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More "Suavity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... reputation? From the reasonableness and propriety of some of his scenes, from the elegance of his diction, and the suavity of his verse. He seldom moves either pity or terror, but he often elevates the sentiments; he seldom pierces the breast, but he always delights the ear, and often improves the understanding. His translation of the "Golden Verses," and of the first book of Quillet's poem, have nothing in them ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... in these young men. The Church attracts them; they approve its ideas of decorous life; it is a school of good manners to them, if not of high thinking, with the result that they begin to be quite a different sort of people from their fathers and grandfathers. A pleasant suavity and gentleness marks their behaviour. They are greatly self-respecting. Their tendency is to adopt and live up to the middle-class code ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... and Monkery. He was a vociferous personage and prodigal of his words. He added to all his sins this one, that he did not know when to go. He had no tact, only talk. Irritated at last beyond endurance, my normal suavity forsook me, and I spoke with brutal plainness. Of course he was wroth, and pressed for an explanation. In a weak moment I yielded. "To begin with," said I, "Luther, strictly speaking, was not a ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... Washington, purposely to call on Mr. Roosevelt, the President. Was refused an audience. While in the office of Secretary Loeb, a delegation of politicians, republicans and democrats, came out of the president's apartments with their mutual admiration compliments and suavity of political tricksters. ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation
... his guests well. But underneath all the polite suavity of his manner could be detected a curious satisfaction at the contrast between the deep sea of still thought usually embosoming his library, and this sparkling, shallow little stream now flowing into it. The prominent popular tricks of science he played off for their amusement, exhibited ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... various reasons, thou wilt, O sinless one, be able to remove the eagerness of the lord of the celestial for the possession of the ear-rings. Do thou, O Karna, after Purandara's purpose by urging answers fraught with reason and grave import and adorned with sweetness and suavity. Thou dost always, O tiger among men, challenge him that can draw the bow with his left hand, and heroic Arjuna also will surely encounter thee in fight. But when furnished with thy ear-rings, Arjuna will never be able to vanquish thee in ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... With triumphant suavity the Archbishop of Ebury conducted the service, assisted by deans, chapters, bishops, and a dozen cathedral choirs. Something in G was being intoned; the Archbishop ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... new candle, which would be set down to Colville's account, and went before him to his room, up the wide stairs, cold in their white linen path, and on through the crooked corridors haunted by the ghosts of extinct tables d'hote, and full of goblin shadows. He had recovered a noonday suavity by the time he reached Colville's door, and bowed himself out, after lighting the candles within, with a sweet plenitude of politeness, which Colville, even in his gloomy mood, could not help admiring in a man in his shirt sleeves, with only one ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... ejaculated the doctor, and then I saw, to my astonishment, that he was all white and trembling. He recovered himself in a moment and turned to us with the suavity of a genial host: ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... doubt, by some chance, the Queen had become aware of Angele's presence, he thought. Fate had forestalled the letter he had already written on this matter and meant to send her within the hour. Chance had played into his hands with perfect suavity. The Queen, less woman now than Queen, enraged by the information got he knew not how, had come at once to punish the gross breach of her orders and a dark misconduct-so ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... said Mr. Bob Sawyer, with great suavity, and dispersing, at the same time, the tumultuous little mob of glasses the girl had collected in the centre of the table—'now, Betsy, the warm water; be ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... calling upon the Tokugawa to supplement that part of the peace provisions which related to allowances for the samurai who had fought on the side of the garrison. A demand in that sense was preferred to Ieyasu. But he had now laid aside his transient suavity. The Osaka people were brusquely informed that they must look to the Toyotomi family for recompense, and that as for rewarding unattached samurai who had drawn the sword against the shogun, the Osaka people, were they obedient to the dictates ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... founder of revolutionary thinking. Whilst his real views were little known, he became a popular memory; but some complained that his force was centrifugal, and that a church can no more be preserved by suavity and distinction than a state by liberty and justice. Lewis XVI., we are often told, perished in expiation of the sins of his forefathers. He perished, not because the power he inherited from them had been carried to excess, but because it had been discredited and ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... Ragnor's lips, and he said with an Episcopalian suavity: "The Wesleyans and the Episcopalians, in doctrine, are much alike. We regard them as brethren;" and just while he spoke, Ragnor ...
— An Orkney Maid • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... subject of some foreign country stood writing at one desk, a little boy at the other, and George's veritable "old man" at the low desk. Here and there around the floor were baskets and papers containing samples of sea-island and upland cotton. George introduced the Captain to his father with the suavity of a courtier. He was a grave-looking man, well dressed, and spoke in a tone that at once enlisted respect. Unlike George, he was a tall, well-formed man, with bland, yet marked features, and very gray ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... Croix asserted that in the arms of the celestial Spouse she swam in an ocean of delight. Concerning that Spouse, Marie Alacoque added: "Like the most passionate of lovers he made me understand that I should taste what is sweetest in the suavity of caresses, and indeed, so poignant were they, that I swooned." The ravishments which St. Theresa experienced she expressed in terms of abandoned precision. Mme. Guyon wrote so carnally of the divine that Bossuet exclaimed; "Seigneur, if I dared, I would pray that ...
— The Lords of the Ghostland - A History of the Ideal • Edgar Saltus
... the harmony seems broken. Madame Lepelletier wonders why they so jar upon each other. She has been trained to society's suavity, and they seem quite ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... conversation, and the free movements of the girls, and the graver suavity of Arthur and herself, seemed to Leonora to constitute a picture, a scene, ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... and he was a gentleman of unbounded suavity. Taking Mrs. Belgrave by the hand, he conducted her into the house, the rest of the party forming a procession behind them. The Americans had been obliged to make a trip to the Guardian-Mother, to obtain garments suitable for such ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic
... the Turkish court appears far superior to the Russian in the refinements and graces of polished life. There seems to be something in a southern clime which ameliorates harshness of manners. The Grecian emperors, perhaps, in abandoning their palaces, left also to their conquerors that suavity which has transmitted even to our day the enviable title of ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... stern features, and a thinning of the dark hair upon the top of his head, which was worth quite a hundred a year to him. He was particularly happy in his management of ladies. He had caught the tone of bland sternness and decisive suavity which dominates without offending. Ladies, however, were not equally happy in their management of him. Professionally, he was always at their service. Socially, he was a drop of quicksilver. In vain the country mammas spread out their simple lures in front of him. Dances ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of locality is a depression. As a passenger without serious occupation, it fell to his lot to inquire the way. This he would do very minutely, with great suavity and becoming gravity, and then with no sign of hesitation indicate invariably the wrong road. Once, after crossing a field where there were no fences to mark the highway, descending a hill we could not have mounted, and finding ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... very much—- as much, I think, as any man I have learned to know of late years. There is a neatness and precision, a closeness and truth, in the tone of his conversation, which shows what a lawyer he must have been. Perfect good-humour and suavity of manner, with a little warmth of temper on suitable occasions. His great deafness alone prevented him from being Lord Chief-Justice. I never saw a man so patient under such a malady. He loves society, and converses excellently; yet is often obliged, in a mixed company particularly, ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... dark as midnight. As the bell sounded the hour, there came a knocking at the street door. I went down to open it with a light heart,—for what had I now to fear? There entered three men, who introduced themselves, with perfect suavity, as officers of the police. A shriek had been heard by a neighbour during the night; suspicion of foul play had been aroused; information had been lodged at the police office, and they (the officers) had been deputed ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... The Judge's suavity clothed him like velvet. "I know nothing about his honesty. I doubt if any one does. He may be a liar and yet speak the truth, I suppose, from unscrupulous motives. But I am not maintaining that he is entirely right, you understand—merely that like the rest of us ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... touched his temper, as I thought they would. "You seem to know a lot more than I know myself," he sneered. Before I could answer, he regained control of his tongue, and continued with oily suavity. "I guess the Big 'Un has been talking to you? Hasn't he? I guess maybe he's told you that Blackie and me are two men who can take a chance without weakening? Say, Jack, what has the Big 'Un been saying to you about us? I want particular ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... 'Tis, past a doubt, the height of happiness, To hear such words from lips we dote upon; Their honeyed sweetness pours through all my senses Long draughts of suavity ineffable. My heart employs its utmost zeal to please you, And counts your love its one beatitude; And yet that heart must beg that you allow it To doubt a little its felicity. I well might think these words an honest trick ...
— Tartuffe • Jean-Baptiste Poquelin Moliere
... room, saying, 'Sit down there,' in a manner quite in keeping with his stogies raised on the desk directly in our face. Such freedom, nay, such bestiality, I could never tolerate. Indeed, I prefer the suavity and palaver of Turkish officials, no matter how crafty and corrupt, to the puffing, spitting manners of these come-up-from-the-shamble men. But Khalid could sit there as immobile as the Boss himself, and he did so, billah! For he was thinking all ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... mordant, and almost harsh. These disagreeable prepossessions were instantly dissipated, as so often happens, by personal acquaintance. He had not only the courtesy of the good type of the man of the world, but an air of moral suavity, when one came near enough to him, that was infinitely attractive and engaging. He was urbane, essentially modest, and readily interested in ideas and subjects other than his own. There was in his manner and address something of what the French ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 7: A Sketch • John Morley
... on our arrival at Knockarney House, if we might breakfast at a regular hour,—say eight thirty. Mrs. Mullarkey agreed, with that suavity which is, after her untidiness, her distinguishing characteristic; but notwithstanding this arrangement we break our fast sometimes at nine forty, sometimes at nine twenty, sometimes at nine, but never earlier. In order to achieve this much, ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... long remain unanswered in her mind. Brand's manner, it was true, had not lost entirely its habitual suavity and polish. Formerly she had thought these to be the genuine expression of the innate refinement and kindness of his nature. But now, as if some inner corrosion were eating its way outward, she found that they had ceased to be anything more than the thinnest veneer, through which often broke, ...
