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More "Flattery" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... semblance, stimulates my heart To find its dearest pleasures in the part Taken in other's joys; yielding to theirs Its own desires, each latent wish that bears The selfish stamp, O! let me shun the art Taught by smooth Flattery in her courtly mart, Where Simulation's studied smile ensnares! Scorn that exterior varnish for the Mind, Which, while it polishes the manners, veils In showy clouds the soul.—E'en thus we find Glass, o'er whose surface clear the pencil steals, ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... honesty of those kind of people, the manner is now to enquire into their party, and to reject or encourage them accordingly; which proceeding hath made our people, in general, such able politicians, that all the artifice, flattery, dissimulation, diligence, and dexterity, in undermining each other, which the satirical wit of men hath charged upon courts; together with all the rage and violence, cruelty and injustice, which have been ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... admonished for the fraud by another of his ministers, the scholar Wang Tan, the Emperor resolved to put a golden gag in his mouth. So one day, having invited him to a banquet, he overwhelmed him with flattery and made him drunk with good wine. "I would like the members of your family also to taste this wine," he added, "so I am making you a present of a cask of it." When Wang Tan returned home, he found the cask filled with precious pearls. Out of ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... emissaries of perfidious Albion were seized. One general, it is. true, amused himself with reporting, that the English had thrown bales of Levant cotton on the coast of Normandy, to give France the plague; but these inventions of grave buffoonery were only regarded as pieces of flattery addressed to the first consul; and the chiefs of the conspiracy, as well as their agents, being in the power of the government, there was reason for believing that calm was restored in France; but Bonaparte had ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein
... the homely girl usually grows up free from the flattery and undue attention which are sure to be heaped upon the good-looking boy and the popular girl. Way back in the early days of five or six, and all the way up to the ages of twelve to twenty, children should be taught that it is altogether natural and ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... make a true discrimination of Fenwick's moral fitness for the husband of Mary Lester. Indeed, she never attempted to analyze character, nor had she an idea of any thing beneath the surface. Personal appearance, an affable exterior, and a little flattery of herself, were the three things which, in her estimation, went to make up a perfect character—were enough to constitute the beau ideal of a husband for ...
— Finger Posts on the Way of Life • T. S. Arthur
... pride and luxury in which he was educated had not allowed him to suspect that there existed on the earth any power presumptuous enough to invade the repose of the successor of Augustus. The acts of flattery concealed the impending danger till Alaric approached the palace of Milan. But when the sound of war had awakened the young emperor, instead of flying to arms with the spirit, or even the rashness, of his age, he eagerly listened to those timid counsellors who proposed to convey ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton
... rapidity. Christophe was struck by the number of dead and dying men he met among the artists: there was one young musician, full of life and genius, whom success had dulled, stupefied, and wiped out of existence: he thought of nothing but swallowing down the flattery in which he was smothered, enjoying himself, and sleeping. What he would be like twenty years later was shown in another corner of the room, in the person of an old pomaded maestro, who was rich, famous, ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... Club in relation to the address of the commune, demanding the expulsion of the Twenty-Two.) "You have often taken the people to task; you have even sometimes tried to flatter them; but there was about this flattery that aristocratic air of coldness and dislike which could deceive nobody. Your ways of a bourgeois patrician are always perceptible in your words and acts; you never wanted to mix with the people. Here is your doctrine in few words: after the people have served ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... quite an expert at flattery. Every girl he meets, if she is at all attractive, is considered the most charming lady that he ever knew. He is sure she isn't prudish enough to refuse him a kiss, and if she is, she wins not only his admiration, but that ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... beauty and grace, he exclaimed, "This is she who caused my heart to throb many a night!" Yet he discerned at once what the nature of woman was. She would, he knew, seek to carry her point with man either by entreaties and tears, or flattery and caresses. He said, therefore, "This ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... This constant flattery was very bad for the young man; and, as he was anxious to please everybody, it often led him to do foolish things. He gave costly banquets, drove fast horses, boasted a great deal, and even started out for his first battle in a magnificent ...
— The Story of the Greeks • H. A. Guerber
... It's first reproach, and then flattery. But have you thought of the real nobility ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... silver laugh, "your nation spoils us for our own countrymen. You forget how little we are accustomed to flattery." ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 5 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... said so for years and every one said the same thing about the Woodyards. They were very intimate friends, close comrades. She knew that Percy respected and admired her more than any woman in the world, and paid her the last flattery of conceding to her will, respecting her intelligence. But there was something that he had not done, could not do, and that was a something that Cairy seemed able to do,—give her a sensation partly physical, ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... and may easily be seen through, ne boweth by any art; so a faithful counsellor holdeth no treason, but is plain and open, ne yieldeth to any indiscreet affection, but giveth wholesome counsel, which the ill advised prince refuseth. The delightful gold filled with poison betokeneth flattery, which under fair seeming of pleasant words beareth deadly poison, which destroyeth the prince that receiveth it. As befel in the two brethren, Ferrex and Porrex, who, refusing the wholesome advice of grave counsellors, credited these young ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... doth she abuse me, Suffering my friend for my sake to approve her. If I lose thee, my loss is my love's gain, And losing her, my friend hath found that loss; Both find each other, and I lose both twain, And both for my sake lay on me this cross: But here's the joy; my friend and I are one; Sweet flattery! then ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... all the council. He next turned out several governors convicted of mal-administration, and put others in their room, with such wonderful and just discernment, as exalted the acclamations of every body, which were so much the more honourable, as flattery had no share in them. He at length left the council, accompanied by his father, and went to wait on his mother Queen Gulnare at her apartment. The queen no sooner saw him coming with his crown upon his head, than she ran to him and embraced him with tenderness, wishing ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... mentioning his concert. Quite simply, in a way he did not even attempt to explain to himself, he felt that the world of London would scent it from afar off. As to paid claques, presentation-tickets, patrons, advance agents, all the booming and flattery, the jam of the powder for an English audience, he had no idea of the existence of such things. Beethoven was wonderful, and he had found out wonderful things about him: ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... with its weaker congener. But pride, after all, is nothing more than a stiffened and congealed vanity, and melts back to its original ductility when exposed to the milder temperature of female partiality. Swift could not deny himself the flattery of Vanessa's passion, and not to forbid was to encourage. He could not bring himself to administer in time the only effectual remedy, by telling her that he was pledged to another woman. When at last he did tell her it was ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... And now to the king; I must see for myself if this young royal child can, like Hercules in his cradle, destroy serpents on the day of his birth; or, if he is a king, like all other kings, overcome by flattery, idle and vain, knowing or acknowledging no laws over himself, but those of his own conscience and his bon plaisir. But hark! that is the king's voice; ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... to say in his sketch of Romney's life: "A lady in the character of a saint. This sort of flattery, once so prevalent with painters, is now nearly worn out: we have now no Lady Betty's enacting the part of Diana; no Lady Jane's tripping it barefoot among the thorns and brambles of this weary world, ...
— Some Old Time Beauties - After Portraits by the English Masters, with Embellishment and Comment • Thomson Willing
... with subtle flattery. The Emperor WILLIAM, though he had his failings, was a keen judge of the comparative ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 24, 1891. • Various
... answered to nature infallibly, and by some hidden intuition of recognition the girl was subdued and dumb. This was nothing like Tom Caruthers, and anything she had received from him. Tom had been flattering, demonstrative, obsequious; there was no flattery here, and no demonstration, and nothing could be farther from obsequiousness. It was the delicate reverence which a man gives to only one woman of all the world; something that must be felt and cannot be feigned; the most subtle incense of worship one ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... and taciturn, and I, accustomed to gay society and the admiration of crowds, was left to mope alone in a strange country, with no companionship whatever. What wonder that I hungered for the old life, or that a casual admiring glance, or a few words even of flattery, were like cold water to one perishing with thirst! Then new hope came into my lonely life, and I spent months in dreamy, happy anticipations of the future love and companionship of my child. But ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... "That is flattery, flattery, young man," he said, "but it pleases me. Since I've drawn from you all you know, which is but little, you may fall back with your comrades. But keep near; I fancy I shall have much for you to do before long. Meanwhile, we march ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler
... all down to your ladyship," said the Granny, with grave truthfulness—not a trace of flattery. "She can never tire of telling the good it does her to see you." This was the nearest she could go, without personality, to a hint at the effect the sheer beauty of her hearer had on the common object of ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... be a good horseman; skill of government was but a "pedanteria" in comparison. Then would he add certain praises by telling what a peerless beast the horse was, the only serviceable courtier, without flattery, the beast of most beauty, faithfulness, courage, and such more, that if I had not been a piece of a logician before I came to him, I think he would have persuaded me to have wished myself a horse. But thus much, at least, with his no few words, ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney
... a hedge of sweet-peas, throwing out fluttering tendrils everywhere for something high and strong to climb by,—and when they find it, be it ever so rough in the bark, they catch upon it. And instances are not wanting of those who have turned away from the flattery of admirers to prostrate themselves at the feet of a genuine hero who never wooed them, except by heroic deeds and the rhetoric of a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... wise old Gascon suggests that it is the part of wisdom to give your affection to one who is both plain and elderly—one who is not suffering from a surfeit of love, and one whose head has not been turned by flattery. "Young women," says the philosopher, "demand attention as their right and often flout the giver; whereas old ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... "true rhubarb" for healing the breach, especially among the common people. July 18 Garsia wrote to the Emperor: "If you are determined to bring Germany back to the fold, I know of no other or better means than by presents and flattery to persuade those who are most eminent in science or in the empire to return to our faith. Once that is done, you must, in dealing with the remaining common people, first of all publish your imperial edicts and Christian admonitions. If they will not ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... most refined application. She was a great lady, who knew the world and the worth of it. And she was absolute mistress both of that knowledge, and of herself—notwithstanding those outstretched hands, and outcry of childlike pleasure,—there, perhaps, lay the exquisite flattery of this last to her hearer! She was all this, and something more than all this. Something for which Dickie, his heart still virgin, had no name as yet. It was new to his experience. A something clear, simple, and natural, as the sunlight, and yet infinitely subtle. A something ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... tell a bird by its flight. I am something of a psychologist too in my own way, and a physiognomist. If I had not, I will venture to say, been endowed with that gift, I should have come to grief long ago; I should have stood no chance, a poor man like me. I tell you without flattery, I am sincerely delighted at the friendship I observe between you and my son. I have just seen him; he got up as he usually does—no doubt you are aware of it—very early, and went a ramble about the neighbourhood. Permit me to inquire—have you ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... Taiko's arrangement. They grew jealous of Ieyasu, because, under the existing order of things, the governors were of very minor importance. Mitsunari had acquired his influence with the Taiko, not through military achievements, but by intrigue and flattery. He was cordially detested by such disinterested friends as Kato Kiyomasa ...
— Japan • David Murray
... vain flattery to pretend that this Work on Clothes entirely contents us; that it is not, like all works of genius, like the very sun, which, though the highest published creation, or work of genius, has nevertheless black spots ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... do not hold the gift of beauty As some rare treasure to be bought and sold. But guard it as a precious aid to duty - The outer framing of the inner gold; Women who, low above their cradles bending, Let flattery's voice go by, and give no heed, While their pure prayers like incense are ascending THESE are our country's ...
