederate States were without representation. Emerson Etheridge of Tennessee was chosen Clerk, in compliment to his fidelity and courage as ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... which was visible only when it grew jealous of newcomers, paying assiduous attention to the old dancer, who, in spite of everything, found his good-nature pleasing and recognised in him a man of her own time, of the time when one accosted a woman with a kiss on her hand, with a compliment on her appearance. ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... beauty" first; and, later on, he hinted At the "vastness of her intellect" with compliment unstinted. He went with her a-riding, and his love for her was such That he lent her all his horses and—she galled them ...
— Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... the deepest red, the other a face all golden and as resplendent as the sun. In a small frame is the letter from the Goethe Club of New York, making Mrs. Kendal an honorary member. She is the only woman member of this club. And this pretty little doll dressed as a Quakeress—a charming compliment to the recipient—was presented by the Quakeresses of Philadelphia, who never, never, never go the play, yea, verily! So they sent this as a tribute of their admiration for the talents and character of the woman who has been called ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... gracefully with the good-wishes of the season, and each of them returned his compliment,—Helen blushing fearfully, of course, but not particularly noticed in her ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... about it; your son dared to lift a hand to mine, and—and I'll have no tenant on my estate that will ever venture upon such an outrage as that;—it was a great compliment to you for my son to admire your bantams, or anything on your farm, without his being subjected to ...
— The One Moss-Rose • P. B. Power
... queer thing," remarked Phil, in an argumentative tone. "If I'd said Mrs. Blackwood was 'a host in herself,' it would have been considered a delicate compliment; and yet when I call her a 'party,' which certainly means a host, you two jump on me. There's no accounting for the eccentricities of the feminine character." Then, as his head sank back, "I do believe somebody's ...
— We Ten - Or, The Story of the Roses • Lyda Farrington Kraus
... would not pay him so poor a compliment. It was to say, 'Dear nurse, you must love Mr. Dodd as well as ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... a stick, I flung open the gate and advanced to the officer; he was standing, I said, on the little bridge across the moat. I made him a low salaam, after the fashion of the country, and, as he bent forward to return the compliment, I am sorry to say, I plunged forward, gave him a violent blow on the head, which deprived him of all sensation, and then dragged him within the wall, raising ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... It was the proudest compliment of her life. The deserted "Idylls of the King" company came and sat at a safe distance and watched her, wide-eyed. Tommy ...
— The Cricket • Marjorie Cooke
... head still nearer to him. Even her cruel heart felt the compliment conveyed in this acknowledgment of her power. "And what do you wish of me, my poor boy?" she murmured ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai
... of Mr. Keller's memory was proverbial in the office. Remembering the compliment which he had paid to her sense of responsibility as Mr. Engelman's successor, Mrs. Wagner was not quite satisfied to take it for granted that he had made a mistake—even on the plain evidence of the ledger. A reference to the duplicate ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins
... half so well!" And Sprigg was perfectly sincere in the compliment. The bear improved the looks so complimented by a beaming smile of gratified vanity; and the boy could perceive that the moccasins were again agitated, as if the imp, or elf, or whatever it was that stood in them, ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady
... under a flying seal, a letter of congratulation and compliment to Fitzgibbon, which expresses no more than I really feel on that subject. Adieu, ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... to resign her office, making a brief address expressive of her affection for the people, her regrets at leaving them, and her hopes that all errors which she might have committed during her long administration would be forgiven her. Again the redundant Maas responded, asserting in terms of fresh compliment and elegance the uniform satisfaction of the provinces with her conduct during ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... is Marlborough House, the residence of the Prince and Princess of Wales. The house was built in 1709 at the public expense, as a national compliment to the Duke of Marlborough. Sir Christopher Wren was the architect. After the death of the third Duke it was sublet to Leopold, subsequently King of the Belgians. Queen Adelaide lived in it after the death of King William IV. The building was afterwards used as a gallery for the pictures ...
— The Strand District - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant
... Maire pledged the Czech gymnasts, in a goblet of Pommery. Their chief, returning thanks in French, with a strong Bohemian accent, remarked that he took this as a great compliment to his own nationality, the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 11, 1892 • Various
... not yet received the compliment of a description, and it is now high time that the omission were supplied, for the house is itself an actor in the story, and one whose part is nearly at an end. Two stories in height, walls of a warm yellow, tiles of an ancient ruddy brown diversified ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Majesty continued to expound. But in the end I had my say, and presented the medals, which were accepted by the King with his usual kindness, and by the Queen, when her feelings had found expression, with sufficient complaisance. Both were good enough to compliment me on my entertainment; but observing that the Queen quickly buried herself again in her pillows and was inclined to be peevish, I cut short my attendance on the plea of fatigue, and left them at liberty to receive the very numerous company who on ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... believe what the girls say—that you are inclined to the language of compliment. My ankle is nearly well, thank you. It hurts a little ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... great pride, that the copying of Wedgwood by the Sevres factories, and the preservation of many rare examples of his work to-day, in French museums, to serve as models for French designers and craftsman, is a neat compliment to the English—"those rude islanders with three hundred religions and ...