— The Fate of Felix Brand • Florence Finch Kelly
... lengthening his stay from week to week, because the old world quaintness of the people, the freshness and yet antiquity of thought prevalent among them, charmed him, pleased the aesthetic side of his nature, as the softness of their voices pleased his ear, and the suavity of their manners, his taste. He was tired to death of the old routine, weary beyond expression of the beaten track, of the sameness of the old treadmill of thought. ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland
... upon the hearth, listened with his patient courtesy, and put in a sympathetic word at intervals. No personal anxiety could cloud his comely face, nor any grievance of his own sharpen the edge of his peculiar suavity. It was only when he rose to go that he voiced, for a single instant, his recognition of the general danger, and replied to the Major's inquiry about his health with the remark, "Ah, grave ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... Australian city life is its lack of characteristic features. The types of civilised humanity one meets might be denizens of Islington or Battersea for any distinguishing trait to stamp them as Antipodeans. There is a certain breezy familiarity and absence of suavity in their manners and deportment, but otherwise they are an average lot of mixed Britishers and ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... Rupert Grant, with a satanic suavity, "that Mr Montmorency has something further ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton
... prejudices, and there was intercourse between his household and that of the literary man. Intimacy it could not be called, for Mrs Edmund (who was the daughter of a law-stationer) had much difficulty in behaving to Mrs Alfred with show of suavity. Still, the cousins Amy and Marian from time to time saw each other, and were not unsuitable companions. It was the death of Amy's father that brought these relations to an end; left to the control of her own affairs Mrs Edmund was not long in giving offence to Mrs Alfred, and ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... sir," said a judge to a witness who insisted upon imparting his testimony in a confidential tone to the court direct. The man did not understand and continued as before. "Speak to the jury, sir, the men sitting behind you on the raised benches." Turning, the witness bowed low in awkward suavity, and said, "Good-morning, gentlemen." ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... Beethoven, or Schubert, or Schumann has got to say to us for the moment, and what a say it is! And with what consummate precision and perfection it is said—with what a mathematical certainty, and yet with what suavity, dignity, grace, and distinction! ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... me," rejoined the voice, with perfect suavity. "No doubt there are many weak and foolish persons who commit crimes,—nay, I will admit that the vast majority of criminals are weak and foolish; but that does not affect the dignity of the true sinner,—he who sins from exalted motives. Ignorance is the only ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... loss of dignity; his expression, once morose, was now marked by a serenity at once pleasing and grave. His politeness was almost a royal grace; for he showed to women—young or old, rich or poor, virtuous or otherwise—the famous suavity ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... Adah and preventing her utterance, for she did not speak until Mrs. Richards said again, this time with a little less suavity and a little more hauteur of manner, "Have I had the honor of meeting you before?"—then with a low gasp, a mental petition for help, Adah rose up and lifting to Mrs. Richards' cold, haughty face, her soft, brown eyes, where tears were almost visible, answered faintly: "We have not met ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... was a sudden new interpretation of the Krishna theme. In two pictures where Krishna is shown quelling the snake Kaliya,[108] all the Guler qualities of elegant naturalism are abundantly present. Each figure has a smooth suavity and in every face there appears a look of calm adoration. It is the swirling, curling water, however, which gives the pictures their special Garhwal quality. The play of water evokes a melody of line and the result is a sense of upsurging joy. A similar religious exaltation marks other pictures ...
— The Loves of Krishna in Indian Painting and Poetry • W. G. Archer
... lie," he roared. All his suavity dropped away from him, his face was distorted and puckered with anger and grew a shade darker. "Married, you lying little beast! He couldn't have been married! It was only a few minutes after eight, and the parson didn't ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace
... my senses. It was an elderly, obese Oriental wearing a red fez. He had a long nose and small, crafty eyes, and was deeply pitted with smallpox. I made profuse apologies and he accepted them with suavity. It then occurring to me that I was he having in a discourteous and abjectly absurd manner, I made my way back to the box. I drew ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... Middleton counted, placed in his vest pocket, and forthwith delivered the ring. As he did so, yielding to the pride with which the successful outcome of his tilt with the great capitalist inflamed him, he remarked with a condescension which the suavity of ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... formerly been, if the stories anent his youth, and even in regard to his manhood, were to be believed, a passionate, and, possibly, a violent man. His universal suavity was less an instinct of nature than the result of a grand conviction which had filtered into his heart through the medium of life, and had trickled there slowly, thought by thought; for, in a character, as in a rock, there may ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... tell me, then, what that boat in the waist is for," Christy began, in a very pleasant tone, and in his most agreeable manner, perhaps copying to some extent the Parisian suavity, as he had observed it in several visits he had ...
— Fighting for the Right • Oliver Optic
... know what worries people ye cain' know how to help 'em." Pink was suavity itself. ...
— A Tar-Heel Baron • Mabell Shippie Clarke Pelton
... thinking," he remarked with that suavity of manner as prophetic of a storm as thunder-claps in July, "that I might as well get me a room somewhere in the neighborhood. There's no sense in making a pretense that you're keeping house for me when you're gadding and ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... shabby outcast, a tavern hanger-on, a genial wayfarer who tarries longest where the inn is most hospitable, yet with that suavity, that distinctive politeness and that saving grace of humor peculiar to the American man. He has his own code of morals—very exalted ones—but honors them in the breach rather than in ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... extreme suavity). I believe I am Gentlemanly Johnny, sir, at your service. My more intimate friends call me General Burgoyne. (Richard bows with perfect politeness.) You will understand, sir, I hope, since you seem to be a gentleman and a man of some ...
— The Devil's Disciple • George Bernard Shaw
... the most sagacious politicians of his day. By his shrewd management of the Cleveland campaign he secured the defeat of Mr. Blaine and the election of Mr. Cleveland. His charming personality, his suavity of manner, his magnetic influence over men with whom he came into contact, combined with his marked ability, made it easy for him to retain the difficult position of a leader of his great party. He enjoyed in the highest degree the respect and confidence of every Senator with whom he served, ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom
... love with Lucrezia (del Fede), wife of a hatter named Carlo Recanati; the hatter dying opportunely, the tailor's son married her on the 26th of December 1512. She was a very handsome woman and has come down to us treated with great suavity in many a picture of her lover-husband, who constantly painted her as a Madonna and otherwise; and even in painting other women he made them resemble Lucrezia in general type. She has been much less ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... who came here to this land Yocol Peten, but called Yucatan by the first Spaniards, as they the Spaniards, clearly relate. When our lord the Spaniards said that we are to live eternally with God, and when the Maya men heard the names, then spoke Naum Pech to those he commanded, with suavity:—"Know ye, there comes to the town the one God, to the country the true God, the sign of the true God; go ye to live with Him, joyfully receive Him, do not war against Him, and if they have not to eat or drink give them maize, fowls, pheasants, honey, beans to eat, that Christianity may enter ...
— The Maya Chronicles - Brinton's Library Of Aboriginal American Literature, Number 1 • Various
... like all persons of taste," said the head of the establishment, coming forward with that tradesman's suavity in which pomposity is agreeably blended with subservience. The Englishwoman took up her eyeglass and scanned the manufacturer from head to foot, unwilling to understand that the man before her was eligible for Parliament ...
— Gaudissart II • Honore de Balzac
... persons who did not acknowledge the jurisdiction of the church and the power of its ministers. Thus it happened that Christianity, from a very early period after its introduction to Spain, was deprived of that spirit of meekness, suavity, and tolerance, impressed upon it by its Divine Founder, and became possessed of a spirit of the most implacable resentment against every person who had not gone through the baptismal ceremony; and thus, also, it was that the religion of the country degenerated ...
— Roman Catholicism in Spain • Anonymous
... so distinctly how much yet remained to be effected: he alone appeared to look upon his works with superiority and indifference. One of the features that most eminently distinguished him was a perpetual suavity of manners, a comprehensiveness of mind, that regarded the errors of others without a particle of resentment, and made it impossible for any one to be his enemy. He pointed out to men their mistakes ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... which they have been raised and pressed by German Governments has caused them to be regarded by British Ministers, and to a less extent by the British people, as sources of annoyance, as so many diplomatic "pin-pricks." The manners of German diplomacy are not suave. Suavity is no more part of the Bismarckian tradition than exactitude. But after all, the manners of the diplomatists of any country are a matter rather for the nation whose honour they concern than for the nations to which they have ...