— Poems of Power • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites; in proportion as they are disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good in preference to the flattery of knaves. Society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere, and the less of it there be within the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... than those we have been describing, and it is from these sections that the entities who have sometimes been reverenced under the name of wood-gods, or local village-gods, have been drawn. Such entities would be quite sensible of the flattery involved in the reverence shown to them, would enjoy it, and would no doubt be quite ready to do any small service they could in return. (The village-god is also often an artificial entity, but that variety will be considered in its appropriate place.) The Adept knows ...
— The Astral Plane - Its Scenery, Inhabitants and Phenomena • C. W. Leadbeater
... and although I rely on the justice of the assembled sovereigns, and on their old friendship, still it is well to tell you that, in whatever circumstance it may please God to place me, my course will be what I have manifested on this sheet, strong and unchangeable either by force or by the flattery of others.' ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... at this artful flattery, although, in truth, it was well deserved, for at an age when many Egyptians are old, she ...
— Morning Star • H. Rider Haggard
... a foreign fool in the Flowers of Fashion who is doing his best to disgust the public by his filthy flattery. It is enough to make one sick. Why is the foreign beast not kicked out of the paper?"—The ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Robert returned from his abortive mission, she never afterwards let a disparaging word towards Langham escape her lips to Rose. She was tenderness and sympathy itself, and Rose, in her curious reaction against her old self, and against the noisy world of flattery and excitement in which she had been living, turned to Catherine as she had never done since she was a tiny child. She would spend hours in a corner of the Bedford Square drawing-room, pretending to read, or play with little Mary, in reality recovering, like some bruised and ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... pondering on what he has seen and heard, more especially on what he has overheard—that sweet soliloquy. Few men are insensible to flattery. And flattery from fair lips! He must be indeed near death whose ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... by the eternal light! But I am not a maker of sweet sayings, Nor fond of talk. Deliberate flattery I put behind me: The mouth that sucks the sweetness of the fruit Is mute. And this is chiefly autumn's trade. Yea, though the spring may breathe a sweeter odor, Old autumn laughs at him.—Nay, look not so Upon my hand. ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... praise," said Don Quixote at this, "for I hate all flattery; and though this may not be so, still language of the kind is offensive to my chaste ears. I will only say, senora, that whether it has might or not, that which it may or may not have shall be devoted to your service even to death; and now, leaving this to its proper season, I would ask the senor ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... wish to hurt your feelings, but my strength is not great enough for unmeaning flattery. This marriage was so dear to my heart that I have put it before a very large interest about which I have no time to lose, and still am helpless upon this bed. I will trust you to do my errand. Go to that chest, Judge Custis, and you will ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... from him upon many other occasions, this appears to me to be the most reprehensible passage of his whole work. A spirit of adulation towards deceased princes, though in a good measure free from the imputation of interested meanness, which is justly attached to flattery when applied to living monarchs, yet, as it is less intelligible with respect to its motives than the other, so is it in its consequences still more pernicious to the general interests of mankind. Fear of censure from contemporaries ...
— A History of the Early Part of the Reign of James the Second • Charles James Fox
... Prince, the moral fable, To youth ingenuous, profitable. Nobility, like beauty's youth, May seldom hear the voice of truth; Or mark and learn the fact betimes That flattery is the nurse of crimes. Friendship, which seldom nears a throne, Is by her voice of censure known. To one in your exalted station A courtier is a dedication; But I dare not to dedicate My verse e'en unto royal state. My muse is sacred, and must teach ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... Caesar, had taken the Roman name of Licinius. This man gave himself up, during his administration, to a course of the most shameless extortion. The taxes were collected monthly; and so, taking advantage of the change of name which flattery had caused in the two months of July and August, sacred to Julius Caesar and Augustus respectively, he made his year consist of fourteen months, so that he might squeeze out fourteen contributions instead of twelve. "December," said he, "is surely, as its name indicates, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... to please girls, etc., etc. In self-defence Alice was much more out-spoken about both Philip and Mr. Clinton than she had probably intended to be. That Philip began things hotly, and that his zeal cooled before they were accomplished—that his imperiousness laid him open to flattery, and the necessity of playing first-fiddle betrayed him into second-rate friendships, which were thrown after the discarded hobbies—that Mr. Clinton was ill-bred, and with that vulgarity of mind which would make him rather proud than ashamed of getting the best of a bargain with ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... There is no flattery, however outrageous, that a man will not accept from the woman whom he believes loves him. He will perhaps doubt its influence in the colder judgment of mankind; but he will consider that this poor creature, at least, understands him, ...
— Thankful Blossom • Bret Harte
... the Vacillating or Indecisive Customer, the Confident or Decisive Customer (this one should be treated with subtle flattery and agreement with all her views), The Talkative or Friendly Customer, and the Silent or Indifferent one. All these have their little weaknesses, and the perfect salesperson will learn to know these and ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley
... for flattery, either on the one side or on the other. You had better take that as established. You have done me the honor of wishing, for certain reasons, that I should ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... pleased with his own speech on Nugent's Bill, and so angry with the Chancellor for opposing it, that he only wants a little flattery to make ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... the case in this long reign, that office has been filled with some consciousness of its responsibilities, the recognition of the fact is no flattery but simple duty. We cannot attribute to the personal initiative of the Queen the great and beneficent changes which have coincided with her reign. Thank God, no monarch can make or mar England now. But this ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... would better talk with you, Mr. Yancy, and we were hoping to meet you as we came along," supplemented Miss Malroy, and her words of flattery were wafted to him with so sweet a smile ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... were very light and Captain Haldane did excellent work sniping and kept the enemy well in hand. The gunners were good enough to remark that a great change was noticeable since the line had been taken over by us; this was probably a little bit of flattery on the part of the Artillery men, but it was quite welcome. During these days the Commanding Officer was an unknown quantity as one never knew where he would next appear on the five-mile line. I think that he must have known every inch of it. We were relieved ...
— With a Highland Regiment in Mesopotamia - 1916—1917 • Anonymous
... engraved by Hole. This portrait would, to a person unapprised of any peculiarity in the original, present apparently little or nothing to justify the remark of Cornwallis. But making due allowance for the address, if not the flattery, of a skilful painter, it were hardly possible for the observer, aware of the blemish, not to detect in the short and close-curled fell of hair, the wild, staring eyes, the contour of the visage,—which, expanding from the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... the tired climbers, the horizon was ever dark, the mists were often cold, the Canaan was always dim and far away. If, however, the vistas disclosed as yet no goal, no resting-place, little but flattery and criticism, the journey at least gave leisure for reflection and self-examination; it changed the child of emancipation to the youth with dawning self-consciousness, self-realization, self-respect. In those sombre forests ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... Charley," exclaimed the little darky, the bald flattery tickling his great racial vanity, "I jus' reckon nothin' goin' to get past dis nigger, though I sure 'spects I'd ought to go along so as to watch ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... was almost like writing history! But the aide-de-camp discreetly kept up the illusion, outdid the others in flattery, and related unheard-of ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... in her madness, and she was distributing her flowers according to the characters and moods of the recipients. Fennel, for instance, emblemised flattery, and columbine ingratitude. Rue emblemised either remorse or repentance—either sorrow or grace—so 'you may wear your ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor
... safe-conduct, was immediately sent to the alchymist, with a command from the King that he should forthwith present himself at Versailles, and make public trial of his oil and powder. But this did not suit the plans of Delisle: in the provinces he was regarded as a man of no small importance; the servile flattery that awaited him wherever he went was so grateful to his mind that he could not willingly relinquish it and run upon certain detection at the court of the Monarch. Upon one pretext or another he delayed ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... She is not altogether black,—about mahogany color. I mention her modesty, because, so far as I saw, the good-looking ones among the black women have an air of assumption, and almost of impudence,—probably the result of flattery. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... hand with wringing. Let us part, And leave this idle theme, this bootless chat: Remove your siege from my unyielding heart; To love's alarms it will not ope the gate: 424 Dismiss your vows, your feigned tears, your flattery; For where a heart is hard they ...
— Venus and Adonis • William Shakespeare
... been so petted at the convent, in the capacity of only daughter of a grand seigneur and millionnaire; she had been surrounded by so much adulation, that all her good qualities had been blighted in the bud by the poisonous breath of flattery. ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... the flattery of sleep, My dreams presage some joyful news at hand; My bosom's lord sits lightly on his throne, And all this day an unaccustom'd spirit Lifts me above the ground with cheerful thoughts. I dreamt my lady came and found me dead, (Strange dream! that gives a dead man leave to think) And ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... was brief. A phrase or two of flattery and acknowledgment to those on the platform supporting him dismissed that. Then he passed on to the objects in view. In five minutes he had dismissed also the ultimate destiny of the mills, and the manner in which the Workers ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... you are mistaken. I despise a flatterer as much as you do. But I am sure that I saw nothing like flattery about ...
— Married Life; Its Shadows and Sunshine • T. S. Arthur
... not have the sweet voice which the fox in his flattery attributed to him, but he has a good, strong, native speech, nevertheless. How much character there is in it! How much thrift and independence! Of course his plumage is firm, his color decided, his wit quick. He understands you at once and tells you so; so does the hawk by his ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... his companion was susceptible to such flattery he was greatly mistaken. His words disgusted Lois, and yet she must remember that he was Mrs. Dingle's guest and that she must be agreeable as ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody
... was something lacking in general tone. Gideon felt it himself, and was certain that a "misery," that embracing indisposition of his race, was creeping upon him. He had been fed well, too well; he was growing rich, too rich; he had all the praise, all the flattery that his enormous appetite for approval desired, and too much of it. White men sought him out and made much of him; white women talked to him about his career; and wherever he went, women of color—black girls, brown girls, ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... lived. Under these circumstances he was not impatient, for a time at least, to leave the Netherlands. His administration had not been very successful. He had been led away by his own vanity, and by the flattery of artful demagogues, but the immense obstacles with which he had to contend in the Queen's wavering policy, and in the rivalry of both English and Dutch politicians have been amply exhibited. That he had been generous, courageous, and zealous, could not be denied; ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... business to know what is going on, Mr Cargrim,' replied the lady, much gratified, 'in order to stem the torrent of infidelity, debauchery, lying and flattery which rolls through ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... won't," said the old soldier, gruffly. "I won't give you a bit more than's good for you, boy. When I say you have done well it means you have done well. You won't get any flattery out of me. All this trouble that we are going through is no more than you must expect. Look what we are doing, and ...
— Marcus: the Young Centurion • George Manville Fenn
... wit we be deceived our faults may be excused, Seeming good with flattery graced is but of few refused, But of all accursed are they that ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various
... bracing and spicy; the light golden and glowing, and yet softened to the dreamiest, richest, most bounteous aureole of hope, by a slight impalpable haze; too slight to veil anything, but giving its tender flattery to the landscape nevertheless. And through that to the mind. Who can help but receive it? Suggestions of waveless peace, of endless delight, of a world-full glory that must fill one's life with riches, come through such a light and under such a sky. Diana's ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... its paths, singling out this or that for notice. She suggests, she even criticizes, tenderly, as one who tells you an "even more becoming way" to arrange your little daughter's hair. She offers you roots and seeds and seedlings from her garden, and—last touch of flattery—she begs ...