— The Art of Interior Decoration • Grace Wood
... "That compliment is not nearly so pretty as the sunrise one," said Mollie reflectively. "Mrs. Palmer has told me things ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... within her arms, and her countenance beamed with delight. Never had the queen received so grateful a compliment from the most flattering courtier as these words of her fair-haired boy conveyed, who threw his arms around her neck and nestled ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... man sat up a little stiffer than before, as if he had received a compliment, and still came ...
— The Road to Oz • L. Frank Baum
... generally those who wish to be such; and pride and the love of popularity are at opposite poles of the character-world. Proud characters set love high and their own love higher, while a vain woman will risk her heart for a compliment, and her reputation for the sake of having a lion in her leash, if only for a day. Clare Bowring had not yet been near to loving, and she had nothing of her own to contrast with this experience in which she had been ...
— Adam Johnstone's Son • F. Marion Crawford
... Saxon; viz., the aid given by Rolfganger to Athelstan, and the alliance between the English King and the Norman founder. He dexterously introduced into the song praises of the English, and the value of their friendship; and the Countess significantly applauded each gallant compliment to the land of the famous guest. If Harold was pleased by such poetic courtesies, he was yet more surprised by the high honour in which Duke, baron, and prelate evidently held the Poet: for it was among the worst signs of that sordid spirit, honouring only wealth, which had ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... exclaimed Mrs. Mountstuart, to aggravate the charge against her lord in the Shades. "But town or country, the table should be sacred. I have heard women say it is a plot on the side of the men to teach us our littleness. I don't believe they have a plot. It would be to compliment them on a talent. I believe they fall upon one another blindly, simply because they are full; which is, we are told, the preparation for the fighting Englishman. They cannot eat and keep a truce. Did you notice that dreadful ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Mulvaney. 'Cud you tell that I was iver a martial man? Don't answer, Sorr, av you're strainin' betune a compliment an' a lie. There's no houldin' Dinah Shadd now she's got a house av her own. Go inside, an' dhrink tay out av chiny in the drrrrawin'-room, an' thin we'll dhrink like Christians undher the tree here. Scutt, ye naygur-folk! There's a Sahib come to call ...
— Soldiers Three • Rudyard Kipling
... that King Lucius, who was said to have been the founder of a great many English churches, turned the temple into a Christian sanctuary. Then we hear that in 616 A.D., Sebert, King of Essex, founded an Abbey here, and dedicated it to St. Peter, "in order to balance the compliment he had made to St. Paul on Ludgate Hill." All this is very doubtful, but from the earliest times in history there has been shown a grave of Sebert as that of ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... in the streets, any minute they like, in the most open manner. But in Society women's entire life is a struggle for precedence, precedence in everything—beauty, money, rank, success, dress, everything. We have to smother hate under smiles, and envy under compliment, and while we are dying to say "You hussy," like the women in the streets, we are obliged, instead of boxing her ears, to kiss her on both cheeks, and cry, "Oh, my dearest—how charming of you—so kind!" Only think what all that repression ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... derived, And that to hear and bear news brave folks lived. 280 As being a carriage special hard to bear Occurrents, these occurrents being so dear, They did with grace protest, they were content T' accost their friends with all their compliment, For Hymen's good; but to incur their harm, There he must pardon them. This wit went warm To Adolesche's[101] brain, a nymph born high, Made all of voice and fire, that upwards fly: Her heart and all her forces' nether train Climb'd ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... the slave trade was a compliment to the European Powers which would denote the superiority of Egypt, and would lay the first stone in the foundation of a new civilization; and a population that was rapidly disappearing ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... his hands together. "You are the only one that has ever insinuated such a compliment, if you mean that I am a saint. But I hold that there's quite a stretch between a saint and a man who has a desire simply to be honest. Saint—" He laughed again. "Why, the people where I was brought up called me ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
... "Shakespeare," but he published a review of Grainger's "Sugar Cane: A Poem" in the "London Chronicle," and also wrote in "The Critical Review" an account of Goldsmith's excellent poem, "The Traveller." In July 1765, Trinity College, Dublin, surprised him with a spontaneous compliment of the highest academical honours, by creating him Doctor of Laws, and in October he at length gave to the world his edition of Shakespeare. This year was also distinguished by his being introduced into the family of Mr. Thrale, an eminent brewer, who was member for Southwark. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... which he had been conducted by reverent lackeys, the door closed, the lamp lit, and the Duke's masterful eyes bright with expectation. He saw the fine thin lips, like a woman's, primmed in satisfaction. He heard words of compliment—"none so swift and certain as you"—"in truth, a master-hand"—"I know not where to look for your like." Delicious speeches seemed to soothe his ear. And gold, too, bags of it, the tale of which would never appear in any accompt-book. Nay, his fancy soared ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... whispered to Frederick: "Sire, a compliment from Kaunitz is like the flower upon the aloe-it blooms once in ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... sense it may be nearer to him than it is to us who are native born, for those who come here are citizens by voluntary choice, while we are here by accident of birth. They may be said to have paid a higher compliment to the United States than we who first saw the light under the Stars and Stripes. But, more than that, it is the land of their children and their children's children, no matter for what reason they crossed the ocean. They not only share with us the shaping of our nation's destiny, ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... jest, and went away laughing heartily; and the young damsel herself, to whom I had given the preference, (though she did not avail herself of the privilege of inspection,) seemed no way displeased at the compliment; for she soon afterwards sent me some meal and ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... difficulty, Ulick had taken charge of the rehearsals. Mr. Innes had told Evelyn that Ulick had displayed an unselfish devotion, and she added that he had been to her father what Liszt had been to Wagner, and while paying this compliment she looked at him in admiration, thanking him with her eyes. Had it not been for him, her father might have died of want of appreciation, killed by Father ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... friend Mr. Fuller?" he asked presently, and I found myself shaking hands with the round-faced little man, who blinked at me pleasantly through his glasses. I returned the compliment by introducing Dennis. ...