— Britain at Bay • Spenser Wilkinson
... clearly indicated that his business lay with Conyngham. He was the incarnation of the Continental ideal of the polished cold Englishman, and had the air of a diplomate such as this country sends to foreign Courts to praise or blame, to declare friendship or war with the same calm suavity and imperturbable politeness. ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman
... his criticism at this period was, as he himself has styled it, "polemical" and "aggressive." It was, however, neither violent nor sophistical. On the contrary, it was distinguished by the candor and the suavity of its tone. Goethe, who watched from afar a movement which, directly or indirectly, owed much to German inspiration, was particularly struck with this trait. "Our scholars," he remarked to Eckermann, "think it necessary to hate whoever differs ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... neat play in the game, the way in which these two smoothed each other down. They accepted each other's assurances with the suavity of practiced lawyers, each without an atom ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... wife to remember in what a severe and terrific battle of life her husband is engaged. Whether in professional, or commercial, or artistic, or mechanical life, your husband from morning to night is in a Solferino, if not a Sedan. It is a wonder that your husband has any nerves or patience or suavity left. To get a living in this next to the last decade of the nineteenth century is a struggle. If he come home and sit down preoccupied, you ought to excuse him. If he do not feel like going out that night for a walk or entertainment, remember he has been out all day. You say he ought to leave ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... with kindly indulgence his flimsy knick-knacks and shabby hangings (they came nowhere near Dill's) on account of her interest in their supposed proprietor. Nor did she find in her painter any of Dill's soft suavity. Prochnow was direct and downright almost to brusqueness, seeming to see no need of such graduated preliminaries as even O'Grady found place and reason for. He admired her, and admired her extremely, as she perceived at once; but he offered none of the appropriate ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... to us, don't you see?" She makes her points with a directness and simplicity that should disarm even the diplomatic suavity of Uncle Sam when he meets her in Washington. "Year after year the Cherokees waited for the Government to pay. And at last, three years ago, it came to us—$133.19 to each Indian, seventy-eight years after the removal ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... social fabric. Stephanie possesses all those attributes; and all those attributes Genevieve Ward supplied, with the luxuriant adequacy and grace of nature. But Stephanie superadds to those attributes a bitter, mocking cynicism, thinly veiled by artificial suavity and logically irradiant from natural hardness of heart, coupled with an insensibility that has been engendered by cruel experience of human selfishness. This, together with a certain mystical touch ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... confess, my lord, that he is a favourite child of fortune, and has much to be grateful to her for. Not merely because she has given him birth and riches, but for a native sweetness of temper, never to be acquired; and a graceful suavity of manners, whose school must be the mind. And, need I enumerate among fortune's favours, the hand and affections of ...
— The Stranger - A Drama, in Five Acts • August von Kotzebue
... quickly closed the door behind him. Marishka examined him with apprehension, noticing that he seemed more interested in the Englishman than in herself, for in the brief glance he gave Renwick, the suavity of his demeanor seemed for a brief moment to ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... left the poorer part, and the suavity of the succeeding streets rapidly increased to a soothing luxury. Wide cottages occupied velvet- green lawns, and the women he saw were of the sort he approved—closely skirted creatures with smooth shoulders in transparent crepe de Chine. They invited a contemplative ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... the palace when the hunt was over. The bluntness and plain-speaking of the Badawi, which caused the revelation of the Koranic chapter "Inner Apartments" (No. xlix.) have always been favourite themes with Arab tale-tellers as a contrast with citizen suavity and servility. Moreover the Badawi, besides saying what he thinks, always tells the truth (unless corrupted by commerce with foreigners); and this is a startling contrast with the townsfolk. To ride out of ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... conversation that passed between her and the shopmen, and found it as different from the bland English chatter of such occasions as if it had been in a different tongue. It had the tweedy texture of Scotch talk, the characteristic lack of suavity and richness in sense, in casual informativeness, in appositeness. Here, it was plain, was a people almost demoniac ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... sisters—if Frowenfeld's guess was right—confronted each other. For a single instant only they stood so; an earnest and hurried murmur of French words passed between them, and they turned together, bowed with great suavity, and were gone. ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... stipend. His master, he said, was not afraid of Orchan, if the latter took the field as an open claimant, short work would be made of him. The warning was disregarded. Phranza submitted his proposals to Mahommed directly, and was surprised by his gentleness and suavity. There was no scene whatever. On the contrary, the marriage overture was forwarded to the Sultana with every indication of approval, nor was the demand touching the stipend rejected; it was simply deferred. Phranza lingered at the ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... his smile brought refreshment, encouragement, and waves of virtue to those who saw it. To be sure, it was a sort of questioning; sometimes even quizzical; sometimes only a safeguard; but it was eminently kind, and no one else could do it. His manner was patronizing, in spite of its suavity; but it grew finer every spring, until it had become as exquisitely courteous as Sir Philip Sidney's must have been. The arch of his dark eyebrows sometimes seemed almost angry, being quickly lifted, and then bent in a scowl of earnestness; but as age advanced this sternness of ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... municipal politician before he became a financier. The fact that he attained the city treasurership shows that he had already gone far, for it was the most powerful office in Philadelphia. He had all those qualities of suavity, joviality, firmness, and personal domination that made possible success in American local politics a generation ago. His occupation contributed to his advancement. In recent years Mr. Widener, as the owner of great art ...
— The Age of Big Business - Volume 39 in The Chronicles of America Series • Burton J. Hendrick
... Brother Johnson," answered the chairman, with a barber's suavity, "you have as much right to be heard as any one else. There was no intention ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... relations were severed between Rome and Venice, there were still chances for private communication which sometimes cast a curious light upon the subject under discussion, but which made no change in that irreproachable suavity of exterior or that invincibility of purpose with which the Venetians held in check any attempt at disaffection through Roman agency, or averted any schismatic movement within their ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... answered with a smile of the utmost suavity. "And, understand me, youngster," he continued, with a sudden change to sternness in his manner, that disconcerted me a great deal more than I should have cared for him to know, "if you decide to join ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood
... alertness, self-possession, and genial suavity Browning impressed him as an American rather than as an Englishman, though there can be no question but that no more thorough Englishman than the poet ever lived. It is a mistake, of course, to speak of him as a typical Englishman: for typical he was not, ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... Fukara sheukh surpass all men in their coffee-drinking courtesy, and Zeyd himself was more than any large of this gentlemen-like imposture: he was full of swaggering complacence and compliments to an humbler person. With what suavity could he encourage, and gently too compel a man, and rising himself yield him parcel of another man's room! In such fashions Zeyd showed himself a bountiful great man, who indeed was the greatest niggard. The cups are drunk twice about, each one sipping after other's ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... It is too engrossing of attention, and is moreover apt to break in upon the harmony of the company. If obliged to discuss a point, do so with suavity, contradicting, if necessary, with extreme courtesy, and if you see no prospect of agreement, finishing off with some happy good- natured remark to prove that you are ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... I to do? How were they to know who and what I was? As I stood hesitating, I found that their eyes were fixed upon me with a significant glance. I immediately went toward them. To my astonishment the lady greeted me by my name with the utmost suavity. ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 7 • Various
... can be traced back to Bion and Moschus are not the finest things in the poem: mostly they fill out its fabular 'argument' with brilliancy and suavity, rather than with nerve and pathos. The finest things are to be found in the denunciation of the 'deaf and viperous murderer;' in the stanzas concerning the 'Mountain Shepherds,' especially the figure representing ...