— More Jonathan Papers • Elisabeth Woodbridge
... commonly used as a means of getting money by flattery. I. D'Israeli in his Calamities of Authors, i. 64, says:—'Fuller's Church History is disgraced by twelve particular dedications. It was an expedient to procure dedication fees; for publishing books by subscription was an art not yet discovered.' The price of the dedication ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... the triumph of the Jackson forces. Adams, foreseeing the end, found solace in harsh and sometimes picturesque entries in his diary. A group of opposition Congressmen he pronounced "skunks of party slander." Calhoun he described as "stimulated to frenzy by success, flattery, and premature advancement; governed by no steady principle, but sagacious to seize upon every prevailing popular breeze to swell his own sails." Clay, likewise, became petulant and gloomy. In the last two months of the canvass Jackson ordered a general onslaught upon ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg
... 14, he joined us about noon. On leaving the Whitebear camp he passed at a short distance a little creek or run coming in on the left. This had been already examined and called Flattery run; it contains back water only, with very extensive low grounds, which rising into large plains reach the mountains on the east; then passed a willow island on the left within one mile and a half, and reached two miles further a cliff of rocks in a bend on the same side. In the course ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... his way by flattery, replied: "Sad indeed is it in Asgard, now that Mioelnir has vanished. Clever was that one who spirited it away from the very side of Thor. Methinks none but you could have ...
— Told by the Northmen: - Stories from the Eddas and Sagas • E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton
... still smiling. "Delicate flattery," he said, "adapted to an invalid. You should never let an invalid think you pity him—at least not a man-invalid who got knocked out while playing a vigorous game for ...
— A Court of Inquiry • Grace S. Richmond
... our Anglo-Saxon nature prevent this easy faculty and flow of expression which strike one so pleasantly in the Italian or the French life: the dread of flattery, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... discovers a great difference between this account and that which Johnson gave to Mr. Warton (post, under July 16, 1754). There is no need to have recourse, with Mr. Croker, 'to an ear spoiled by flattery.' A very simple explanation may be found. The accounts refer to different hours of the same day. Johnson's 'stark insensibility' belonged to the morning, and his 'beating heart' to the afternoon. He had been impertinent before dinner, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... little enough," the other answered. "He ran after women and sought the society of inferior persons for the sake of their flattery. It always astonished me anew when he managed to produce something of approximately solid worth. For neither his character nor his intelligence ...
— The Indian Lily and Other Stories • Hermann Sudermann
... success of her Saturdays. Westall, a moment later, had overtaken his look, and found a place at the girl's side. She bent forward, speaking eagerly; he leaned back, listening, with the depreciatory smile which acted as a filter to flattery, enabling him to swallow the strongest doses without apparent grossness of appetite. Julia winced at her own ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... about like she was taking stock of my belongings, I'd have knowed how to proceed, but this way of having to walk a plank that she's propped up has made me sorter weak at the knees. How do I look, anyway—honest, I don't want any flattery? If you think I'd look better in my silk plug-hat and long Prince Albert I can whisk ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... quality was this devoted friendship, and so superior was it to the little weaknesses of flattery or ill-nature, that the kind-hearted Miss Knag candidly informed Kate Nickleby, next day, that she saw she would never do for the business, but that she need not give herself the slightest uneasiness on this account, ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... nameless statesmen who sought to teach him his duty; clergymen in large numbers, generally with the same purpose; deputations from churches, societies, political organizations, commissions, trades unions, with every sort of message from flattery to denunciation; and best of all, simple, confiding people who wanted only to say, "We trust you—God ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... self-love than to be founded on reason and justice. I am fearful that, like Themistocles, I should appear to admire their eloquence the most who are most forward to praise me. It is the usual frailty of our sex to be fond of flattery. I blame this in other women, and should wish not to be chargeable with it myself. Yet I confess that I take a pride in being painted by the hand of so able a master, however flattering the likeness may be. ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various
... which the flattery of Mansart placed him as the sun, Louis XIV. emerged every morning to visit the occupiers of the twelve smaller pavilions, Les Pavilions des Seigneurs, the constellations, his courtiers, who came out to meet him and swelled his train. These pavilions, ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... one day—a day of days in the chronicles of Dawson—from the Home Secretary himself. To me it seemed that all these astute potentates knew their Dawson very thoroughly, and lubricated, as it were, with judicious flattery the machinery of his energies. I could not but admire Dawson's truly royal faculty for absorbing butter. The stomachs of most men, really good at their business, would have revolted at the diet which ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... forfeit with your life's blood." The poor merchant threw himself on his knees before the Beast, saying: "Forgive me, my Lord, I did not know I should offend you by plucking a rose for one of my daughters, in compliance with her wishes." "I am not a lord, but a beast," answered the monster; "I hate flattery, and you will not come over me with any fine speeches; but, as you say you have daughters, I will forgive you, provided one of them comes willingly to die in your stead, but swear that, should they refuse, you will return in three months." The merchant had not the most distant intention of ...
— Bo-Peep Story Books • Anonymous
... something almost approaching to resistance in what he had said and done already. Therefore Aunt Polly flew to her weapons, and summoned Julia also to take up arms. He must be bound at once with chains, but the chains were made as soft as love and flattery could make them. Aunt Polly was almost angry,—was prepared to be very angry;—but not the less did she go on ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... me with mock applause for my pluck in facing the night, but for all their sham flattery I was pleased I had come, proud, I must admit, that I had been able to plough my heavy way through the drifts to reach them. I saw at a glance that my friends were all there, and I saw too that there was ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 • Various
... Theocritus, on whose lips a word of flattery or applause was always ready, looked down in his dismay; but Caracalla, in his ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... intended departure, she saw the whole truth. She had a strong mind, capable of looking steadily at truth. Surrounded as she had been from her childhood by every means of self-indulgence which wealth and flattery could bestow, she had discovered early what few persons in her situation discover till late in life, that selfish gratifications may render us incapable of other happiness, but can never, of themselves, make us happy. Despising flatterers, she had determined to make ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... develop their ideas, caprices and fancies, and are able to display more variety, for all those who work at these honourable professions always seek after a laudable diversity, and possess the power of delicate flattery and of tactful criticism. Lippo, then, painter of Florence, who was as varied and choice in his inventions as his works were really unfortunate and his life short, was born at Florence about the year of ...
— The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors & Architects, Volume 1 (of 8) • Giorgio Vasari
... time's swift flow As part of still eternity. Her life, all honour, observed, with awe Which cross experience could not mar, The fiction of the Christian law That all men honourable are; And so her smile at once conferr'd High flattery and benign reproof; And I, a rude boy, strangely stirr'd, Grew courtly in my own behoof. The years, so far from doing her wrong, Anointed her with gracious balm, And made her brows more and more young With wreaths of amaranth ...
— The Angel in the House • Coventry Patmore
... of LONDON, "must be his own Columbus and find the continent of truth." This is the first time that we had heard America called the continent of truth, and one wonders where the present fashion of flattery ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 11, 1914 • Various
... harrowing thought's bewild'ring maze, Touching the ling'ring chords of childlike feeling, With sweet harmonies of happier days: So curse I all, around the soul that windeth Its magic and alluring spell, And with delusive flattery bindeth Its victim to this dreary cell! Curs'd before all things be the high opinion, Wherewith the spirit girds itself around! Of shows delusive curs'd be the dominion, Within whose mocking sphere our sense is ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... not all fustian for the flattery of women; it is the deliberate conviction of our best and wisest minds. And yet a great majority of these same minds can not get rid of the idea ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... astounded Mr. Prohack—and relieved him. With an admirable ease she went on to congratulate their host upon his engagement, covering him with petals of flattery and good wishes. Mr. Prohack could scarcely recognise his wife, and he was not sure that he liked her new worldiness quite as much as her old ingenuous and sometimes inarticulate simplicity. At any rate she was a changed woman. He steadied himself, ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... at the flattery and determined to help the monkey. He thought for a little while and ...
— Japanese Fairy Tales • Yei Theodora Ozaki
... cream. "How sweet." "How refreshing." "How altogether nice!" Many behave in her company as though she was a loaded gun, and liable to do mischief, while a very few act as though she was above the wiles of flattery, and not to be bought for the price of a new bonnet. Hasten the day, good Lord, when she shall be regarded as something wiser and nobler than an automaton, less perishable than a confection, more comforting and peace-producing than a fire-arm, ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden
... sort now pipe and sing, And make them merrie with their fooleries; 320 They cherelie chaunt, and rymes at randon fling, The fruitfull spawne of their ranke fantasies; They feede the eares of fooles with flattery, And good men blame, and losels* ...
— The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 • Edmund Spenser
... authors of the critique on the Cid; the abbe Amable de Bourzeis (1606-1671); Francois Charpentier (1620-1702), an antiquary of high repute among his contemporaries; and the abbe Jacques de Cassagnes (1636-1679), who owed his appointment more to the fulsome flattery of his odes than to his really learned translations of Cicero and Sallust. This company used to meet in Colbert's library in the winter, at his country-house at Sceaux in the summer, generally on Wednesdays, to serve the convenience of the minister, who was always present. Their meetings ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... beginning of his life in Madrid he imagined he had recovered. New surroundings; continuous and petty satisfactions to vanity; the kow-towing of doorkeepers in Congress; the flattery of visitors from here, there and everywhere who came with requests for passes to admit them to the galleries; the sense of being treated as a comrade by celebrities, whose names his father had always mentioned with bated breath; ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... of eminence are exposed to censure on one hand, they are as much liable to flattery on the other. If they receive reproaches which are not due to them, they likewise receive praises which they do not deserve. In a word, the man in a high post is never regarded with an indifferent eye, but always considered as a friend or an enemy. For this reason ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison
... whom he should deem worthy to present for election. The great man purred out these sentences, Joseph's remark having reminded him of his exalted position. But thinking his remark had nettled Hanan, Joseph said: you see I have only just come to Jerusalem; and this remark continued the flattery, and with an impulsive movement Hanan took Joseph's hands and spoke to him about his father in terms that made Joseph feel very proud of Dan, and also of being in Jerusalem, which had already begun to seem to him more wonderful than he had ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... Havannah is especially celebrated, but his partner smiled graciously, and assured him that he performed it to perfection. When, however, he contrasted his own performance with that of the active-toed Spaniards, he could not help feeling that he was receiving undue flattery. As to his companions they soon had to give it up as a bad job, though they did their best to make themselves agreeable by tucking their partners' arms under theirs, and chattering away in execrable Spanish. Tom noticed that their host and his spouse kept a ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... just described. But it is to be observed that in attending at the palace, these men of genius made sure at least of outward unanimity among their ranks, by coming equally prepared with one accomplishment, and equally animated by one hope: they waited to employ a common agent—flattery; to ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... But Squire Faggus had seen the world, and kept company with great people; and the taste he had first displayed in the shoeing of farmers' horses (which led almost to his ruin, by bringing him into jealousy, and flattery, and dashing ways) had now been cultivated in London, and by moonlight, so that none ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... I remember, that of the manchineel fruit, as suiting equally well with too many subjects; in which however it yielded the palm at once to the example of Alexander and Clytus, which was equally good and apt, whatever might be the theme. Was it ambition? Alexander and Clytus!-Flattery? Alexander and Clytus!—anger—drunkenness—pride—friendship—ingratitude—late repentance? Still, still Alexander and Clytus! At length, the praises of agriculture having been exemplified in ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... with bitterness, "I begin to doubt it. I have been praised for my good looks until I grow weary of the iteration; but I believed the lying flattery once,—as what woman would not, when it is repeated every day ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... she, "it is easily to be seen that you have been to court; you have learned so thoroughly the art of flattery." ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... man, was made one of the chief rulers under him, one of the three presidents over the hundred and twenty satraps or princes over the provinces of the great Persian empire. The envy of the Medes caused them to persuade Darius by foolish flattery to say that whoever for a month should make request of god or man, save of the king, should be cast into a den of lions, and Daniel, who was not likely in his old age to cease from prayer to his God for any terror of man, endured the penalty, much against the king's will; but only that again ...