— The Mystery of the Green Ray • William Le Queux
... in silence to the compliment, and he soon resumed the meditations from which he had been interrupted, and for which the long ride he had that day made, in the wind, might seem a very ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... of many! I saw him two or three times. But he began to send me most extravagant presents. I suppose it was his Oriental way of paying a compliment, but Dad objected." ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer
... infallible ways of pleasing an author, and the three form a rising scale of compliment: 1—to tell him you have read one of his books; 2—to tell him you have read all of his books; 3—to ask him to let you read the manuscript of his forthcoming book. No. 1 admits you to his respect; ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... It has been pointed out[484] that a mere 'reproduction of Apollonius' episodes could not have occupied four books'; and it is suggested that Valerius definitely brought his heroes into relation to the various Italian places[485] connected with the Argonautic legend, while he may even, as a compliment to Vespasian,[486] have brought them back 'by way of the North Sea past Britain and Gaul'. This ingenious conjectural reconstruction has some probability, slight as is the evidence on which it rests. Valerius was almost bound to give his epic a Roman tinge. More ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... be glad to have you serve Mrs. Owen in any way. It's a good deal of a compliment that she thought of you in that connection. Go ahead, and call on me if I can help you. You'll have to furnish local bondsmen. See what's required ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... brother's congregation, of singing his magnificent hymns." By this time the whole house came down in a perfect roar, and the confused blush on Bonar's face puzzled us—whether it was on account of the compliment, or on account of his own inconsistency. However, before his death he consented to have his own congregation sing his own hymns, although it is said that two pragmatical elders rose and strode indignantly down ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... intends to acquaint A, that he thinks him in the Right to gratify and indulge himself in the Passion of Self-liking. In this Sense the Word Honour, whether it is used as a Noun or a Verb, is always a Compliment we make to Those who act, have, or are what we approve of; it is a Term of Art to express our Concurrence with others, our Agreement with them in their Sentiments concerning the Esteem and Value they have for themselves. From what I have said, ...
— An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, and the Usefulness of Christianity in War • Bernard Mandeville
... what I call honest; besides, I like the implied compliment. I think it's very neat indeed. I'm really very, very sorry that I—that things happened as they did. I wouldn't have blamed you if you had used exceedingly strong language about it at ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr
... possibility of the regency being claimed by the queen. The City, in the meanwhile, paid court to both parties, the mayor and aldermen one day paying a solemn visit to the queen, attired in their gowns of scarlet, and a few days later paying a similar compliment to the Duke of York.(863) At length the duke was nominated protector (3 April). Some correspondence ensued between the City, the Duke of York, the queen, and the Earl of Salisbury, on what subject we know not,(864) but on the ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe
... properly weeded and flooded; later, to protect it from animals and birds. Hence many workers are always in the fields, but it is, nevertheless, the happy time for the people, and if one approaches a group of workers unawares, he will hear one or more singing the daleng, a song in which they compliment or chide the other workers, or relate some incident of the hunt or of village life. Toward midday little groups will gather in the field shelters to partake of their lunches, to smoke, or to rest, and usually in such a gathering will be a ...