— Adonais • Shelley
... Blanche? Blanche was stunned. A despairing stupor took possession of her; and, when she woke from it, desperation set in. She insisted upon an interview with Sir Francis, and evade it he could not, though he tried hard. Will it be believed that he denied the past—that he met with mocking suavity her indignant reminders of what had been between them? "Love! Marriage? Nonsense! Her fancy had been too much at work." Finally, he defied her to prove that he had regarded her with more than ordinary friendship, or had ever hinted at such ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... evidence of a society in equilibrium, and therefore of a society which will receive genuinely new ideas with an extreme, if polite, caution, while welcoming with warm suavity old ideas that disguise ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett
... Monmouth, turning quickly on the sofa; then, collecting herself in an instant, she continued with less abruptness, and more suavity than usual, 'Tell me, Flora, what is it; what is ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... Trixton Brent, Sidney Dallam suggested the counter more than ever before. He was about five and forty, small, neatly made, with little hands and feet; fast growing bald, and what hair remained to him was a jet black. His suavity of manner and anxious desire to give one just the topic that pleased ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... before which he subsides. Then, watching opportunity, suddenly bolts up again and wants to explain that he was not opposing the passage of report stage of Supply. "No, but you talked it out," said PLUNKET, with something less than his customary suavity. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 18, 1891 • Various
... it is ages since we met!" Her piercing tones, likened by the Tobies to those of a macaw, strove in vain for suavity. "So good of you to come to this affair—such a ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... qualifications and the possessions for any office or dignity, and they occupy and represent these with much more authority and severity than do our people. On the other hand, they display much gentleness and suavity—all the more since there are no severe or outrageous punishments in those realms, which are so settled and peaceable, and ruled with such justice ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume VI, 1583-1588 • Emma Helen Blair
... this country a good many years." Wade spoke with a suavity which would have indicated deadly peril to the other had the two been on anything like equal terms. "I've seen a good many blackguards come and go in that time, but the worst of them was redeemed by more of the spark of manhood than there seems ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony
... certainly not remarked a moment before. Then this door opened wider, and the man with one ear larger than the other appeared again. He was smiling still, but his eye met mine with something between amusement and defiance. "You'd like to see our show-room, sir," he said, with an innocent suavity. Gip tugged my finger forward. I glanced at the counter and met the shopman's eye again. I was beginning to think the magic just a little too genuine. "We haven't VERY much time," I said. But somehow we were inside the show-room before ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... been stiff, too; unpardonably so—as it was certainly her place to make amends—to soften and smooth down the preliminary embarrassment. But then she had never been framed for suavity of any sort; and an old aunt of Monkton's, a sister of hers, had been present during the interview, and had helped considerably to keep up the frigidity of ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... sir?' the official proceeded with relentless suavity. As he stooped towards Henry's ear his chain swung in the air and ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... a cigar, and sat down deliberately to entertain me. I had an uncomfortable feeling that he was also amusing himself, as though I were being played with and covertly sneered at. Hooper's politeness and suavity concealed, and well concealed, a bitter irony. His manner was detached and a little precise. Every few moments he burst into a flurry of activity with the fly whacker, darting here and there as his eyes fell upon one of the insects; but returning always calmly to his discourse ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... strong friendship for Fenelon. He could not come into the confiding relations of his office with them without that result. His face was all intelligence and all harmony; his voice, music; his manner, fascination; his character, heaven. His unconscious suavity, his abnegated personality, formed a mighty magnet; and every soul, with any steel of nobleness in it, fondly swayed to him. Madame Maintenon gave him, for years, all the reverence and affection of which her commonplace nature was capable; ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... and Walcott's probationary year with Mr. Underwood had nearly expired. For a while he had maintained his old suavity of manner and business had been conducted satisfactorily, but as months passed and Kate Underwood was unapproachable as ever and the prospect of reconciliation between them seemed more remote, he grew sullen and morose, and Mr. Underwood began ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... topic of conversation. He was fond of controversial discussion, and wielded both argument and wit with a power alarming to every antagonist. Though keen in debate, he was however possessed of a most imperturbable suavity of temper. His conversation was of a playful cast, interspersed with anecdote, and free from every affectation of learning. As a clergyman, Mr Skinner enjoyed the esteem and veneration of his flock. Besides efficiently discharging his ministerial duties, he practised ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... will, I am sure, spare Madame for one gallop," said Dalrymple, with that kind of courtesy which accepts no denial. It was quite another tone, quite another manner. It was no longer the persuasive suavity of one who is desirous only to please, but the politeness of ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... assistance; and according to the reports I have received, he did an incalculable amount of good in his way. As a landlord he was beloved by his tenantry for his kindness and liberality, while from his suavity of manner and excellent qualities, he was a great favourite with the gentry ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... and then, with none of her usual suavity, exclaimed, "I do not think, Monsieur le Senateur, that you should have brought that demoiselle ...
— The End of Her Honeymoon • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... fled from these royal abodes: suppression ceases; your Besenval may go peaceably to sleep, sure that he shall awake unplundered. Smiling Plenty, as if conjured by some enchanter, has returned; scatters contentment from her new-flowing horn. And mark what suavity of manners! A bland smile distinguishes our Controller: to all men he listens with an air of interest, nay of anticipation; makes their own wish clear to themselves, and grants it; or at least, grants conditional promise of it. "I fear this is a matter of difficulty," said her Majesty.—"Madame," ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... scorn. Beside the bookseller's muscular figure and pugnacious head she saw with her mind's eye the spare forms and careworn faces of the young priests at St. Damian's. Outraged by this loud-voiced assurance, she called to mind the gentleness, the suavity, the delicate consideration for women ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and accosts the negro, who, aghast at seeing any living being inhabiting such a solitude, and especially so horrific a one, immediately falls into a panic, not at all lessened by the ursine suavity of Oberlus, who begs the favor of assisting him in his labors. The negro stands with several billets on his shoulder, in act of shouldering others; and Oberlus, with a short cord concealed in his bosom, kindly proceeds to lift those other billets to their ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... her "Visits at Home and Abroad," also speaks of them as "wonderful! In expression, in calm religious majesty, in suavity of pencilling, and the grand, pure style of the heads ...
— Rambles of an Archaeologist Among Old Books and in Old Places • Frederick William Fairholt
... Mr. Flaxman, who had gradually established himself as the joint leader of these musical afternoons, came forward to summon Rose to a quartette. He looked from one to the other, a little surprise penetrating through his suavity ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to go quite so far as that, sir," answered Mr. Craggie, with that diplomatic suavity which leads to postmasterships and seats in the General Court, and has even been known to oil a dull fellow's way into Congress. "I cannot take quite so hopeless a view of it. There are difficulties, ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... of ripe age, had a physiognomy very intellectual and lofty, a look of remarkable sagacity and depth of thought, and a smile of extreme goodness. His naturally harmonious voice became full of kindness when he spoke to the lunatics; thus the suavity of his tone and the benevolence of his words seemed oft to calm the natural irritability of these unfortunate people. He was among the first to substitute, in his treatment for madness, commiseration and benevolence for the terrible coercive means employed formerly; ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... take the trouble to be gracious to her, but he was always gracious to European ladies and there was no escape. The British polish over the Oriental suavity seemed to her a decidedly incongruous mixture. She infinitely preferred ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... moods of the monstrous being whose unveiled face she had never seen, was not deceived by the suavity of his manner. Nevertheless, she fought down her terror, knowing how much might depend upon her retaining her presence of mind. How much of her interview with Stuart he had overheard she did not know, nor how ...
— The Golden Scorpion • Sax Rohmer
... shapeliness of the long legs and springy feet, the back bulging with strong muscles above, and going in, tight, with a magnificent dip at the waist; all impressions were merged in a sense of ease, of suavity, of full-blown harmony. Here was no pomp of anatomical lore, of cunning handicraft, but the life seemed to circulate strong and gentle in this exquisite effortless body. And the creature was not merely alive with a life more harmonious than that of living men ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... her only weapon when he became petulant. He hated silence, and generally returned to the conversation with more suavity. Perhaps, in his great experience, he really appreciated his wife's wonderful patience with his moods, and it is certain that he was exceedingly ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... off the guest for his usurpations. Henceforth he is welcome, but he is secondary; it was not for him that the house was built; and if it comes to choosing, he can be dispensed with. It would be very agreeable to unite with all the new advantages all the old,—the easy hospitality, the disengaged suavity of the ancient manners. Now the brow of the host is clouded, he has too much on his mind to play his part perfectly. It is not that good-will is wanting, but that life is more complicated. The burdens ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various
... himself without it." Perhaps even the greatest merit cannot successfully straggle against unfortunate and disagreeable manners. Lord Chesterfield says that the Duke of Marlborough owed his first promotions to the suavity of his manners, and that without it he ...
— The Laws of Etiquette • A Gentleman
... in a state of suspense, when, some weeks after the first interview, the former received a politely worded note from Jasper, requesting him to call at his store. He went, accordingly, and Jasper received him with marked suavity and kindness of manner, and, after making a few ...
— True Riches - Or, Wealth Without Wings • T.S. Arthur
... even borne arms. All his tastes and habits were pacific. Nor were his opinions and feelings on religious subjects approved by the military saints. That he was a good man he evinced by proofs more satisfactory than deep groans or long sermons, by humility and suavity when he was at the height of human greatness, and by cheerful resignation under cruel wrongs and misfortunes: but the cant then common in every guardroom gave him a disgust which he had not always the prudence to conceal. The officers who had the principal influence among the troops stationed ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... clergymen and students, or gruffly bargained with a boy or an old woman for a dilapidated lot of old books. He had a curious quizzical way with strangers, who at once set him down as an oddity, and his impatience with ignoramuses and bores gave him the repute of crustiness, which was redeemed by suavity enough whenever he met with ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... now. Among them, and yet not of them, was a young man who, although speaking English without accent, was distinctly of a different nationality and race. This, with a certain neatness of dress and artificial suavity of address, had gained him the nickname of "the Count" and "Frenchy," although he was really of Flemish extraction. He was the Union Ditch Company's agent on the Bar, by virtue of his knowledge ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... with no right to call, come in under cover of the general hospitality of the season—the bores, who on this day, as on all days, are only tiresome—we have no salve, no patent cure. A hostess must receive them with the utmost suavity, and be as amiable and agreeable ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... Citizen Droulde," continued the other with the same unctuous suavity, "then how comes it that the correspondence which you admit was treasonable, and therefore presumably secret—how comes it that it was found, still smouldering, in the chaste young woman's bedroom, and the torn letter-case ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... Blanc,' said M. de Veron with mild suavity of voice the instant the summoned clerk presented himself, 'it so chances that I have no further occasion for ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 447 - Volume 18, New Series, July 24, 1852 • Various
... and establish himself in his native Antwerp. He was already a man of eminence in his profession, and a man of mark out of it. Go where he would he made friends, and he so recommended himself to his royal patrons by his natural suavity, tact, and sagacity, that he was not only in the utmost favour with them as a right courtly painter, but was employed by them, once and again, on delicate, difficult, private embassies. But it was not only to his patrons that Rubens was endeared, he was emphatically ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... Praise was the very necessity of his existence, but he had the instinct not to display his beggarly hunger—which reached even to the approbation of such to whom he held himself vastly superior. He seemed generous, and was niggardly, by turns; cultivated suavity; indulged in floridity both of manners and speech; and signed his name so as nobody could read it, though his handwriting was ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... Congress of the Powers assembled at Berlin in the summer of 1878, our Ambassador in that city of stucco palaces was the loved and lamented Lord Odo Russell, afterwards Lord Ampthill, a born diplomatist if ever there was one, with a suavity and affectionateness of manner and a charm of voice which would have enabled him, in homely phrase, to whistle the bird off the bough. On the evening before the formal opening of the Congress Lord Beaconsfield arrived in all his plenipotentiary glory, and was received with high ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... the remedy is a very simple one," replied Mr. Adkin. Her manner had disturbed him, yet he concealed the disturbance under a forced suavity of manner. "Where does the ...