— The Chosen People - A Compendium Of Sacred And Church History For School-Children • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... general conduct with these maxims. I am persuaded that he deludes himself by some process of extraordinary false reasoning, and that the habits of intense volition, jumbled up with party prejudices, old associations, and exposure to never-ceasing flattery, have produced the remarkable result we see in his conduct; notwithstanding the enormous blunders he has committed, and his numerous and flagrant inconsistencies, he has never lost his confidence in himself, and what is more curious, has contrived to retain that of a host of followers. In each ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... the Bible with the humble desire to know what it says, and not to interpret it into their own baseless fancies,—that it is the exquisite celebration of a pure love in humble life; of a love which no splendor can dazzle and no flattery seduce." ...
— Who Wrote the Bible? • Washington Gladden
... illustrious families of Pomponii, Pinarii, Calpurnii, and Mamerci, which for this reason took also the surname of Rex, or King. But there is a third set of writers who say that these pedigrees are but a piece of flattery used by writers, who, to gain favor with these great families, made them fictitious genealogies from the lineage of Numa; and that Pompilia was not the daughter of Tatia, but Lucretia, another wife whom ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... judge the assertions of boys, although lacking the power of speech, and are favourably disposed towards them. O Janaka, thou hearest my words as if thou hast been stupefied in consequence of having eaten the fruit of the Sleshmataki tree. Or flattery hath robbed thee of thy sense, and for this it is that although pierced by my words as an elephant (by the hook), ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... place. It is work apart from human passion, and is felt as a moral relaxation, though it is not one in any other sense.... This is a curious experience to me, of jaded body and mind refreshed. I propose for Latin theme a little sentence of Burke's which runs to this effect, 'Flattery corrupts both the receiver and the giver; and adulation is not of more service to the people than to kings.' April 2nd.—The statistics become excessively interesting. Henry Hallam gained, and now stands second [the brother of his ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... Bean had a shrewd understanding which no grace of flattery could dazzle, and felt truly that nowadays her principal claim to masculine admiration lay in her fine starching specialty of housewifery; and of that she gave no show, bundled up against the cold in her shapeless wools. So she put aside the young ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... politics, cannot be done without 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
... of judging what value her own simple comeliness might have, side by side with so much brilliancy, she cast a glance towards the full-length looking-glass, in front of which they happened to be standing. It was one of the truest plates in the world, and incapable of flattery. No sooner did the images, therein reflected, meet Polly's eye, than she shrieked, shrank from the stranger's side, gazed at him for a moment, in the wildest dismay, and sank insensible upon the floor. Feathertop, likewise, had looked towards the mirror, and there beheld, not the ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... room together. She looked back for a moment before, they disappeared and Arnold felt his heart give a little jump. She was certainly the most beautiful creature he had ever seen, and there was something in her treatment of him, the subtle flattery of her half appealing confidence, which went to his head like wine. The door closed and he was left alone. He listened to their departing footsteps. Then he looked around him, for the first time forming some idea of his surroundings. He was in ...
— The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Republic, and, if we are to do what is best, to a defender of this government. We have plenty to choose from. It would be well to prefer the most popular and, if I dare say so, the most republican of them. We shall win him over to us by flattery, by presents, and above all by promises. Promises cost less than presents, and are worth more. No one gives as much as he who gives hopes. It is not necessary for the man we choose to be of brilliant ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... tell you, sa uishe; I will speak to you as I would to my own child." The artful flattery had its desired effect. Okoya became very attentive; he moved closer apparently to the ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... Brutus's officers, who went by the nickname of "King." Brutus, in his character of quaestor, has to decide the dispute, which in the hands of the principals degenerates, as disputes so conducted generally do, into a personal squabble. Persius leads off with some oriental flattery of the general and his suite. Brutus is "Asia's sun," and they the "propitious stars," all ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... to be a persecution; but I fear it isn't," said the Honourable John Ruffin grimly. "I gather from this letter that she is regarding his attentions, which, I am sure, consist chiefly of fulsome flattery and uncouth ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson
... that in Europe a certain degree of contempt lurks even in the flattery which men lavish upon women: although a European frequently affects to be the slave of woman, it may be seen that he never sincerely thinks her his equal. In the United States men seldom compliment women, but ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... not understand, brother. That was only flattery and compliment. Goddesses were only in the Greek mythology, and were all ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge
... became insane. This was an excellent opportunity for the opposition papers, which immediately attacked the Governor for what they called his illegal interference and his brutality. The Gazette filled its columns with the most fulsome flattery in his defence, and Darling himself was so imprudent as to mingle in the dispute, and to do what he could to annoy the editors of the two hostile papers. Very soon the whole colony was divided into two great classes—the one needlessly extolling the Governor, the other denouncing ...
— History of Australia and New Zealand - From 1606 to 1890 • Alexander Sutherland
... dwell on the painful interview I had with the "dragon." I put my foot in it at the very first by pretending that I thought she came from New York, whereas she had really come from Boston. To take a New York person for a Bostonian is flattery, but to reverse the order of things, especially with a woman of the uncertain temper of Mrs. Scrivener-Yapling, was really a deadly insult, and I fear this helped to shipwreck my mission, although I presume it would have been shipwrecked in any case. ...
— In a Steamer Chair And Other Stories • Robert Barr
... strongly ironical compliments in her capacity of "mermaid." He had told her incidentally that she was eminently fitted for her part, as it was a well-known physiological fact that fat kept afloat on water. Frau Stark, who was proof at all times both against flattery and against the insinuating allurements of the foamy liquid, and who was as much matter-of-fact to-day as she had been the night before, merely deigned to accept these excuses with a small nod and ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... that, he knew that I was charmed at the first greeting; probably he liked it, possibly he liked me. What he saw in me I never discovered. Van, though demonstrative eventually, was reticent and little given to verbal flattery. It was long indeed before any degree of intimacy was established between us: perhaps it might never have come but for the strange and eventful campaign on which we were so speedily launched. Probably we might have continued on our original status of dignified and distant acquaintance. As a member ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... their existence living? They mistake pertness for wit; audacity for cleverness; disrespect to old age for independence; and general bad manners for individuality. Has nobody ever trained these girls to think? What kind of schools do they attend? Who has spoiled them by flattery, until they are little peacocks to whom a mirror is ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell
... you! I know you mean it for flattery, but you mustn't, you really mustn't. I'm in black for—for Europe." She laughed pitifully ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... acknowledged the sway of Clotilda. Her father lavished the whole of his affection upon his elder daughter: the latter seldom noticed her, and thought her more fit for a nunnery or for a peasant's cottage, than for the station of a princess. And so Edith grew to womanhood, unspoiled by flattery—that incense was reserved for Clotilda's shrine. Not in that crowd of selfish courtiers and of worldly women, wholly given up to dress and gayety, could the refinement and simplicity of the gentle ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... asked leave to walk beside me until past a certain village, not far distant, of which the people, he assured me, were extremely wicked and averse to Christians. I readily consented, and he took his staff and walked beside me, pouring out his soul in fulsome flattery. ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... all this. I never was more interested in anything in my life," she said, looking up at him with a glance that carried the subtlest flattery, and, while her query was vague, he understood and made no ...
— An American Suffragette • Isaac N. Stevens
... By skilful flattery, not unmixed with truth, she persuaded him that he was the man destined to free England once more; and so one morning he set out alone, accompanied only by Martin Lightfoot and a dozen house-carles, to spy out the land and see what might be done. Within a week he landed ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... and thoutheeing appears to be this. Persons in high stations, being usually surrounded by attendants, it became, many centuries ago, a species of court flattery, to address individuals of this class, in the plural number, as if a great man were something more than one person. In this way, the notion of greatness was agreeably multiplied, and those who ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... that they have who have Jesus Christ to be their Advocate is this, he is such an one that will not, by bribes, by flattery, nor fair pretenses, be turned aside from pursuing of his client's business. This was the fault of lawyers in old time, that they would wrest judgment for a bribe. Hence the Holy One complained, that a bribe did use to blind the eyes of the wise, and pervert ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... her bosom full of love for me, And therefore fancy how her soul doth grieve In this our first divorce; it cannot be Self-flattery that idle boastings weave— Soon shalt thou see it all, and seeing, ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa
... was as honest as you," said Jack—where the sly dog learned the art of flattery I can't imagine—"no one would interfere. But we are afraid Billy's mother is not very good ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... now pipe and sing, And make them merrie with their fooleries; 320 They cherelie chaunt, and rymes at randon fling, The fruitfull spawne of their ranke fantasies; They feede the eares of fooles with flattery, And good men blame, and losels* ...
— The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 • Edmund Spenser
... The powers of mind with which she was endowed, used for the benefit of her country, might have been the means of its salvation; but instead of appealing to the patriotism of her people—if, indeed, they then possessed any—she chose rather to court the favor of the rising Roman general, and gain by flattery and crime what might have been denied to virtue. Though her kingdom was in danger, and her own position and the inheritance of her children were at stake, she reveled in sinful pleasure with the enemy. By the power of her charms, she effected a compromise with the ...
— Woman: Man's Equal • Thomas Webster
... Scipio laughed, and added, "What would you have said if you had conquered me?" "Then," replied the other, "I would have placed Hannibal, not only before Alexander and Pyrrhus, but before all other commanders." This answer, turned with Punic dexterity, and conveying an unexpected kind of flattery, was highly grateful to Scipio, as it set him apart from the crowd of commanders, as ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... stages! Satan, at first "stupidly good," overawed at Eve's beauty and innocence; then, recovering his natural malice, and beginning his attempt by appealing to {187} two things, curiosity and the love of flattery, which have always been supposed especially powerful with women; and Eve, taking no direct notice of his compliments and in appearance surrendering only to the other bait of novelty and surprise; "how cam'st thou speakable of mute?" So the scene begins. Flattery has ensured the tempter ...