— The Tinguian - Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe • Fay-Cooper Cole
... Miss Lambert wriggled herself out of her skin, which would not be nice of me, or that you are the greatest ventriloquist in the world. No, I prefer to compliment the spirits." ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... of all sorts and conditions of those in Forstadt who were receivable. So comprehensive was the party that to be included conveyed no compliment, to be left out meant a slap in the face. But the scene was gorgeous, and the Princess presided over it with fitting dignity. Elsa and I stood by her for a while, all in our buckram, living monuments of bliss and exaltedness. ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... it is so insidious, against the Everlasting Gospel of JESUS CHRIST. In such a cause I will not so far give in to the smooth fashion of a supple and indifferent age, as to pay these seven writers a single compliment which they will care to accept. The most foolish composition of the seven is Dr. Temple's; the most mischievous is Professor Jowett's: but the germ of the last Essay is contained in the first; the foolishness of ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... the Lethean tide within me was at its height, my landlady broke in upon my lethargy, and chased away by a single word all the little sprites and pleasures that were acting as my physicians, and prescribing balm for my wounds. She paid me the usual compliment, and then—"Do you dine at home to-day, sir?" abruptly inquired she. Here was a question. No Spanish inquisitor ever inflicted such complete dismay in so short a sentence. Had she given me a Sphynx to expound, ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... in the drawing-room.[5231] When, from time to time, he made his appearance there, the bells were rung; deputations from all bodies hurried to his antechambers; each authority in turn, and according to the order of precedence, paid him its little compliment, which compliment he graciously returned and then, the homage being over, he distributed among them benedictions and smiles. After this, with equal dignity and still more graciously throughout his sojourn, he ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... evident pleasure—even she was not averse to a compliment of this kind; knowing, as she did, that she had a wonderful intellectual capacity for planning and scheming. In fact if she had possessed as large a heart as brain, she would have been a very noble and even wonderful woman. Master Raymond ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson
... that humble but wholesome meal! Miss Harding praised our host's cooking, and his honest blue eyes glistened at the compliment. Miss Harding and I sat on a board which rested on two nail kegs, while Peterson, against his protest, had the ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams
... age, and his voice broke continually in childish trebles - and his lady wife, a heavy, comely dame, without a word to say for herself beyond good-even and good-day. Harum-scarum, clodpole young lairds of the neighbourhood paid him the compliment of a visit. Young Hay of Romanes rode down to call, on his crop-eared pony; young Pringle of Drumanno came up on his bony grey. Hay remained on the hospitable field, and must be carried to bed; Pringle got somehow to his saddle about 3 A.M., and (as Archie stood with the lamp on the ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... so astonished at this handsome compliment that he began to think he had underrated Rolfe's powers of discernment. His tone of cold official superiority ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson
... struggled. I believe that even the Portuguese reached the conclusion that she was not altogether regretful for this adventure and that it was safe for him to relax some degree of vigilance. His manner became more gracious and, long before the meal ended, his language had a tendency to compliment and flatter. I contented myself with occasional sentences. The young woman sat directly across from me, our words overheard by all, and as I knew both men possessed some slight knowledge of English, I dare ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... possible, in the way of national airs, the band was ordered to play a series of negro melodies, and I was entirely satisfied. It is really funny that the "wood-notes wild" of those poor black slaves should have been played in a foreign laud as an honorable compliment to one of ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... murmured some compliment about the mother's kind heart, and then turned to a subject which is known to be of infallible interest to all ladies. ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... these Emotions Time to arrive at such a Height, as to subdue Love, Zeokinizul very carefully avoided speaking one Word to Nasica of his Passion for her. However, as often as he happen'd to see her, he never fail'd passing a Compliment upon her Beauty, but it was always with such Calmness and Moderation, as was so far from being thought to proceed from Love, that it was only accounted a proper Complaisance in the Prince, who was willing to do Justice to such a celebrated Beauty. The young Bassa, being ...
— The Amours of Zeokinizul, King of the Kofirans - Translated from the Arabic of the famous Traveller Krinelbol • Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crbillon
... are the future—the conquering future—in the beautiful, true and good; it is so good that brothers should know and love each other. Friendship's meeting is still annually remembered in the palace-yard of Upsala, before the monument of Gustavus Vasa—by the hurra! for Denmark, in warm-hearted compliment to me. ...
— Pictures of Sweden • Hans Christian Andersen
... upon the card a compliment to me. This gave it an additional value in Susy's eyes, since, as a distinction, it was the next thing to being recognized by a denizen of ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... "I always told you that rough shells have sweet nuts inside of them. Thank you for your compliment, Master of learning. Will you tell us our fortune ...
— Morning Star • H. Rider Haggard
... was rare. Sir Austin did not discompose her by uttering his praises. She was conscious of his approval only in an increased gentleness of manner, and something in his voice and communications, as if he were speaking to a familiar, a very high compliment from him. While the lads were standing ready for the signal to plunge from the steep decline of greensward into the shining waters, Sir Austin called upon her to admire their beauty, and she did, and even advanced her head above his shoulder delicately. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... D'Artagnan, "but he has taken a long time to let me know his thoughts;" nevertheless, he bowed to the very ground in gratitude for Mazarin's compliment. ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... with the fashionable gaiety of a watering-place, or the bustle of a crowded sea-port. But generally, its landscapes are more distinguished for beauty than sublimity, and hence the very appropriate designation of "THE GARDEN OF ENGLAND!" an emphatic compliment cheerfully paid by the thousands annually visiting its shores for pleasure or for health: and perhaps there is scarcely another spot in the kingdom, of the same narrow limits, which can concentrate more of those qualities that at once charm the ...
— Brannon's Picture of The Isle of Wight • George Brannon
... the result of a voluntary surrender of something by the poet to the reader, as if it were an act of moderation on his part. Surely the poet does not proceed on the principle of saying half, and permitting us to say the other half—out of compliment, perhaps, to our understanding, and as a little bribe to our vanity. The more vivid and powerful his expressions, the more must he leave, or rather the more must he give, indirectly as well as directly, to the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... an architect who had supported the strikers; he had just come back to Cordova from the obscure village where he had been imprisoned through the care of the military governor who had paid him the compliment of thinking that even in prison he would be dangerous in Cordova. He had recently been elected municipal councillor, and when we reached his office was busy designing a schoolhouse. On the stairs the bookseller had whispered to me that every workman in Cordova would die for Azorin. He ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos
... Martindale pressed to have their stay prolonged; which Arthur could not persuade his wife to believe a great compliment to her, though she was pleased, because he was, and because she hoped it was a sign that she was tolerated for his sake. Personally, she could have wished that his leave of absence might not be extended, especially when she found that by the end of the next two months it was ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... have been a dull wife, for this last compliment is a reply, full of polite alacrity, to a letter from her asking for a little flattery. How assiduously, and with what a civilized absence of uncouthness, of shame-facedness, and of slang of the mind, with what simplicity, alertness, and finish, does he step out at her ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... Tom approved. "Every time I see one of your models of a new invention, I'm sure it'll work!" Hanson grinned, pleased at the compliment. ...