— Finger Posts on the Way of Life • T. S. Arthur
... arranged for the next succeeding day, so that Lucy and her mother might be buried together. I attended to all the ghastly formalities, and the urbane undertaker proved that his staff was afflicted, or blessed, with something of his own obsequious suavity. Even the woman who performed the last offices for the dead remarked to me, in a confidential, brother-professional way, when she had come out ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... was struck with the expression of this man's one eye, which had "as great a quantity of being as half-a-dozen common eyes." After the first exposition of the Christian doctrine, the philosopher began with extreme suavity and politeness: "Your lordship says that in the beginning God created one man and one woman. I do not understand (I beg your lordship's pardon) what a man is, and why he ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... asked with terrible suavity. Leaning over on his spade, Jeremy Pitt hung his head a little, and shifted uncomfortably on his bare feet. Vainly he groped for an answer in a mind that could do nothing but curse the idiocy of ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... time—Parliamentary Secretary to the Poor-Law Board, Under-Secretary for the Colonies, Chief Secretary for Ireland, and Steward of the Jockey Club. In this last capacity he, a year ago, temporarily assumed judicial functions. How well he bore himself! with what dignity! with what awful suavity! with ...
— Punch, or, the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 8, 1890. • Various
... most countries, owe what they possess of suavity of manners to their intercourse with female society; after the drudgery of a professional morning, young men used to brush themselves up for their evening flirtations; but now few feminine drawing-rooms can tempt them ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 386, August 22, 1829 • Various
... such as spring from good taste and refinement, can never be mistaken, and differ as widely as gold and tinsel. How captivating is gentleness of manner derived from true humility, and how faint is every imitation! That suavity of manner which renders a real gentlewoman courteous to all, and careful to avoid giving offence, is often copied by those who merely subject themselves to certain rules of etiquette: but very awkward is the copy. Warm professions of regard ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... see any prospect of your finding yourself able to begin soon?" he inquired at last, with rather suspicious suavity. "Perhaps if you ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... exaggeration, that to prevent the comings and goings of servants, he would be served, he would have gruel brought to him, in case of illness, by tables connected with his steam-engine. I am aware it is supposed by the generality of people that this suavity of motion is obtained only by a loss of power; but it is an error, a gross error: the saying, "much noise and little work," is true, not only in the moral world, but is ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... enjoying each minute of his life. But you must confess, my lord, that he is a favourite child of fortune, and has much to be grateful to her for. Not merely because she has given him birth and riches, but for a native sweetness of temper, never to be acquired; and a graceful suavity of manners, whose school must be the mind. And, need I enumerate among fortune's favours, the hand and affections ...
— The Stranger - A Drama, in Five Acts • August von Kotzebue
... and speech is to be droll, Jan decidedly was so. Some said Jan was a fool, some said he was a bear. Lady Verner did not accord him any great amount of favour herself. She had tried to make Jan what she called a gentleman, to beat into him suavity, gracefulness, tact, gloss of speech and bearing, something between a Lord Chesterfield and a Sir Roger de Coverley; and she had been obliged lo give it up as a hopeless job. Jan was utterly irreclaimable: Nature ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... roundness of her slender figure was set off by the elegant carriage of her head. Her feet were small and pretty, her hands very white, with pink, well-rounded nails. But what formed the chief attraction of Hortense was the grace and suavity of her manners. She was gay, gentle, amiable. She had wit which, without the smallest ill-temper, had just malice enough to be amusing. A polished education had improved her natural talents. She drew excellently, sang harmoniously, and performed admirably in comedy. In 1800 she ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... ladies, and some of the gentlemen, too, cried out with one accord, "O fie, Captain Headman, now don't be so obstinate—surely you are quite mistaken." And the arch-master of impudence looked round with modest suavity, and, in an audible whisper, assured the gentleman that sat next to him, that Captain Headman's argument of the demolished proboscis went for nothing, for that there were other causes equally efficacious as cold and frost, for ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... No. 72, Johnson defines good-humour as 'a habit of being pleased; a constant and perennial softness of manner, easiness of approach, and suavity of disposition.' ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... cause more acrimony in a gathering of English teachers than even Harold Bell Wright. Miss Lowell carries controversy with her, triumphantly riding upon it. Their critics wish form as they have known form, want beauty such as they possess in riper literatures, want maturity, richness, suavity, grace, and the lift of noble thinking, nobly expressed. It may be remarked, in passing, that they also would like to live in English manors in gardened landscapes and have French cathedrals ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... talked of all strangenesses, * And with jests and jokes his good will I wooed: They pleased him and cried he, 'O man of wit, * Thou hast proved thee perfect in merry mood!' Quoth I, 'O thou Lord of men, save thou * Lend me art and wisdom I'm fou and wood In thee gather grace, boon, bounty, suavity, * And I guerdon the world with ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... exploits of Lord Louis in defeating them. This Lord Louis is indeed a very pleasant as well as a very ingenious gentleman. From the rotundity of his conversational periods and a certain general suavity of demeanour I suspect him of having made a careful study of the methods of his distinguished predecessor in rogue-reducing, Prince Florizel of Bohemia. But he is, of course, none the worse company ...
— Punch, 1917.07.04, Vol. 153, Issue No. 1 • Various
... has from that hour," said Frere, recovering his suavity at the sight of food. "I never have a shirt fit to put on. Upon my word, there are a dozen ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... Carmarthen, once a palace of the kings of South Wales, from whom Griffith traced lineal descent. He was a man very proud at heart, but with too much wisdom to exhibit many marks of pride, speaking generally with the utmost gentleness and suavity, and though very brave addicted to dashing into danger for the mere sake of displaying his valour. He was a great master of the English tongue, and well acquainted with what learning it contained, but nevertheless ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... wholesome severity, [249] In truth the French ambassador and the French general were well paired. There was a great difference doubtless, in appearance and manner, between the handsome, graceful, and refined diplomatist, whose dexterity and suavity had been renowned at the most polite courts of Europe, and the military adventurer, whose look and voice reminded all who came near him that he had been born in a half savage country, that he had risen from the ranks, and that he had once been sentenced to death for marauding. ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... suavity upon which he prided himself, deserted him, and exclaiming, partly in anger, and partly as a blind, "Confound it! what does the fool want of me?" he disappeared around the house, while Lyle exchanged glances with Miss Gladden, and the inoffensive ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... persons of taste," said the head of the establishment, coming forward with that tradesman's suavity in which pomposity is agreeably blended with subservience. The Englishwoman took up her eyeglass and scanned the manufacturer from head to foot, unwilling to understand that the man before her was eligible for Parliament and ...
— Gaudissart II • Honore de Balzac
... rather rough work. The superintendent of a railroad, or of a division, has to do with the employees, never with the customers, and his professional manner is not likely to be distinguished by suavity. So he unconsciously squared his shoulders when he said, "I'm Bannon, ...
— Calumet 'K' • Samuel Merwin
... oblige you, Crofts—except church. If you should happen to want me, Vivvums, ring the gate bell. [He goes into the house with unruffled suavity]. ...
— Mrs. Warren's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... caps). Not being a prefect, it would have been officious in him to have stopped the game. So he was passing on with what Mr Hurry Bungsho Jabberjee, B.A., would have termed a beaming simper of indescribable suavity, when a member of one of the opposing teams, in effecting a G. O. Smithian dribble, cannoned into him. To preserve his balance—this will probably seem a very thin line of defence, but 'I state but the facts'—he ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... Leo," she began with terrifying suavity, "but I felt I really could not explain all these things to you,"—she waved a hand over the mass of articles displayed on the dressing-table,— "in front of Wilmott. You see, servants have to take these things for granted ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... Madame Victoire. Feel in your pocket and see," said Guerchard sternly. His voice had lost its suavity; his face its smile: his ...