— Milton • John Bailey
... drunk," he said meaningly—"drunk with the poison of a wench's flattery. Down on thy ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... around him. Immediately from the sycophantish part of the crowd, of whom a vast majority were Pagans, ascended a cry of glorification as to some manifestation of Deity. Agrippa, gratified by this success of his new apparel, and by this flattery, not unusual in the case of kings, had not the firmness (though a Jew, and conscious of the wickedness, greater in himself than in the heathen crowd,) to reject the blasphemous homage. Voices of adoration continued to ascend; when suddenly, looking ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... the old soldier, gruffly. "I won't give you a bit more than's good for you, boy. When I say you have done well it means you have done well. You won't get any flattery out of me. All this trouble that we are going through is no more than you must expect. Look what we are doing, and ...
— Marcus: the Young Centurion • George Manville Fenn
... amuse, in order to lengthen out their protection. They study to keep you amongst them for that very purpose; and in proportion as you disregard their advice, and grow callous to their complaints, they will stretch into improbability, and season their flattery the higher. Characters like these are to be found in every country, and every country will ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... baby— he was a big boy now, and boys were so expensive! But did I really think she had improved the least little bit? And why wouldn't I come home with her now, and see the boy, and tell her frankly what I had thought of the lecture? She had plenty of flattery—people were so kind, and every one knew that she did it for the baby—but what she felt the need of was criticism, severe, discriminating criticism like mine—oh, she knew that I ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... arisen in his official life, which at the time constituted the chief interest of it. He felt that he had penetrated more deeply than ever before into this intricate affair, and that he had originated a leading idea—he could say it without self-flattery—calculated to clear up the whole business, to strengthen him in his official career, to discomfit his enemies, and thereby to be of the greatest benefit to the government. Directly the servant had set the tea and left the room, Alexey Alexandrovitch ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... means balls, dinners, and lawn parties without end, in all of which I trust the count will remember us, as he may depend upon it we shall him, in our own humble entertainments." In spite of the gross flattery and coarseness of this address, Madame Danglars could not forbear gazing with considerable interest on a man capable of expending six millions in twelve months, and who had selected Paris for the scene of his princely extravagance. "And when did ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... accompany these traits, are plainly stated by the great novelist. Enthusiasm turns to hypocrisy, or brag; the love of what glitters, to a passion for luxury at any cost; sociability, the desire to please, become weakness and fulsome flattery. The orator beats his breast, his voice is hoarse, choked with emotion, his tears flow conveniently, he appeals to patriotism and the noblest sentiments. There is a legend, according to Daudet, which says that when Mirabeau cried ...
— Frederic Mistral - Poet and Leader in Provence • Charles Alfred Downer
... victorious—drinking and toasting one another noisily in vast libations at the bar. On the wharf an immense gathering of natives assembled to speed numbers of kind and generous patrons, who (with an eye to the future) had distributed a considerable amount of largesse and flattery, as well as silk and satin finery. What with the Germans and their native friends, egress from and ingress to the steamer were almost impossible; the gangway was choked, and the shouting and hurrahing actually drowned the ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... for whose use it was to be appropriated, and call her donation a charity, for which Heaven would reward her. Her confessor died, and the old lady chose me to supply his place. This was what I was anxious to obtain, and I redoubled my zeal, my humility, and my flattery. ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... Expressions, neither indeed did I ever hear any of our Kings speak such a Word; but only some of their Ministers and Companions, who thought thereby they did their Masters Service: But, in my Opinion, they did them a great deal of Injury, and spoke those Words purely out of Flattery, not considering what they said. And as a further Argument of the gentle Disposition of the French, let us but consider that Convention of the Three Estates held at Tours, Anno 1484, after the Decease of our King Lewis the Eleventh: About that ...
— Franco-Gallia • Francis Hotoman
... she never afterwards let a disparaging word towards Langham escape her lips to Rose. She was tenderness and sympathy itself, and Rose, in her curious reaction against her old self, and against the noisy world of flattery and excitement in which she had been living, turned to Catherine as she had never done since she was a tiny child. She would spend hours in a corner of the Bedford Square drawing-room, pretending to read, or play with little Mary, in reality recovering, ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... graceful, and trustworthy workman, and was befriended by one kind-hearted litterateur after another. For in London, at this moment, any young man of real power will find friends enough, and too many, among his fellow book-wrights, and is more likely to have his head turned by flattery, than his heart crushed by envy. Of course, whatsoever flattery he may receive, he is expected to return; and whatsoever clique he may be tossed into on his debut, he is expected to stand by, and fight for, against the ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... time they were arrived at the palace. To the great surprise of the princess, the emperor, so far from being a giant, was but five feet one inch in height; but being two inches taller than any of his predecessors, the flattery of his courtiers had bestowed the name of giant on him; and he affected to look down upon any man above his own stature. The princess was immediately undressed and put to bed, his majesty being impatient to hear a ...
— Hieroglyphic Tales • Horace Walpole
... a dream is this, my daughter! You have done nothing, unless you mix my blood also with that of the birds"; and so saying he set off to run away. Grannonia, who saw all her hopes likely to be destroyed, had recourse to woman's art—flattery; and she said to him, "Gossip fox, there would be some reason for your saving your hide if I were not under so many obligations to you, and if there were no other foxes in the world. But you know how much I owe you, ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... Tigellius, vilifies my lines? Maecenas, Virgil, Varius, if I please In my poor writings these and such as these, If Plotius, Valgius, Fuscus will commend, And good Octavius, I've achieved my end. You, noble Pollio (let your friend disclaim All thought of flattery when he names your name), Messala and his brother, Servius too, And Bibulus, and Furnius kind and true, With others whom, despite their sense and wit And friendly hearts, I purposely omit; Such I would have my critics; men to gain Whose smiles were pleasure, to forego them pain, Demetrius and Tigellius, ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... VII. in 1524,[412] "is as incomprehensible as the causes by which he is moved are futile. He may, perhaps, wish to revenge himself for the slights he has received from the King of France and from the Scots, or to punish the King of France for his disparaging language; or, seduced by the flattery of the Emperor, he may have nothing else in view than to help the Emperor; or he may, perhaps, really wish to preserve peace in Italy, and therefore declares himself an enemy of any one who disturbs it. It ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... for a translation of Bishop Hall's fanciful satire, 'Mundus alter et idem.' Calling his book 'The Discoverie of a New World,' Healey had prefixed to it, in 1609, an epistle inscribed in garish terms of flattery to the 'Truest mirrour of truest honor, William Earl of Pembroke.' {409} When Thorpe subsequently made up his mind to publish, on his own account, other translations by the same hand, he found it desirable to seek the same patron. Accordingly, ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... that Max had been restrained from wooing her only because of the impassable gulf that lay between them. Ardor in Max when marriage was impossible would have been an insult to Yolanda. His reticence for conscience' sake and for her sake was the most chivalric flattery he could have paid her. She saw the situation clearly, and, trusting Max implicitly, felt safe in giving rein to her heart. She did not care to hide from him its true condition. On the contrary she wished him to be as sure of her as she ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... burghers, and in the formation of a new aristocracy of wealth. From this class of bourgeois nobles sprang the Medici, who, by careful manipulation of the State machinery, by the creation of a powerful party devoted to their interests, by flattery of the people, by corruption, by taxation, and by constant scheming, raised themselves to the first place in the commonwealth, and became its virtual masters. In the year 1492, Lorenzo de Medici, the most remarkable chief of this ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... intellect, accomplishments, and energy possessed by few, his progress to distinction and power ought to have been easy and rapid, but it turned out quite otherwise. The road to eminence lay by the "backstairs," the atmosphere of which he could not endure. The ways of courtiers—falsehood, flattery, and fawning—he detested, and worse, he said so, wherefore his learning, wit and eloquence found but small reward. To his freedom of speech, his unsparing exposure and denunciation of corruption and vice in the Court and the Church, as well as among the people ...
— The Ship of Fools, Volume 1 • Sebastian Brandt
... The fact was that the duke was beginning to show a genuine, sympathetic feeling for that savage. For several reasons: in the first place he liked audacious, pushing fellows, lucky adventurers. Was he not one himself? And then the Nabob amused him; his accent, his unvarnished manners, his flattery, a trifle unblushing and impudent, gave him a respite from the everlasting conventionality of his surroundings, from that scourge of administrative and court ceremonial which he held in horror,—the conventional phrase,—in so ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... and his companions. He was apparently absorbed in his examination of the book. He was a different kind of person from the others, and Bobby's instinctive knowledge of human nature assured him that he was not to be gained by flattery or by smart sayings; so he placed himself in front of him, and patiently waited in silence for him to complete ...
— Now or Never - The Adventures of Bobby Bright • Oliver Optic
... instinctively as tapping the lawn for worms comes to birds, or scratching the earth for holes is a sign of health with rabbits. At first shyly—then in a ceaseless, yet not too inquisitive torrent. Questions are the sincerest form of flattery, and the Tramp, accustomed probably to severer questions from people in uniform, was quite delighted. He smiled quietly behind the scenery of his curious great face, but he answered all: where he lived, how he travelled, what friends he ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... attention to every inflection of my voice, every gesture, every attitude, which, combined with expressions of enthusiastic admiration, with which this discriminating and careful review of my performance invariably terminated, was as strong a dose of the finest flattery as could well have been offered to a girl of my age, on the very first step of her artistic career. I used to read over the last of these remarkable criticisms, invariably, before going to the theater, in order to profit by every suggestion of alteration or hint of improvement they ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... Garrick—only if you please hear me von vord. It is alvay the vay—it is, indeed, Mr. Garrick—alvay the vay I go ven I haf the greatest rapture, Mr. Garrick.' The little great man's anger instantly cooled. The readiness of this Italian flattery operated exactly contrary to the last line of an epigram—the honey was tasted, and the ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... committed to your charge. The author and contriver of this bloody affair is not at present here. I sincerely wish that he was, because we should be able to convince him that such crimes as his cannot escape unpunished. The unhappy prisoner, ruined and undone by the treacherous flattery and pernicious advice of that abandoned, insidious, and execrable wretch, who had found means of introducing himself into her father's family, and whilst there, by false pretences of love, gained the ...
— Trial of Mary Blandy • William Roughead
... love to the warp. So the wise old Gascon suggests that it is the part of wisdom to give your affection to one who is both plain and elderly—one who is not suffering from a surfeit of love, and one whose head has not been turned by flattery. "Young women," says the philosopher, "demand attention as their right and often flout the giver; whereas old ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... contrary to his habits, he agreed to set out without loss of time, and endeavour to carry on the negotiation. He had very little to plead for Stephen and Andrew, except that they were young men carried away with the flattery bestowed on them by the Duke, but their father would undertake for their good behaviour in future, and would send them out of the country. Farmer Stubbs, saying that he had a relative not far off, with whom he intended ...