— Tom Swift and The Visitor from Planet X • Victor Appleton
... after further compliment and talk, Among the dahlias in the garden walk He left his guests; and to his cottage turned, And as he entered for a moment yearned For the lost splendors of the days of old, The ruby glass, the ...
— Tales of a Wayside Inn • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... she distressed me very much, by asking what I thought of her minuet. I spoke as civilly as I could; but the coldness of my compliment evidently disappointed her. She then called upon Mr. Smith to secure a good place among the country dancers; and away they went, though not before he had taken the liberty to say to me in a low voice, "I protest to you, Ma'am, I shall be quite out ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... though the rigid law of mine and thine must now restore to William Browne of Tavistock the famous lines beginning: "Underneath this sable hearse." Jonson is unsurpassed, too, in the difficult poetry of compliment, seldom falling into fulsome praise and disproportionate similtude, yet showing again and again a generous appreciation of worth in others, a discriminating taste and a generous personal regard. There was no man in England of his rank so well known and universally ...
— Every Man In His Humor - (The Anglicized Edition) • Ben Jonson
... as the outline of our fort could be distinguished, the enemy carried out their programme. It had been arranged, as a special compliment to the venerable Edmund Ruffin, who might almost be called the father of secession, that he should fire the first shot against us, from the Stevens battery on Cummings Point, and I think in all the histories it is stated that he did so; but it is attested by ...
— Reminiscences of Forts Sumter and Moultrie in 1860-'61 • Abner Doubleday
... told her that it was to be hers she gasped. Such presents were unknown on the plantation. But Lily was a "mannerly" member of good society, if her circle was small, and she was not to be taken back by any compliment a man should pay her. She simply fanned herself, a little flurriedly perhaps, with her feather fan, as she said: "You sho' must be jokin', Mr. Pier. You cert'n'y must." But Mr. Pierre was not joking. He was never more ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various
... describing the valor of heroes and the grandeur of conquest, leave out these scenes, so brutal, mean, and degrading, that yet form by far the greater part of the drama of war? You, gentlemen of England, who live at home at ease, and compliment yourselves in the songs of triumph with which our chieftains are bepraised—you pretty maidens, that come tumbling down the stairs when the fife and drum call you, and huzzah for the British Grenadiers—do you take account that these items go to make up the amount ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... "From the Greeks to Darwin" rather startled the world of science by showing not only how old was a theory of evolution, but how frequently it had been stated and how many of them anticipated phases of our own thought in the matter, pays a high compliment to the great Greek scientist. He says: "Aristotle clearly states and rejects a theory of the origin of adaptive structures in animals altogether similar to that of Darwin." He then quotes certain passages from Aristotle's "Physics," and says: ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... came back to the subject in hand—"she is first-born daughter unto the said Sir Richard de Clare, Lord of Gloucester, and our Lady Maud, of whom I spake. Her name is Margaret, after the damsel that died—a poor compliment, as methinks, to the said Lady Maud; and had I been she, the maid should have been called aught else it liked my ...
— A Forgotten Hero - Not for Him • Emily Sarah Holt
... the very ball that I had been wishing to roll was upon the carpet. But of this I was unconscious as I admired Fanny's new dress, the mysterious earrings of our stately Bertha, and ventured upon a slight compliment to Henrietta, who lounged upon the divan. With admirable dexterity, the young lady caught the fleurette upon her crochet needle, reviewed it carelessly, and finally decided to accept it; an event that I had undoubtedly foreseen, for the compliment was a graceful and artistic one. But brothers, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... commander, and might have been entered that very night, Santa Anna sent a flag of truce, proposing an armistice, with a view to negotiation for peace. It cannot be considered in any other light than as a very high and signal compliment to his gallantry in the field that General Pierce was appointed, by the commander-in-chief, one of the commissioners on our part, together with General Quitman and General Persifer F. Smith, to arrange the terms of this armistice. Pierce was unable ...
— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... as the playing ceased, the Count began: "When it is necessary to give a compliment to a composer—not everybody's business—how easy it is for kings and emperors. All words are equally good and equally extraordinary in their mouths; they dare to say whatever they please. And how comfortable ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... with much freedom and energy (but no wit) on a subject on which I have information and feel interested: but I cannot make an after- dinner speech of compliment, nor talk on a subject which I do not feel I have very maturely considered.... In regard to local government, I think you would disarm the fears or scruples of many excellent and wise persons if you made prominent that you do not wish to return to the Middle Ages, or disown that ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... the contest. The pole was clumsy, but the tough wood was stronger than steel. He hit the saber with good-will. Back came the steel. The colonel did not care whom or what he struck at now. When Carmichael returned the compliment he swung his hop-pole as the old crusaders did their broadswords. And this made short work of the duel. The saber dropped uninjured, but the colonel's arm dangled at his side. He leaned back against ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath
... a Protestant clergyman of England; and the Greek Church numbers several cultivators of chess unrivaled in our day." It has received eulogies from Burton,—from Castiglione,—from Chatham, who, in reply to a compliment on a grand stroke of invention and successful oratory, said, "My success arose only from having been checkmated by discovery, the day before, at chess,"—from Comenius, the grammarian,—from Conde, Cowley, Denham, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... man we apply all the epithets of compliment and commendation which the language yields and cite him as an exemplification of life at high tide, of life in its supreme fullness and splendor. The knowledge of the world comes to his doors to do his bidding; before him the arts and sciences make their obeisance; and wisdom ...
— The Reconstructed School • Francis B. Pearson
... world of work that still went on its way, come rain, come shine. All of them took advantage of the custom of the climate to appear coatless. Indeed, the fashion of shirts was sometimes so decolletee as to be slightly embarrassing to English eyes. Only Saltire paid the company the compliment of unrolling his sleeves, buttoning the top button of his shirt, and assuming ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... above the pines, when a horn sounded on the slope and Marc'antonio came down the track driving the hogs before him. He instructed me good-naturedly enough in the art of penning the brutes, breaking off from time to time to compliment me on my labours, the sum of which appeared to affect him with a degree of wonder not far short of awe. "But why are you doing it? Perche? perche?" he broke off once or twice to ask, eyeing me askance with a look rather ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... adaptive to particular ends. Hence their greater tact as displayed in the management of others, women of apparently slender intellectual powers often contriving to control and regulate the conduct of men of even the most impracticable nature. Pope paid a high compliment to the tact and good sense of Mary, Queen of William III., when he described her as possessing, not a science, but [21what was worth ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... very mean kind of artifice. I think I have sometimes observed an individual to be prompted where evidently the assistance was not desired, and even where it was not needed. To whisper to an individual the answer to a question is sometimes to pay her rather a poor compliment at least, for it is the same as saying 'I am a better scholar than you are; let me ...
— The Teacher • Jacob Abbott
... that after what I tried to do to you. I refused to apologize when that old fellow tried to make me, but I do it now. I'm ashamed of the way I lost my head. If you'll accept my apology, I'll accept your compliment." ...
— Captain Pott's Minister • Francis L. Cooper
... converse. By degrees, however, they thawed a little. Mr Gwynne wished to say something that would set his young chess opponent at his ease, and said the very thing likely the most to confuse a shy man. He made a personal remark and paid a compliment. ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... that of a large fair, of a great masked ball with very transparent disguises. Satan, who understands his epoch, opens the ball with the Bishop of the Sabbath; or the King and Queen: offices devised in compliment to the great personages, wealthy or well-born, who honour the meeting by ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... Feist, waking up, 'if you want my evidence, don't talk of dropping me as you did just now, or you won't get it, do you understand? You've paid me the compliment of telling me that I can hold my tongue. All right. But it won't suit you if I hold my tongue in the witness-box, will it? That's all, Mr. Bamberger. I've nothing more to ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford
... signs that he heard perfectly, trod on D'Harmental's foot under the table, to hint that this was an opportunity for paying a compliment. ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... drawing room the woman who receives the least attention from a man is his own wife, and she returns the compliment. Hence at a time like this, when people live for society and in society, there is no place for conjugal intimacy.—Moreover, when a married couple occupy an exalted position they are separated by custom and decorum. Each party has his or her own household, or ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... husbands lies in a judicious mixture of good humor, attention, flattery, and compliments. All men, as well as women, are more or less vain; the rare exceptions of men who do not care to be tickled by an occasional well-turned compliment only prove the rule. But, in the case of a husband, we must remember that this love of being occasionally flattered by his wife is absolutely a necessary and natural virtue. No one needs to be ashamed of it. We are glad enough to own, to remember, ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... scope, never extending much beyond the immediate present. After the catastrophe, which had perhaps been the result of the impulse of the moment, she was not, however, unwilling to accept the homage of those who deemed it a high compliment to her prudence to praise her consummate dissimulation. She probably entered upon the peace of Longjumeau without any settled purpose of treachery—unless that state of the soul be in itself treachery ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... the year one, of the present or Christian hera, and am, in consquints, seven-and-thirty years old. My mamma called me Charles James Harrington Fitzroy Yellowplush, in compliment to several noble families, and to a sellybrated coachmin whom she knew, who wore a yellow livry, and drove ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... inordinate that he accepted the compliment as his due, though he waved his hand with ...