— Arsene Lupin • Edgar Jepson
... Lady Barbara and Colonel Craufurd, the Ducs de Gramont, Dalberg, and Mouchy, dined with us yesterday. We had music in the evening, The Duc Dalberg is agreeable and well-bred, and his manner has that suavity, mingled with reserve, said to be peculiar to those who have lived much at courts, ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... and waves of virtue to those who saw it. To be sure, it was a sort of questioning; sometimes even quizzical; sometimes only a safeguard; but it was eminently kind, and no one else could do it. His manner was patronizing, in spite of its suavity; but it grew finer every spring, until it had become as exquisitely courteous as Sir Philip Sidney's must have been. The arch of his dark eyebrows sometimes seemed almost angry, being quickly lifted, and then bent in a scowl of earnestness; ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... incarnation of the Continental ideal of the polished cold Englishman, and had the air of a diplomate such as this country sends to foreign Courts to praise or blame, to declare friendship or war with the same calm suavity and imperturbable politeness. ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman
... hand of Theodora, which she had not the power to withhold, and pressing it tenderly between his own, he renewed his suit with much more suavity of tone and delicacy of manner. Theodora suffered perhaps more from this unexpected display of kindness, than from the brutal asperity and violence which the Moor had before evinced. For in cases of extreme danger, violence will sometimes inspire a degree of courage, while condescension and ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... with which the Poles of her acquaintance spoke of their countrywomen, and the amorous suavity, fulness of feeling, and spotless nobleness which she admired in the Polish composer's inspirations, seem to have made her anticipate, even before meeting Chopin, that she would find in him her ideal lover, one whose ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... respectable seminary in Philadelphia, she returned to her father's house, where she diligently sought every opportunity to improve her mind by various and useful reading. She charmed the circle of her friends by the suavity of her disposition and the most gentle and engaging manners. She delighted and blessed her own family by her uniformly correct and affectionate conduct. Though not formed to mingle and shine in the noisy haunts of dissipation, she was eminently fitted to increase the store of domestic ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... invitation to Severndale had been extended, she had no possible excuse for prolonging it, and deciding that her schemes had met with defeat largely owing to her own impolitic precipitation in forcing the situation, she did not mean to make an ignominious retreat. So, with well assumed suavity she told her brother-in-law that some urgent business matters claimed her attention in New York, and asked if he could complete his arrangements for Peggy's departure without her aid, as she really ought to go ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... recovering himself, and with increasing suavity, "if some gentleman would mark down the date of the almanac I cherish the opinion" [cheers from the corner] "that in one month from to-day there will be five hundred dollars lookin' round for two ...
— The Sky Pilot • Ralph Connor
... The colonel was in high spirits, and full dress; and seemed in no measure piqued at Major Tyler for occupying the Secretary's chair. The Secretary must have been aware that the colonel was to act during his absence—but, probably, supposed it proper that the major, from his suavity of manners, was best qualified for the reception of the visitors. He had been longer in the department, and was more familiar with the routine of business. Yet the colonel was not satisfied; and accordingly requested me to intimate the fact to Major Tyler, ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... wearing his black velvet cap a little on one side, so much improved were his spirits, went down into the yard, and found his old pensioner standing there hat in hand just within the gate, as he had stood all this time. 'Come, Nandy!' said he, with great suavity. 'Come up-stairs, Nandy; you know the way; why don't you come up-stairs?' He went the length, on this occasion, of giving him his hand and saying, 'How are you, Nandy? Are you pretty well?' To which that ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... with a smile of the utmost suavity. "And, understand me, youngster," he continued, with a sudden change to sternness in his manner, that disconcerted me a great deal more than I should have cared for him to know, "if you decide to ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood
... great cabalist, "to know the peculiar qualities of precious stones. Rubies soothe resentments, and you'll soon see the Abbe Coignard regain his natural suavity." ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... possessed something of the elegance of the Spanish dames of the colonial period; her countenance bore an expression of benevolence, which emanated from a gentle and affectionate heart; and her manner combined both dignity and suavity. She greeted the priest tenderly, and expressed mingled surprise and joy that he felt able to leave his bed so soon. But as her eyes caught Rosendo's meaning glance, and then turned to the child, they seemed to indicate a full comprehension of ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... had been inquiries for Mr. Hopper. The Colonel answered them all truthfully—generally with that dangerous suavity for which he was noted. Twice a seedy man with a gnawed yellow mustache had come in to ask Eliphalet's whereabouts. On the second occasion this individual ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... avenues to trade and preparing the way for colonization. The same energy and pluck, the same spirit of persistence, that triumphed over the obstacles and dangers of his earlier enterprises are again called into play, combined with the suavity and patience demanded for the attainment of the present object and permitted by the ample means at his disposal and the freedom from any necessity for impetuous haste or hazardous adventures. Experience, counsel, and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... diplomatically led up to a question, Mrs. Gonorowsky with great suavity asked, "Sadie is a ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly
... thought afforded a perfect exception to the general degeneracy of the country. The inhabitants of that little republic presented the finest view of human nature that he had ever witnessed. With the manliness of the British character they appeared to blend the suavity of the Italian manners; and their private morals were not inferior to the celebrity of their public virtues. So true it is, that man, under the police and vigilance of despotism, becomes more and more vicious; while, in proportion ...
— The Life, Studies, And Works Of Benjamin West, Esq. • John Galt
... though the other was altogether superior in outline of features as well as in expression; indeed, Mademoiselle Viefville fancied she never saw a sweeter smile than that he gave on returning the salute of the deck; there was more than the common expression of suavity and of the usual play of features in it, for it struck her as being thoughtful and as almost melancholy. His companion was gracious in his manner, and perfectly well toned; but his demeanour had less of the soul of the man about it, partaking more of the training of the social ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... language much more readily than we excuse their bad English; and will face our blunders throughout a long conversation, without the least propensity to grin. The rescued artist vowed that Madame Fribsby was his guardian angel, and that he had not as yet met with such suavity and politeness among les Anglaises. He was as courteous and complimentary to her as if it was the fairest and noblest of ladies whom he was addressing for Alcide Mirobolant paid homage after his fashion to all womankind, and never dreamed of a distinction of ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... gorgeous black eyes, raven hair, tall and graceful form, etcetera! This apparition was fair, blue-eyed, golden-haired, girlish, sylph-like. She was graceful, indeed, as the gazelle, but not tall, and with an air of suavity that was irresistibly attractive. She had a "good" face as well as a beautiful, and there was a slightly pitiful look about the eyebrows that seemed ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne
... Mr. Merton was of the middle height; fair, and inclined to stoutness, with small features, beautiful teeth, and great suavity of address. Mindful still of the time when he had been "about town," he was very particular in his dress: his black coat, neatly relieved in the evening by a white underwaistcoat, and a shirt-front admirably plaited, with plain studs of dark enamel, his well-cut trousers, and ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book II • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... are the olive gardens and the blue sea. Nothing can change the eternal magnificence of form of the naked Alps behind Mentone; nothing, not even the crude curves of the railway, can utterly deform the suavity of contour of one bay after another along the whole reach of the Riviera. And of all this, he has only a cold head knowledge that is divorced from enjoyment. He recognises with his intelligence that this ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... their own country would be difficult since it was in the middle of winter, and Chopin trembled like a forsaken bird, thinking of the chill of Paris. He loved the island, despite the inhospitable people, because of the suavity of its climate. The Cartuja of Valldemosa offered itself as their sole refuge, a building devoid of architectural beauty, with no other charm than that of its medieval antiquity, situated in the mountains with pine-covered slopes, having, like delicate curtains tempering the sun's ardor, plantations ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... does evidently labor under an hallucination when he calls this letter of M. St. Hilaire a "flattering notice." He has been misled by his inability to comprehend the employment of courteous language between persons who differ from each other in matters of opinion. With the accustomed suavity of a Frenchman and a gentleman, M. St. Hilaire declines entering into a discussion with Mr. Wilson, and leaves him to "settle this difference with his learned fellow-citizen," Mr. Prescott, mildly intimating ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... Laurie's most elegant college friends. Fervently hoping that he would get out before she did, Amy utterly ignored the basket at her feet, and congratulating herself that she had on her new traveling dress, returned the young man's greeting with her usual suavity and spirit. ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... Johnson," answered the chairman, with a barber's suavity, "you have as much right to be heard as any one else. There was no intention of ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... nervously on the watch, moved forward at this point, and Lord Parham, with marked and pompous suavity, transferred ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... them by name, after having sought them out with exceeding care; and he has disentangled them with great diligence and explained their difficulties; and he has so greatly excelled the original writers themselves in suavity and brevity of diction, that no one is acquainted with their precepts from their own writings, but all who wish to know what maxims they have laid down, come back to him as to a far more agreeable ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... settled, the manner in which they have been raised and pressed by German Governments has caused them to be regarded by British Ministers, and to a less extent by the British people, as sources of annoyance, as so many diplomatic "pin-pricks." The manners of German diplomacy are not suave. Suavity is no more part of the Bismarckian tradition than exactitude. But after all, the manners of the diplomatists of any country are a matter rather for the nation whose honour they concern than for the nations to which they have given offence. ...
— Britain at Bay • Spenser Wilkinson
... home in such surroundings, and that, had she been willing to give him the welcome he expected, she might have had a welcome at these as yet unopened doors through which he passed with conscious suavity, sometimes occurred to her. She was but human—and but woman—and she could not be completely oblivious to such things. But they did not, after all, wear a very ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... a man of brains. He started in life, I believe, as a minister of the gospel, then turned to law. By his suavity and impudence, he gained control of General Morris. The post was important because it carried so great a number of prisoners. Andrews had his son made Provost Marshal, and the escapes of prisoners ...