— Roger Willoughby - A Story of the Times of Benbow • William H. G. Kingston
... great difference between this account and that which Johnson gave to Mr. Warton (post, under July 16, 1754). There is no need to have recourse, with Mr. Croker, 'to an ear spoiled by flattery.' A very simple explanation may be found. The accounts refer to different hours of the same day. Johnson's 'stark insensibility' belonged to the morning, and his 'beating heart' to the afternoon. He had been impertinent before dinner, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... he that is in want should be repaid with money": and Seneca writes (De Benef. vi): "There are many ways of repaying those who are well off, whatever we happen to owe them; such as good advice, frequent fellowship, affable and pleasant conversation without flattery." Therefore there is no need for a man to desire neediness or distress in his benefactor before repaying his kindness, because, as Seneca says (De Benef. vi), "it were inhuman to desire this in one from whom you have received no favor; how much more so to desire it in one whose kindness ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... beautiful but capable!" Sheila had seen a few of the Creole ladies present at their best-large-eyed, simple, not to say primitive in speech, and very unaffected in manner. She had learned also that the way to the Jamaican heart was by a full table and a little flattery. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... of his men he was adored. "I have spoken with many who knew him; I was his grandson, and their words may very well have been words of flattery; but there was one thing that could not be affected, and that was the look that came over their faces at the name of ...
— The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls • Jacqueline M. Overton
... was damping conversation, the old poet—how the splendid brow and the white hair come back to me!—fell to quoting from the famous sonnet scene in "Le Misanthrope": first of all, Alceste's rage with Phillinte's flattery of the wretched verses declaimed by Oronte—"Morbleu! vil complaisant, vous louez des sottises"; then the admirable fencing between Oronte and Alceste, where Alceste at first tries to convey his contempt for Oronte's sonnet indirectly, and then ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... hate a man who is not open to flattery: he is a hard, morose, distrustful, cynical being, doubting the honesty of his friends and the worth of his own self. I leant an ear to ...
— The Indiscretion of the Duchess • Anthony Hope
... one of the saddest, the loss of the wish to gather a flower in travelling. The other day,—whether indeed a sign of some dawning of doubt and remorse in the public mind, as to the perfect jubilee of railroad journey, or merely a piece of the common daily flattery on which the power of the British press first depends, I cannot judge;—but, for one or other of such motives, I saw lately in some illustrated paper, a pictorial comparison of old-fashioned and modern travel, representing, as ...
— Proserpina, Volume 2 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... love and pity; but, by George, they give me the jim-jams and the fan-tods and caked up what brains I had, and turned them solid; but by and by they loved the old man's intellects back into him again, and he was as sound in his skull as ever he was, which ain't no flattery, I reckon. And so the whole family was as happy as birds, and nobody could be gratefuler and lovinger than what they was to Tom Sawyer; and the same to me, though I hadn't done nothing. And when the two thousand dollars come, Tom give half of it to me, and never told anybody so, which ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... nature has bestowed upon southern Italy, were a help to such a resolution. The infinite lavish fulness of the present quite laughed at the idea of barrenness or want anywhere in time to come. Dolly knew that was nature's subtle flattery, not to be trusted, and yet she willingly admitted the flattery. Nothing should spoil ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... cannot help knowing that he has a wide and lively intelligence, and it pleases him to know it, and to be reminded of it, especially in an oblique and tangential sort of way, so as not to look like downright flattery. ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... of history relate how that Canute was one day disgusted with his courtiers for their flattery, and how he caused his chair to be set on the sea-shore, and feigned to command the tide as it came up not to wet the edge of his robe, for the land was his; how the tide came up, of course, without regarding him; and how he then turned to his flatterers, and rebuked them, saying, what was the ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... tenderness, if flattery, if all sweetest things that ever man said to a woman could lure this feeble spirit back to life, she should be so won, vowed the Captain. He had never been unkind to her, or thought unkindly of her. If he had never loved her, he had, at least, ...
— Vixen, Volume III. • M. E. Braddon
... to his vexation, as soon as he arrived at Versailles the Princesse de Montauban, without knowing a word of what had passed, set herself to exclaim, with her usual flattery, that she was charmed with the grace and the appropriate eloquence with which he had spoken at the Parliament, and paraphrased this theme with all the praises of which it was susceptible. M. le Duc de Berry blushed ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... she listened to his song; she forgot the meaning of his words when he explained to her the position of the notes or their value; she listened to HIM, leaving melody for the instrument, the idea for the form; ingenuous flattery! the first that true love meets. Gabrielle thought Etienne handsome; she would have liked to stroke the velvet of his mantle, to touch the lace of his broad collar. As for Etienne he was transformed under the creative glance of those earnest eyes; they infused into his being a fruitful sap, ...
— The Hated Son • Honore de Balzac
... a little scare-girl like you?" returned I, proudly, for my little head was quite turned with flattery. "He didn't say folks musn't touch it, did he, Miss Fel? It's just like a needle; and who's afraid of a needle but you? I'll waxerate me, if you don't dast. Just you look! When I've done it three times to me, will you let me do it ...
— Aunt Madge's Story • Sophie May
... of Canada to the other, he is beloved to a degree you can scarcely imagine—his memory will long live among them. "To your brother, Sir, we are indebted for the preservation of this province," is a sentiment that comes from the heart, and is in the mouths of too many to be flattery. This is pleasing, no doubt, to me, but it is a mournful pleasure, and recalls to me the past. I dine at five with the gentlemen of this town, and I see a splendid table laid out up stairs—the garrison is invited. I found no way to avoid these marks of respect to Isaac's memory. I assure you that ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... that, if he followed his counsel and advice implicitly, he would become the greatest monarch of the age, the sovereign of the seven climes, signifying the whole world. Zohak agreed to every thing, and Iblis continued to bestow upon him the most devoted attention and flattery for the purpose of moulding him entirely to his will. To such an extreme degree had his authority attained, that he became the sole director even in the royal kitchen, and prepared for Zohak the most delicious and savory food imaginable; for in those days bread and fruit only were the usual ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... honour of the Dioscuri (Castor and Pollux), though the day was sacred to Dionysus (Bacchus). The banquet was attended by several parasites and literary flatterers, who magnified the praises of Alexander with extravagant and nauseous flattery. Clitus, whom wine had released from all prudent reserve, sternly rebuked their fulsome adulation; and, as the conversation turned on the comparative merits of the exploits of Alexander and his father Philip, he did not hesitate to prefer the exploits of the latter. He reminded ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith
... masters whose works he studied. He is said to have adored Wagner, with Tschaikowsky and Grieg for lesser musical loves. To what extent he drew upon Wagner no one can say, but that he did so, either unconsciously or with that imitation that is sincerest flattery is very evident. Many passages suggest Wagner, and one can easily imagine the ardent young American worshiping the great German master, as he in ...
— Edward MacDowell • Elizabeth Fry Page
... of all the court with his flattery," muttered Kaunitz, following just after the princely pair, "he shall not succeed with me. What fine things, to be sure! But flattery indiscriminately bestowed leaves a bitter taste in the mouth. He wishes Loudon for his neighbor, forsooth, as if a man could have any rational intercourse with ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... delicacy to his family, till two or three generations have passed away, and sometimes till the expiration of the dynasty; by that indulgence they pretend, that a more faithful relation is likely to be obtained, in which neither fear nor flattery could have operated ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... days at Mockwood were spent at the little gardener's cottage, from which the other youngsters had flown. Berber, quietly moving about the tiny rooms, sitting buried in a scientific book or taking long trips afield, was the recipient of much maternal flattery. He accepted it all very gently; the young culturist had an air of quiet consideration for every one and absolutely no consciousness of himself. He presumed upon no special prerogatives, but set immediately to work to make himself useful. It was while he was weeding the box borders leading to ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... are full of flattery, As hath too oft been tried Heigh trolollie lollie foe, etc., The city full of wantonness, And both are full of pride: Then ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton
... as much of the facts as you do, still they can sometimes give you an inner light on points you would not have thought of. Besides, it compliments and encourages them; whereas, if you appeared to pay no regard to their opinions, they would naturally feel neglected. A little judicious indirect flattery is of great use in managing one's household. So I put on my best air ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... with no attempt at alleviation: only with this comment at the end: "But the thing which David had done displeased the Lord." If the pen of the writer who tells the story of Absalom's rebellion had been guided by favour or flattery, the fact would have been suppressed or at least toned down, that the King's first word to the breathless messenger who brings tidings of the victory which has saved his crown is this, "Is the young man Absalom safe?" It is natural, it ...
— Is The Young Man Absalom Safe? • David Wright
... to have been a God. I should have had my way with people then. I could have created a world whose horrors would have remained a consoling flattery to my cynicism." ...
— Fantazius Mallare - A Mysterious Oath • Ben Hecht
... to have had the greatest difficulty in bringing up their people to a declaration of total independence. But the Court Gazette accomplished what the abettors of independence had attempted in vain. When that disingenuous compilation and strange medley of railing and flattery was adduced as a proof of the united sentiments of the people of Great Britain, there was a great change throughout all America. The tide of popular affection, which had still set towards the parent country, began immediately to turn, and to flow with ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... after her own heart, the beau ideal of a cavalier; a lover, like herself, of pomp and splendour, a past-master of the arts of pageantry and pleasure, and the owner of a tongue as skilled in the language of adroit flattery as in the use of honeyed words. Such was Robert Dudley who loved his Queen; and such the Queen who returned undisguised admiration for ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... truth, noble Dellius," answered Cleopatra, "they teach a pretty school of flattery ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... cup. She was thrown on her own resources, nobody cared for her, nobody helped her but Joan, nobody called her pretty and praised her ways. She was not to be a lady after all, she must work for her living and it must be a poor one too. There would be no fine clothes, no nice rooms, no flattery and sugar-plums. Everything would be even far harder, and more unpleasant than it had been before. And then, the baby? What could she do with it?—a creature more helpless than herself, always to be clothed and taken care of, when she could not take care of herself, always ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Ettrick shepherd, is the person of all others to give an adequate idea of the shepherd's dog, and I use very nearly his own words. "My dog Sirrah, was beyond all comparison the best dog I ever saw; he was of a surly, unsocial temper; disdaining all flattery, he refused to be caressed; but his attention to my commands and interests will never again, perhaps, be equalled by any of the canine race. I thought I discovered a sort of sullen intelligence in his countenance, notwithstanding his dejected and forlorn appearance; I gave ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... hand forward, still preserving his respectful attitude. Richard gave his own hand carelessly, smiling as a man does who cannot but enjoy flattery yet has a strong desire to kick the flatterer out of ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... which fell so readily from those graceful lips had brought with them an unsatisfying pain. Until a woman really loves, flattery and compliment are often like her native air; but when that deeper feeling has once awakened in her, her instincts become marvellously acute to detect the false from the true. Madame de Frontignac longed for one strong, unguarded, real, earnest word from the man who ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... restraint both on her and on Lucy. It checked the idleness of one, and the business of the other. Lady Middleton was ashamed of doing nothing before them, and the flattery which Lucy was proud to think of and administer at other times, she feared they would despise her for offering. Miss Steele was the least discomposed of the three, by their presence; and it was in their power ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... marshals. It was generally regarded as the finest work of art in the city, and as such it had long been an object of admiration and pride to the citizens. But M. Lameth, in his new-born enthusiasm, regarded it with other eyes, and closed his speech by proposing that, as monuments of despotism and flattery could not fail to be shocking to so enlightened a body, the Assembly should order its instant demolition. His proposal was received with enthusiastic cheers, and the noble monument was instantly overthrown in a fit of blind fury more resembling the orgies of drunken Bacchanals, ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... of Navarre. The Huguenot Queen, as it happened, was not at all bedazzled by the splendors of the French court, but with the keen vision that belonged to her saw, through the powder, paint, tinsel, and false flattery, the depravity and corruption of the life that surrounded her. To her son she wrote that his fiancee was beautiful, witty, and graceful, with a fine figure which was much too tightly laced and a good complexion ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton
... for the rest of the evening, letting himself in about midnight with a latch key, a privilege that Mme. Vauquer accorded to no other boarder. But then he was on very good terms with the widow; he used to call her "mamma," and put his arm round her waist, a piece of flattery perhaps not appreciated to the full! The worthy woman might imagine this to be an easy feat; but, as a matter of fact, no arm but Vautrin's was long ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... to asphyxiate her high senses, her quixotic justice, by that old flood of eloquence and compelling persuasion of the emotions with which he had swept her to the altar—an altar of sacrifice. He had not even done what he had left London to do—make sure of her, by an alluring flattery and devotion, no difficult duty with one so beautiful and desirable; though neither love of beauty nor great desire was strong enough in him to divert him from his course for an hour, save by his own initiative. His mother's letter had changed it all. A few hours before he had had a struggle ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... scorn; And will clean manhood, linked with honest love, The victor prove, When riches, gained by greed, dispute the claim? Will they guard well a husband's home and name. Or lean down from their altitudes to hear The voice of flattery speak in the ear Those lying platitudes which men repeat To listening Self-Conceit? Musing I thought upon their place as mothers of the race, As beautiful they ...