— In the Reign of Terror - The Adventures of a Westminster Boy • G. A. Henty
... was let out by that body to a rich tenant, who sublet it to these lodging-house owners. This veritable den of infection and misery has now been demolished; but there are plenty of others quite as bad. Notably, there is the Cite Jeanne d'Arc (a poor compliment to have named it after that sturdy heroine), an enormous barrack of five stories, which contains 1,200 lodgings and 2,486 lodgers. No wonder that it was decimated in 1879 by smallpox, which committed ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 401, September 8, 1883 • Various
... it was a very pleasant house to stay at,' said Molly, remembering the look of warm comfort that pervaded it. But a little to her dismay Mr. Preston seemed to take it as a compliment to himself. ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... proposed to confer an honorary degree upon Pope, he declined to receive the compliment, because the proposal to confer a smaller honour upon Warburton had been at the same time thrown out by the University. In fact, Pope looked up to Warburton with a reverence almost equal to that which he felt ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... his landlord, who, living in England, knew but little of his own estate. "If these Grays don't pay the rent," said he to his driver, "pound their cattle, and sell at the end of eight days. If they break and run away, I shall have the land clear, and may make a compliment of it to tenants and friends of my own, after it comes into my hands." He was rather disappointed, when the rent was paid to the day. "But," said he, "it won't be so next year; the man is laying out his money on the ground, ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... is handed a slip of paper with the name of a lady guest on it. The gentlemen are then requested, one at a time, to go to their respective ladies, giving each a compliment, every word of which begins with the initial letter of ...
— Games for Everybody • May C. Hofmann
... from vanity or arrogance deserves to be called Purusha. The absence of vanity is implied by soliciting the help of others even when one is competent oneself. Females follow females, such being their nature. It is a compliment that Parvati pays to Siva for Siva's questioning her when he himself is well-acquainted with the topic upon which she is ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... least in former times, were celebrated for politeness; yet we meet with a naive compliment of a Frenchman, which would have been accounted a bull if it had been ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... have played a better game," he said solemnly, and the girls knew that he could pay them no higher compliment, for this team was considered invincible by the High ...
— Grace Harlowe's Junior Year at High School - Or, Fast Friends in the Sororities • Jessie Graham Flower
... his study. Here are some hanging shelves, of his own construction, on which are several old works on hawking, hunting, and farriery, and a collection or two of poems and songs of the reign of Elizabeth, which he studies out of compliment to the Squire; together with the Novelist's Magazine, the Sporting Magazine; the Racing Calendar, a volume or two of the Newgate Calendar, a book of peerage, and ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... win from her friend other details to add to her already safeguarded secret. And she never attempted to amuse Steve. She fought shy of him when he was about, wisely limiting herself to shy nods and smiles and occasionally a very meek compliment, which he usually ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... have asked, Kate,' said the other gravely. 'You are the mistress here; I am but a very humble guest. Your orders are obeyed, as they ought to be; my suggestions may be adopted now and then—partly in caprice, part compliment—but I know they have no permanence, no more take ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... Do not lose such an opportunity of making a friend for yourself and all of us— a protector, I may say; and who is, by what he has confided to you, anything but approving of the conduct of the present government. He has paid you a deserved compliment by saying that he can and will trust you. You must not refuse the offer, Edward—it would really be ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... begun, my men," said Herbert to a gang of labourers whom he found collected at a certain point on Ballydahan Hill, which lay on his road from Castle Richmond to Gortnaclough. In saying this he had certainly paid them an unmerited compliment, for they had hitherto begun nothing. Some thirty or forty wretched-looking men were clustered together in the dirt and slop and mud, on the brow of the hill, armed with such various tools as each was able to find—with ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... too much about fairies to venture to disobey them, therefore he had to content himself with presenting the prince's portrait to the queen, who lost no time in carrying it to the princess. As the girl took it in her hands it suddenly spoke, as it had been taught to do, and uttered a compliment of the most delicate and charming sort, which made the princess ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... with Edward Bok that Theodore Roosevelt never forgot was when Bok's eldest boy chose the colonel as a Christmas present. And no incident better portrays the wonderful character of the colonel than did his remarkable response to the compliment. ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok
... with you entirely," said I. "Unless such affairs go off just right they are stiff and ghastly. People who are bent on paying us a compliment will have an opportunity to come to ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant
... witch-doctoress say anything; she only fixed her beady eyes upon his face. Hadden returned the compliment, staring at her with all his might, till suddenly he became aware that he was vanquished in this curious duel. His brain grew confused, and to his fancy it seemed that the woman before him had shifted shape into the likeness of colossal ...
— Black Heart and White Heart • H. Rider Haggard
... privately married; that such was the view of this prostituted young man, may be fairly inferred from a glance at the object of his choice. Her charms are heightened by the affectation of an amorous leer, which she directs to her youthful husband, in grateful return for a similar compliment which she supposes paid to herself. This gives her face much meaning, but meaning of such a sort, that an observer being ask, "How dreadful must be this creature's hatred?" would naturally reply, "How hateful must ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... What a fine compliment to the patience and forbearance of the mass of the negroes. The majority see the minority emancipated two years before them, and that, too, upon the ground of an odious distinction which makes the domestic more worthy than they who "bear the heat and burthen of the ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... the Slave-trade, his majesty answered, that he would not, and was happy to hear that so humane an association was formed in his dominions. And here, having mentioned the society in Paris, he could not help paying a due compliment to that established in London for the same purpose, which had laboured with the greatest assiduity to make this important subject understood, and which had conducted itself with so much judgment and moderation as to ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson
... who was making his rounds. The sentinel was very naturally startled by this unaccountable noise in the camp, and supposing that the Indians had, unobserved, crept within the lines, he returned the compliment by discharging his piece in the direction of the supposed danger. The report of these firearms had the effect of arousing the entire command. The men were quickly on their feet and ready for active service. ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... And then they compliment me upon the perfection with which I imitate the style of the great dead masters; or ask me very seriously whether, even if I could gain over the modern public to this bygone style of music, I could hope to find singers to perform it. Sometimes, when people talk as they have ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... your family than it was for my sex," said Nelson, gallantly. He accompanied the compliment by a glance of admiration, extinguished in an eye-flash, for the white radiance that had bathed the ...