— Between the Lines - Secret Service Stories Told Fifty Years After • Henry Bascom Smith
... but she said nothing, and I do not believe the matter was ever alluded to between them. The only indications remaining the next day of what he had gone through that evening, consisted in an increase of suavity towards his grown customers, and of acerbity towards the children who were unfortunate enough to ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... passions of the nation, with a view of exterminating all persons who did not acknowledge the jurisdiction of the church and the power of its ministers. Thus it happened that Christianity, from a very early period after its introduction to Spain, was deprived of that spirit of meekness, suavity, and tolerance, impressed upon it by its Divine Founder, and became possessed of a spirit of the most implacable resentment against every person who had not gone through the baptismal ceremony; and thus, also, it was that ...
— Roman Catholicism in Spain • Anonymous
... four o'clock—still dark as midnight. As the bell sounded the hour, there came a knocking at the street door. I went down to open it with a light heart—for what had I now to fear? Then entered three men who introduced themselves, with perfect suavity, as officers of the police. A shriek had been heard by a neighbor during the night; suspicion of foul play had been aroused; information had been lodged at the police office, and the officers had been deputed to search ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... her of it. Garnache need not plague himself with vexation that his rash temper alone had wrought his ruin now. It had but accelerated it. It was just possible, perhaps, that suavity might have offered him opportunities; but, for the rest, from the moment that he showed himself firm in his resolve to carry mademoiselle to Paris, his doom was sealed. Madame would never willingly have allowed ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... of one of these effigies—of that which might be called, familiarly, the woodenest—of that which thrust itself out above the pavement, right leg foremost, with a suavity the least endurable, and had the shoe buckles and flapped waistcoat the least reconcileable to human reason, and bore at its right eye the most offensively disproportionate piece of machinery—sole master and proprietor of that Midshipman, ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... a man of ripe age, had a physiognomy very intellectual and lofty, a look of remarkable sagacity and depth of thought, and a smile of extreme goodness. His naturally harmonious voice became full of kindness when he spoke to the lunatics; thus the suavity of his tone and the benevolence of his words seemed oft to calm the natural irritability of these unfortunate people. He was among the first to substitute, in his treatment for madness, commiseration and benevolence for the terrible coercive means employed formerly; ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... and had even, by giving him an adroitly careful lead, managed to guide him into an expression of opinion. The Duke, who had heard men of his class discussed, did not in the least like him, notwithstanding his sympathetic suavity of manner and his air of being intelligently impressed by what he heard. Not long afterwards, however, it transpired that the aged rector of Broadmorlands having died, the living had been given to Ffolliott, ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... formerly wont to do, and his limbs had lost much of their symmetrical proportions; yet the kind clasp of his hand was as firm and warm as when it had pressed that of the boyish attache four years since; and the voice which expressed his salutation yet breathed its unconquered suavity and distinctness of modulation. After the customary greetings and inquiries were given and returned, the young man drew his chair near ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... throne. Soldier saints are mingled with them in still smaller rounds above the windows, chosen to illustrate the virtues of an order which renounced the world. To decide whose hand produced these masterpieces of Lombard suavity and grace, or whether more than one, would not be easy. Near the altar we can perhaps trace the style of Bartolommeo Suardi in an Annunciation painted on the spandrils—that heroic style, large and noble, known to us by the chivalrous S. Martin and the glorified Madonna ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... Mrs. Ross, with suavity. "We all rejoice in your good fortune, dear uncle! And now, Uncle Obed, you must come over to our house at once. We will set aside the best room for you, and we will try to make you happy. This little house ...
— The Tin Box - and What it Contained • Horatio Alger
... a doubt, the height of happiness, To hear such words from lips we dote upon; Their honeyed sweetness pours through all my senses Long draughts of suavity ineffable. My heart employs its utmost zeal to please you, And counts your love its one beatitude; And yet that heart must beg that you allow it To doubt a little its felicity. I well might think these words an honest trick To make me ...
— Tartuffe • Jean-Baptiste Poquelin Moliere
... Mr. Bob Sawyer, with great suavity, and dispersing, at the same time, the tumultuous little mob of glasses the girl had collected in the centre of the table—'now, Betsy, the warm water; be brisk, ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... I am glad,' retorted Vandeloup, with suavity, as he walked beside him to the men's quarters. 'What a horrible thing to be the duplicate of half-a-dozen other men. By the way,' breaking off into a new subject, 'Madame Midas ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... a singular misapprehension upon the part of the courteous visitor that the Easy Chair was beginning again to explain—"Yes, but the indisputable superiority of our glorious country"—when the son of Altangi interrupted, with suavity: "Certainly. I was about to add that while my fair companion insisted that I should confess the pinching of the feet to be a heinous folly, if not, as she was plainly disposed to believe, a crime, my eye was arrested by another ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis
... everybody knows, few members of our native flora are more graceful in appearance than the very two whose simple touch is poison. Could anything be more characteristic of human nature than just such inconsistencies? Suavity and trickery, harshness and integrity, a fiery temper and a gentle heart,—how often do we see the good and the bad dwelling together! We would have ordered things differently, I dare say, had they been left to us,—the good should have been all good, and ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... Manners. We are rather gruff, and sometimes unapproachable. Manners do not make the man, as the proverb alleges; but manners make the man much more agreeable. A man may be noble in his heart, true in his dealings, virtuous in his conduct, and yet unmannerly. Suavity of disposition and gentleness of manners give the finish to the ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... art—than that of Titian. If the Venetian master does not soar as high as Leonardo da Vinci or Michelangelo, those figures so vast, so mysterious, that clouds even now gather round their heads and half-veil them from our view; if he has not the divine suavity, the perfect balance, not less of spirit than of answering hand, that makes Raphael an appearance unique in art, since the palmiest days of Greece; he is wider in scope, more glowing with the life-blood of humanity, more the poet-painter ...
— The Earlier Work of Titian • Claude Phillips
... the best friend American newspaper men have had during this war, in London, and told him that newspaper men had probably been a more constant nuisance to him than to any man in Great Britain. With characteristic suavity he assured me that he had only the pleasantest recollection of all his relations with the press. An American probably would have admitted a part of the indictment. We do not produce that type of urbanity in this country; like the colour on the walls ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... of the rival systems debated their merits with suavity and mutual respect, but they met with scornful silence a compromising spirit who held that it was better to throw off your coat and boots, but keep your pantaloons on. Meanwhile, the steamer was ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... the Southern Division asked me to take charge of the office until my successor arrived, and I willingly consented. The Superintendent had much suavity of manner, and it was hard for me to tell whether he considered me guilty or not. I rather thought he suspected me. When I found that my time with the company was to be so short I determined to make a good haul, as I knew I could never get a situation in the ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton
... will be edified yourself, my Lord, if you will do me the grace to escort me thither," said Mary, with the imperious suavity she ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... had known each other since girlhood,—and to smile benignly upon Imogen, casting a glance upon the self-conscious, staring girls, whose clothing was a travesty of her own consummate modishness as their manners at once attempted to echo her sweetness and suavity. ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... take advantage of an eighth per cent. off or on here and there; the vigilance required to keep a "full line" and not overstock, to dispose of goods before they spoil or the popular taste changes; the suavity and integrity and duplicity and fairness and adaptability needed to get customers and keep them; the power to bear the daily and hourly worry; the courage to face the ever-present spectre of "failure," which is said to come upon ninety ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... exclaimed Amadeo in a transport of gratitude, at which Guiberto smiled with his usual grace and suavity. 'O Guiberto! Guiberto! my heart is breaking. Why should she want you to comfort her?—but—comfort her then!' and he covered ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... you," said Mr. Stanton, with suavity, and he held out his hand, which Ralph did not appear to see. Ralph Pendleton rich was a very different person from Ralph Pendleton poor, and it occurred to him that he might so far ingratiate himself into the favor of his former ward as to obtain the charge of his second fortune. He saw that ...
— Try and Trust • Horatio Alger
... singers were possibly for the most part Italians, who insisted upon singing their airs in their native language, though they had no objection to using German for the recitatives, in which there was no opportunity for vocal display. Keiser's music lacks the suavity of the Italian school, but his recitatives are vigorous and powerful, and seem to foreshadow the triumphs which the German school was afterwards to win in declamatory music. The earliest operas of Handel (1685-1759) ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... attendant watchdog guides. She did not succeed, because one of the guides recognized her as a member of his flock and crossed the road to where she stood. I know the man slightly. He is a cosmopolitan, a linguist of great skill, who speaks good English, with Portuguese suavity of manner, in times of calm, but bad English, with French excitability of gesture, when he is annoyed. He reasoned, most politely I'm sure, with the two girls. He wanted them to cross the road and take their places among the other tourists. The girl in blue handed the camera to her ...