— Poems of Purpose • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... female natures— these parlor triumphs, God forgive them! Perhaps they go further, and, by the lingering, fervent pressure of a hand, or the glance of an eye, or the utterance of some bit of gallantry or flattery, send into a woman's heart an unwomanly and an unchristian thought. Perhaps they take special delight in the society of some half a dozen female members of their flock, and find themselves dressing for them—betraying to them their weaknesses—opening, in various ways, ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... never could drink my fill of the presence of the hero of my youthful dreams. I had occasion to note to what an extent a fiery republican, a modern Juvenal, whose verses branded "kings" as if with a red hot iron, in his private life was susceptible to their flattery. The Emperor of Brazil had called on him, and the next day he could not stop talking about it constantly. Rather ostentatiously he called him "Don Pedro d'Alcantara." In French this would be "M. Pierre du ...
— Musical Memories • Camille Saint-Saens
... the meaning of all this. He must accept their flattery and become ridiculous, or he must appear to treat with contumely the Senate which offered it. The sinister purpose started occasionally into sight. One obsequious senator proposed that every woman in Rome should be at his disposition, and ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... good molars. Finally I slung my hammock in its old corner, and placing myself in it in my favourite oblique position, my hands clasped behind my head, one knee cocked up, the other leg dangling down, I resigned myself to idle thought. I felt very happy. How strange, thought I, with a little self-flattery, that I, accustomed to the agreeable society of intelligent men and charming women, and of books, should find such perfect contentment here! But I congratulated myself too soon. The profound silence began at length ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... whom the parents watched with an intense eagerness and care; but who, in spite of nurses and physicians, had only a brief existence. His tainted blood did not run very long in his poor feeble little body. Symptoms of evil broke out early on him; and, part from flattery, part superstition, nothing would satisfy my lord and lady, especially the latter, but having the poor little cripple touched by his Majesty at his church. They were ready to cry out miracle at first (the ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... this photograph of Penini and myself taken at Rome this last spring. You will like to have them, we fancy, but it is Robert's gift. I was half inclined last year to send you a photograph from Field Talfourd's picture of me,[91] but I shrank back, knowing that dear Mr. Martin would cry out at the flattery of it, which he well might do. But this photograph from nature can't be flattered, so I hazard it. You see the locks are dark still, not white, and the sun, in spite, has blackened the face to complete the harmony. Pen is very like, ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... also tell her in effect by your flattery, if you will excuse the word, that she and the rest of her sex are by birth not quite equal to men, and you are trying to make up the difference all ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
... upon: and I can hardly question that I have, or shall, in your opinion, by my unceremonious treatment of you upon so short an acquaintance, run into the error of those, who, wanting to be thought above hypocrisy and flattery, fall into rusticity, if not ill-manners; a common fault with such, who, not caring to correct constitutional failings, seek to gloss them over by some nominal virtue; when all the time, perhaps, these failings are entirely owing to native arrogance; ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... was a huge, clumsy creature with features that were both irregular and harsh. Nevertheless, for nearly fifty years Beau Nash was an arbiter of fashion. Goldsmith, who wrote his life, declared that his supremacy was due to his pleasing manners, "his assiduity, flattery, fine clothes, and as much wit as the ladies had whom he addressed." He converted the town of Bath from a rude little hamlet into an English Newport, of which he was the social autocrat. He actually drew up a set of written rules which some of ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... a lady, I translate for you, 'go now and say, that angels cannot die.' But you must not read this to her, for she will absurdly say 'tis flattery, as if I could have any motive ...
— A Sketch of the Life of the late Henry Cooper - Barrister-at-Law, of the Norfolk Circuit; as also, of his Father • William Cooper
... fastnesses such as protect the fertile plains of Italy; no artificial fastnesses such as, at every step, impede the progress of a conqueror in the Netherlands. Every thing must then be staked on the steadiness of the militia; and it was pernicious flattery to represent the militia as equal to a conflict in the field with veterans whose whole life had been a preparation for the day of battle. The instances which it was the fashion to cite of the great achievements of soldiers taken from the threshing ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Juliette, "I am a great sinner; I have deserved my fate. Forgetfulness of God, contempt of good advice, love of dress, flattery, and pleasure were the first causes of misery, and these have brought me to my present state. Oh," cried she, raising her voice to a shriek, and weeping bitterly, "that is nothing to the fate which I fear awaits me in the world to come. You have pardoned me, it is true, but I feel ...
— The Basket of Flowers • Christoph von Schmid
... became thus aware for the first time that the elder Bromly girl, in "the sincerest form of flattery" to her idol, was wearing a yellow rose in her tawny locks, and, further, that Master Bromly with exquisite humor had burlesqued his sister's imitation with a very small carrot stuck above his left ear. This the master promptly removed, adding an additional sum to the humorist's already ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... business;" but I am not of those who consider woman's mind unfitted for the toils and difficulties of life and only made for its pleasures—far the reverse. Nor shall I yet approach you under the sweet incense of flattery, said to be a cloud which gives to you a grateful odour—I believe it not. Nor shall I, to tell you of the prowess of man in his deeds of arms; nor of his glories midst the slain or dying; for, thanks to God! the heart of an Englishwoman shudders at the thought. ...
— Facts for the Kind-Hearted of England! - As to the Wretchedness of the Irish Peasantry, and the Means for their Regeneration • Jasper W. Rogers
... refined application. She was a great lady, who knew the world and the worth of it. And she was absolute mistress both of that knowledge, and of herself—notwithstanding those outstretched hands, and outcry of childlike pleasure,—there, perhaps, lay the exquisite flattery of this last to her hearer! She was all this, and something more than all this. Something for which Dickie, his heart still virgin, had no name as yet. It was new to his experience. A something clear, simple, and natural, as the sunlight, and yet infinitely subtle. ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... we find A relish in the human mind For friendship pure and real; How few its approbation seek, How oft we count its censures weak, Disguising what we feel. Adulation lives to please, Truth dies the victim of disease, Forgotten by the world: The flattery of the fool delights The wise, rebuke our pride affrights, And virtue's banner's furl'd. Wherefore do we censure fate, When she withholds the perfect state Of friendship from our grasp, If we ourselves have not the power, The mind to enjoy the blessed hour, ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... her head; without flattery, well as her mistress assumed the air of languor, her figure had not been affected by any event since the slaying of the Viscount Gratian, and her countenance was unmarred by any change except ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... take, Of godlike kings my similies to make; No borrowed names conceal my living theme, But names and things directly I proclaim; His honest merit does his glory raise, Whom that exalts let no man fear to praise; Of such a subject no man need be shy, Virtue's above the reach of flattery; He needs no character but his own fame, Nor any flattering titles but ...
— The True-Born Englishman - A Satire • Daniel Defoe
... of power which federal patriots assume." He did "not believe any eminent Republican, however high his ambition, however sore his discontent, hoped to carry the Republican party of the United States against Rutherford B. Hayes. Aye, sir, no such Republican, unless intoxicated with the flattery of parasites, or blinded by his own ambition." He spoke of Conkling's interest in public affairs as beginning contemporaneously with his own, of their work side by side in 1867, and of their sustaining a Republican ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... and his power increased with his years and infirmities. A servile crowd, in which he frequently reckoned praetors and consuls, courted his smiles, pampered his avarice, applauded his follies, served his passions, and waited with impatience for his death. The arts of attendance and flattery were formed into a most lucrative science; those who professed it acquired a peculiar appellation; and the whole city, according to the lively descriptions of satire, was divided between two parties, the hunters and their game. [107] Yet, while so many unjust and extravagant ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... her ladyship is quite different. I never see that look of mild impatience in her opaque blue eyes when he is talking. She flatters him openly, in fact, and a man takes to flattery, of course, as a kitten takes to cream. Yet with all her outspokenness I am conscious of a tremendous sense of reservation. Already, more than once, she has given me a feeling which I'd find it very hard to describe, a feeling as though we were being suspended over peril by something ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... there were little skirmishes between the family and the painter, who had the audacity to call pere Vervelle witty. This flattery brought the family on the double-quick to the heart of the artist; he gave a drawing to the daughter, and ...