— Stories of a Western Town • Octave Thanet
... my sister?" she laughed, showing the engaging string of pearls and the irrepressible dimple. "Thank you so much. I always appreciate a compliment when it is sincere, for I am a great admirer ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... diamonds and carry her by storm while she was under the hypnotic influence of priceless glittering things for bodily adornment, which render so many women easy to take, he had recognized her as intelligent and paid her the compliment of treating her as such, had stated his case and waited for the time when the blaze of love would set her alight and bring her ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... wings," remarked Sir William. "But this rogue has given us an alert, and I have a notion to return the compliment.—What say you, gentlemen, shall we have a ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... then rushed into the house. We unbound the man, took him out, and started for home; but had hardly crossed the door-sill before people from the neighboring houses began to fire on us. At this juncture, our other five came up, and we all returned the compliment. Firing on both sides was kept up for ten or fifteen minutes, when the whites called for quarter, and offered to withdraw, if we would stop firing. On this assurance we started off with the man, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... of Laplace's compliment is literally true. Mrs. Somerville dined with this great geometer in Paris. "I write books," said Laplace, "that no one can read. Only two women have ever read the 'Mecanique Celeste'; both are Scotch women: Mrs. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... one of the most eventful since that of Washington; hinting that such grave responsibility and continual excitement might well account for exhaustion and reaction. The sick man shook his head drearily, and put the implied compliment aside: he was ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... terrible passion. He says that the article is written with ability, and that he always entertained the opinion expressed in the review of Heckewelder's work. But he is provoked at the comments on ——'s work, and, above all, at the compliment to you. Douglass, who is here, says this is merely Philadelphia versus New York, and that it is a principle with the former to puff all that is printed there, and to decry all that ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... cheerfulness were behind me—how I had not strength, even of heart, for the ordinary duties of life—everything I told him and showed him. 'Look at this—and this—and this,' throwing down all my disadvantages. To which he did not answer by a single compliment, but simply that he had not then to choose, and that I might be right or he might be right, he was not there to decide; but that he loved me, and should to his last hour.* * * He preferred, he said, of free and deliberate choice, to be allowed to sit only ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... not consider what he said as a compliment, but I was vain enough to want to know what he did think of me, so I asked: "And in what way am I like ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... person to feel good, I guess. Mrs. Gregory, you say I can belong to you,—when I think about that, I want to dance...I guess you hardly know what it means for Fran to belong to a person. You're going to find out. Come on," she shouted to Mrs. Jefferson, without using the trumpet—always a subtle compliment to those nearly stone-deaf, "I mustn't wheel myself about, so ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis
... of the fort, who shattered in pieces the canoe before it could be launched, and threatened with his cannon to level the black town with the dust. The caboceiro, though thus anticipated in his design, resolved to be among the first who should compliment M. de Kersin on his victory at Cape-coast; and, with this view, prepared an embassy or deputation to go there by land; but understanding that the French had failed in their attempt, he shifted his design, without the least hesitation, and despatched the same embassy to Mr. Bell, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... performance was superlatively great. So great indeed, that if all the other parts had been nearly equal to it, we should not at all hesitate to put it in competition with the Othello of any man now living. As it was, we pay it no compliment in saying that it was in every part much superior to that of Pope, the quondam ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... and how I pass my time in my retirement, as I shall call this: or, perhaps, they will be apt to think me ashamed of company I shall always be pleased with. Nor are you, my dear, to take this as a compliment to yourself, but a piece of requisite policy in me: for who will offer to reproach me with marrying, as the world thinks, below me, when they shall see that I not only pride myself in my Pamela, but take pleasure in owning her relations as mine, and visiting ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... finely frizzled, which was always braided in a manner that suggested some Southern or Eastern, some remotely foreign, woman. She had a large collection of ear-rings, and wore them in alternation; and they seemed to give a point to her Oriental or exotic aspect. A compliment had once been paid her, which, being repeated to her, gave her greater pleasure than anything she had ever heard. "A pretty woman?" some one had said. "Why, her features are very bad." "I don't know about her features," a very discerning observer ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... my arm! Actually a compliment upon my sword-handling from the most invincible fighter, whether in formal duel or sudden quarrel, in France! I liked the generosity which impelled him to acknowledge me a worthy antagonist, as much as I resented his overbearing insolence; and I began ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens
... or any—what sort of speech is that? Is it a compliment, think you, to be mixed with a drove in that fashion? My question was of you and me. If I were wronged would you ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
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