— Pierre Grassou • Honore de Balzac
... an interviewer I had become rather lyrical in praise of I forget what phenomenon in the United States, a Philadelphia evening newspaper published an editorial article in criticism of my views. This article was entitled "Offensive Flattery." Were I to say freely all that I thought of the American private house, large or small, I might expose myself ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett
... nooks to which Mrs. Van Sideren attributed the success of her Saturdays. Westall, a moment later, had overtaken his look, and found a place at the girl's side. She bent forward, speaking eagerly; he leaned back, listening, with the depreciatory smile which acted as a filter to flattery, enabling him to swallow the strongest doses without apparent grossness of appetite. Julia winced at her ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... things which he has not got." These precise words were reported to me by the envoy, by way of chiding and advising me to change my conduct. I told him that I had the greatest wish to oblige my lord as his affectionate and faithful servant, but that I did not understand the arts of flattery. Several months after this date, Bandinello died; and it was thought that, in addition to his intemperate habits of life, the mortification of having probably to lose the ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... married in a few days to a handsome young man, just admitted to the bar: no fortune, but said to possess talents. Poor La R. quite pale and emaciated; the fruit of dissipation. Celeste as heretofore, abating the influence of time, which is a little too visible; courteous even to flattery. La Planche a recluse. Miss Binney is to be married next week to Mr. Wallace, a young lawyer of this city of good character ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... obscenity, lying and treachery, oppression and murder, were pleasant, useful, and when properly managed, not dangerous. And as a sort of fringe or adornment to the substantial delights of tyranny, avarice, and lasciviousness, there was the patronage of polite learning and the fine arts, so that flattery could always be had in the choicest Latin to be commanded at that time, and sublime artists were at hand to paint the holy and the unclean with impartial skill. The Church, it was said, had never been so disgraced ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... flattery. Carleton promptly fell in love with Mary. Not to have done so would have been base ingratitude. No woman had ever paid him so great a compliment. He had thought her bewilderingly pretty before. Now she was the most beautiful ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... life. By day, whenever she went into the streets, she was conscious that no man passed her without a stare; and this consciousness gave a sharp zest to her outings. Sometimes she was followed to her door—crude flattery which she was too innocent to fear. Even when she went into the haberdasher's to make some little purchase of tape or riband, or into the grocer's—for she was an epicure in her humble way—to buy a tin of potted meat for her supper, the homage ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... of attempting a subtle form of flattery, but what she said was quite true. I am, for a man of fifty-three, ...
— Our Casualty And Other Stories - 1918 • James Owen Hannay, AKA George A. Birmingham
... nocturnal reflections so disagreeable that he had—by no means for the first time—definitely and forever given up these foolish dreams of love. And when Mrs. Harrowdean swam into his circle, she seemed just exactly what was wanted to keep his imagination out of mischief. She came bearing flattery to the pitch of adoration. She was the brightest and cleverest of young widows. She wrote quite admirably criticism in the Scrutator and the Sectarian, and occasionally poetry in the Right Review—when she felt disposed to do so. ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... Gladys felt insensibly influenced by it. And he was very handsome, and it was quite pleasant to have him standing there, looking as if there was nobody in the world half so interesting to him as herself. For the very first time in her life Gladys felt the subtle charm of flattery steal ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... Euphemia restores the fender kerb and the brazen dogs and the fireirons that will clatter; and then all the winter, whenever she sits before the fire, her trouble is with her. Even when the red glow of the fire lights up her features most becomingly, and flattery is in her ear, every now and then a sidelong glance at her ugly foe shows that the thought of it is in her mind, and that the crumpled roseleaf, if such a phrase may be used for a coal-scuttle, insists on being felt. And she ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... all authority in the hands of one man, there followed a dearth of literary ability, and at the same time truth suffered more and more, partly from ignorance of politics, which were no longer a citizen's concern, partly from the growing taste for flattery or from hatred of the ruling house. So between malice on one side and servility on the other the interests of posterity were neglected. But historians find that a tone of flattery soon incurs the stigma of servility and earns for them the contempt of their readers, whereas ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... advent my man's eyes had utterly missed, she had learned all at once everything there was to know. She knew. She no longer needed to survey my actions, my words, my thoughts; but she accorded me the sincere flattery of spell-bound attention, and it was made intoxicating by her smile. In those short days of a pause, when, like a swimmer turning on his back, we lived in the trustful confidence of the sustaining ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... only at particular hours. He knew politeness more than he practiced it. He was a mixture of avarice and generosity; the former was frequently prevalent, the latter seldom appeared unless excited by compassion. He was open to adulation, and would not, or could not, distinguish between low flattery and just applause. His abilities rendered him superior to envy. He was undisguised, and perfectly sincere. I am induced to think that he entered into orders, more from some private and fixed resolution, than from absolute choice: ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... Ferno and of Hieronymus Porcius regarding the coronation festivities and the professions of loyalty of the ambassadors from the various Italian Powers must be read to see to what extremes flattery was carried in those days. It is difficult for us to imagine how imposing was the entrance of this brilliant pope upon the spectacular stage of Rome at the time when the papacy was at the zenith of its power—a height it had attained, not through love of the Church, nor by devotion ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... is worn a turban. Its use throughout the Indias is general, but among these people inviolable. I do not know whether it is because even their hearts are tinged with their cursed worship, or because of hatred to our nation and to our customs, or because of flattery to their natural arrogance—through which they will never, of themselves, come to depreciate their own things. Even yet throughout the islands, those who are esteemed as chiefs are ashamed of appearing ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... the sunset a color on lily leaves throws, The words and the glances of Roger Montrose O'er the listener's cheeks sent a pink tinted wave; While Maurice seemed disturbed, and his sister grew grave. The false chink of flattery's coin smites the ear With an unpleasant ring when the heart is sincere. Yet the man whose mind pockets are filled with this ore, Though empty his brain cells, is never a bore ...
— Three Women • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... leddie, its mamma, and then, with all the low cunning of her kind, she would launch forth into panegyrics of its beauty, and prophecies of the great dignities and honours that would one day be showered upon it; until, by her fawning and flattery, she succeeded in exciting a degree of interest, which nature had not secured for it in the ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... suffered to hear them, they will quickly catch the same tastes. But if these ideas break out in their unpremeditated gossiping with one another, how much more strongly will they be expressed when servants wish to ingratiate themselves into a child's affections by flattery! Their method of showing their attachment to a family, is usually to exaggerate in their expressions of admiration of its consequence and grandeur; they depreciate all whom they imagine to be competitors in any respect with their masters, and feed and foster the ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... dint of such moderate panegyric, the worthy Sir Godfrey completed my picture, with equal satisfaction to himself and the original. See what a beautifier is flattery: a few sweet words will send the Count Devereux down to posterity with at least three times as much beauty as he could ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... being in this Situation, no doubt, you'll think my Establishment well fix'd; but I am not without my Fears and my Dangers, and there is no judging of the Power of one in my Station, by the Flattery that is paid him, for Flatterers take things frequently by outward Appearances; and notwithstanding my arbitrary manner of treating some Persons, my Safety is depending upon the Breath of others, and I am obliged to pay a more servile Court to some ...
— A Voyage to Cacklogallinia - With a Description of the Religion, Policy, Customs and Manners of That Country • Captain Samuel Brunt
... him he has played three-tailed Bashaw rather too long. I shall tell him it is to be very soon, at any rate; and that if he wishes to see how I value his pragmatical advice, he may come and dance at the wedding. I declare, your mamma and that colonel of his have perfectly spoilt him with their flattery! I knew what would come of it; you all would make a prodigy of him, till he is so puffed up, that he entirely ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... soft woman, but she was proud of her cooking, and accessible to flattery on that subject. Sam could not ...
— The Young Outlaw - or, Adrift in the Streets • Horatio Alger
... excesses. It so happened, however, that about this precise period, Art had, unfortunately, contracted an intimacy with one of the class I speak of, an adroit fellow with an oily tongue, vast powers of flattery, and still greater powers of bearing liquor—for Frank could observe, that notwithstanding all their potations, he never on any occasion observed him affected by drink, a circumstance which raised him in his estimation, because ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... But that flattery did not placate Mrs. Stanton. "It's only a rout and a rabble, Lana! The feminine element does not belong in it. My father dines his gentlemen and accomplishes his objects. And I think you have become one of these political hypocrites! ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... like the implied flattery, delicately as it was conveyed. She drew her hand away; and then, to heal the little hurt she might have made in doing so, she opened the window ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... eye,—yet she has the art not only to conceal her admiration, but, by the ascendency her tenderness has gain'd, she keeps even from themselves a knowledge of those perfections.—To this is owing the humility which has fortified their minds from the frequent attacks flattery makes against the unstable ...
— Barford Abbey • Susannah Minific Gunning
... our remuda was corralled to catch fresh mounts, our guest bubbled over with admiration of our horses, and pointed out several as promising speed and action. We took his praise of our horseflesh as quite a compliment, never suspecting flattery at the hands of this nomadic patriarch. He innocently inquired which was considered the fastest horse in the remuda, when Stallings pointed out a brown, belonging to Flood's mount, as the best quarter horse in the band. He gave him a critical examination, and confessed he would never have picked ...
— The Log of a Cowboy - A Narrative of the Old Trail Days • Andy Adams
... I shall weary you with letters, but do not answer this, for in truth and without flattery, I so value your letters, that after a heavy batch, as of late, I feel that I have been extravagant and have drawn too much money, and shall therefore have to stint ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... passion, indifferent to the most insidious lures of avarice, unmoved by the most convincing whispers of jealousy, and impartial in every act toward fellowman—all, all will yield an inch to the smile of flattery. ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... everywhere. With the fall of the Empire the classical taste collapsed, and the Egyptian, Greek, and Roman furniture were handed over to hotels and lodging-houses. In most of the palaces on the Continent an apartment is still to be seen, furnished in this style. It was the necessary tribute of flattery to the great conqueror, who in that character inhabited so many of them for a short time. But there was no sign of the style being taken up ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... wrong!" replied Patience; "but you flattered me so grossly, that I called you Master Armitage to show that I disliked flattery, that was all. I dislike flattery from those who are above me in rank, as well as those who are below me; and I should have done the same to any other person, whatever his condition might be. But forget what I said, I did not mean to vex you, only to punish you for thinking me ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... fellow asked whether I liked her singing, or her flattery? For his part, he thought we both liked to hear our own voices, and agreed in nothing else. Taste, indeed! when I would not let her sing a song I ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... aware that the subsequent lines, referring to "a fair vestal throned by the west," are commonly understood to have been meant as a piece of delicate flattery to Queen Elizabeth. Mr. Halpin has recently given to this famous passage a new interpretation or application, which is at least curious enough to justify a brief statement of it. In his view, "Cupid all arm'd" refers to Leicester's wooing of Elizabeth, and his grand entertainment of ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... time. Side by side for seven years we had mined, ranched, sold patent churns, herded sheep, took photographs and other things, built wire fences, and picked prunes. Thinks I, neither homocide nor flattery nor riches nor sophistry nor drink can make trouble between me and Paisley Fish. We was friends an amount you could hardly guess at. We was friends in business, and we let our amicable qualities lap over and season our hours of recreation and folly. ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... stoutly contend that that worthy personage Epicurus has been shamefully misrepresented by abstemious, and hence envious and mendacious, historians. Either his philosophy was the most gentle, genial, and reverential of antique systems, or he was not an Epicurean, and to call him so is a deceitful flattery. We hold that it is morally impossible for a man to dine daily upon the fat of the land in courses, and yet deny a future state of existence, beatific with beef, and ecstatic with all edibles. Another falsity of history is that of Heliogabalus-was it not?-dining off nightingales' ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... a favorite in the select circles of New York, in correspondence with brokers and bankers, intimate with public men at Washington, one who could play the guitar and touch the banjo lightly, and who had an eye for a pretty girl, and knew the language of flattery, was welcome everywhere in Hawkeye. Even Miss Laura Hawkins thought it worth while to use her fascinations upon him, and to endeavor to entangle the volatile fellow in the ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
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