— Lalage's Lovers - 1911 • George A. Birmingham
... public. Hence his criticism at this period was, as he himself has styled it, "polemical" and "aggressive." It was, however, neither violent nor sophistical. On the contrary, it was distinguished by the candor and the suavity of its tone. Goethe, who watched from afar a movement which, directly or indirectly, owed much to German inspiration, was particularly struck with this trait. "Our scholars," he remarked to Eckermann, "think it necessary to hate whoever differs from them in opinion; but the writers in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... for drawing on paper are much greater than those of Charles Kean for drawing upon the stage, met together at Somerset House, on Monday last, to distribute prizes among their scholars. Prince Albert presided, gave away the prizes with great suavity, and made a speech which occupied ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 28, 1841 • Various
... ever became the capital of a Republic the archives would be opened and the truth of the Meyerling tragedy given to the world. But all documents relating to private scandals must have been destroyed." She spoke with the utmost suavity, the patient hostess with rather tiresome guests. "People in Vienna, I assure you, take very little interest in that old scandal. They are too busy and too uncomfortable ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... exceed the simple suavity with which the Cardinal appeared, approached, and greeted them. He thanked Apollonia for her permission to pay his respects to her, which he had long wished to do; and then they were all presented, and he said exactly the right thing to ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... for which his youth had been remarkable. But it was no longer that character of beauty which has been described in his first introduction to the reader. It was no longer the almost woman delicacy of feature and complexion, or the highborn polish, and graceful suavity of manner, which distinguished Walter de Montreal: a life of vicissitude and war had at length done its work. His bearing was now abrupt and imperious, as that of one accustomed to rule wild spirits, and he had ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... Miss O'Flynn seemed small and petty. She was conscious of a revolt against the whole atmosphere of the place. The suavity of Miss O'Flynn's manner, the artificial grandeur of Madame Villard, filled her with aversion, and she wanted only to get away, and get back to her ...
— Patty's Success • Carolyn Wells
... Ned," added Mr. Morris, joining in the laugh, "that nothing will be done—unless 'tis to appoint a minister to the United States. 'Tis my conviction that Mr. Pitt has determined, in spite of his suavity and apparent friendliness, to make no move in this matter—he hasn't that damned long, obstinate upper lip for nothing, boy. He is all for looking after home affairs and doesn't want to meddle with any foreign policy. ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... was this Transfiguration, with its three quiet spectators, than the world-famous one at the Vatican. Although there are masterpieces of Perugino's in nearly every great European collection, I cannot but think one must go to Perugia to appreciate fully the limpid clearness, the pensive, tranquil suavity, which reigns throughout his pictures in the countenances, the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... sitting there one sunny afternoon, with my back to a clump of azaleas, watching an old coloured gardener—so old that he had started life as an "owned" negro, they said, and certainly still retained the familiar suavity of the old-time darky—I was watching him prune the shrubs when I heard the voice of Rupert K. Vaness say, ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... have I, cheered up with hopes at last To double thee, endured a tedious sea; Through public foaming tempests have I passed; Through flattering calms of private suavity; Through interrupting company's thick press; And through the lake of ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... to Homer. He fell in love with Lucrezia (del Fede), wife of a hatter named Carlo Recanati; the hatter dying opportunely, the tailor's son married her on the 26th of December 1512. She was a very handsome woman and has come down to us treated with great suavity in many a picture of her lover-husband, who constantly painted her as a Madonna and otherwise; and even in painting other women he made them resemble Lucrezia in general type. She has been much less gently handled by Vasari and other biographers. Vasari, who was ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... wasn't the only man aboard who was interested in Leda. Jakob von Liegnitz, all Teutonic masterfulness and Old World suavity, had obviously made a favorable impression on her. Lew Mellon was often seen in deep philosophical discussions with her, his eyes never leaving her face and his earnest voice low and confidential. Both of them had known ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett
... exuberant singing while "marching along"; Dr. Bennett, the amiable and popular Assistant Surgeon; Story, the ever-punctual and faithful Orderly, who had the art to soften distasteful requirements by a gentlemanly suavity; Sergeant Blossom, self-respecting and respected, perpetually finding something to do to render the general hardships more endurable, and going about it with so little ostentation that it too often passed unappreciated; ...
— Our campaign around Gettysburg • John Lockwood
... supplement that part of the peace provisions which related to allowances for the samurai who had fought on the side of the garrison. A demand in that sense was preferred to Ieyasu. But he had now laid aside his transient suavity. The Osaka people were brusquely informed that they must look to the Toyotomi family for recompense, and that as for rewarding unattached samurai who had drawn the sword against the shogun, the Osaka people, were they obedient to the dictates of loyalty, would of their own account ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... the slender shapeliness of the long legs and springy feet, the back bulging with strong muscles above, and going in, tight, with a magnificent dip at the waist; all impressions were merged in a sense of ease, of suavity, of full-blown harmony. Here was no pomp of anatomical lore, of cunning handicraft, but the life seemed to circulate strong and gentle in this exquisite effortless body. And the creature was not merely alive with a life more harmonious than ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... me," he said with exasperating suavity. "You really want to talk with me because you regret that my sermon was interrupted ...
— The Devil - A Tragedy of the Heart and Conscience • Joseph O'Brien
... luxuries of looking-glasses and Jews- harps. With this collection of valuables, Monsieur Le Quoi had stepped behind a counter, and, with a wonderful pliability of temperament, had dropped into his assumed character as gracefully as he had ever moved in any other. The gentleness and suavity of his manners rendered him extremely popular; besides this, the women soon discovered that he had taste. His calicoes were the finest, or, in other words, the most showy, of any that were brought into the country, and it was impossible to look at the prices asked for his goods by so pretty a ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... permitted only an occasional spurt from its warlike members, and pursued its even way with the important bills before it. But at teas, dinners, luncheons, and receptions people chattered with amiability or in suavity about the hostile demonstrations at Havana against Americans, the Spanish Minister's letter, Spain's demand for the recall of Consul-General Lee, the dying reconcentrados, the exploits of the insurgents, and the general possibilities of war. The old Madison house, which had ignored ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... studying. It was hardly a fair contest, this of youth and scant experience against suavity and shrewdness strengthened by ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... financial knowledge, and his clear vision of the right and the wrong, in public book-keeping, enabled him to suggest, and to carry into operation, great improvements in the management of the Corporation accounts. In 1847 he was Mayor, and in that office won the goodwill of everyone by his suavity of manner and his untiring industry. Two or three years afterwards, the pressure of other duties compelled him to ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards
... shore, Columbus was delighted with the purity and suavity of the atmosphere, the crystal transparency of the sea, and the extraordinary beauty of the vegetation. He beheld also fruits of an unknown kind upon the ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... esteem. He acquainted them with the facts, answered their queries with a patient weariness, and expected, nothing whatever from that quarter. He also had several interviews with Prince Aribert of Posen, but though the Prince was suavity itself and beyond doubt genuinely concerned about the fate of his dead attendant, yet it seemed to Racksole that he was keeping something back, that he hesitated to say all he knew. Racksole, with characteristic insight, decided that the death of Reginald Dimmock was only a minor event, which ...
— The Grand Babylon Hotel • Arnold Bennett
... on deck, on the day after the exciting event, he greeted Shuffles with his accustomed suavity, and seemed not to bear any malice in his heart against the author of his misfortune. Officers and seamen as well as the principal and the professors, congratulated him upon his escape from the peril which had menaced him; and all commended Shuffles for his prompt and noble ...
— Outward Bound - Or, Young America Afloat • Oliver Optic
... my pocket money had been spent on it, and as bulbs were dear and my weekly allowance small, in a fatal hour I had borrowed from Fraulein Wundermacher, selling her my independence, passing utterly into her power, forced as a result till my next birthday should come round to an unnatural suavity of speech and manner in her company, against which my very soul revolted. And after all, nothing came up. The labour of digging and watering, the anxious zeal with which I pounced on weeds, the poring ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... of art: the poet laboured at his cadences as at his meanings. Artificial he is, but he has the wonderful quality of never seeming artificial. His verses dance and sway like the nixies he loved. Their every motion seems informed with the perfect suavity and spontaneity of pure nature. They tinkle down the air like sunset bells, they float like clouds, they wave like flowers, they twitter like skylarks, they have in them something of the swiftness and the certainty of exquisite physical ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... with the sweetest suavity. "I was afraid for the moment that we had got into the wrong place. This is the—" ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen
... He twirled his moustache, his voice had lost its suavity and had taken on an accent of almost contemptuous raillery. He even winked at his two brother officers, he was beginning to play with Faversham. "I read the letter to illustrate how strange, how very strange, are your English girls. Here is one of them ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... those who had lately recovered their freedom from the Persian yoke [133], were especially desirous to exchange the Spartan for the Athenian command. Connected with the Athenians by origin—by maritime habits—by a kindred suavity and grace of temperament—by the constant zeal of the Athenians for their liberties (which made, indeed, the first cause of the Persian war)—it was natural that the Ionian Greeks should prefer the standard of Athens to that ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... consciousness of something not quite canny in herself seemed to strike her, for she made a vigorous effort to appear composed; and facing Mrs. Scudder, with an air of dignified suavity, inquired if it would not be best to put Jim Marvyn in the oven now, while Candace was getting the pies ready,—meaning, of course, a large turkey, which was to be the first in an indefinite series to be baked that morning; and discovering, by Mrs. Scudder's ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... the library a minute later with both hands outstretched. "Oh, my dear, what a comedy this is!" It was not often that her manner forsook its ladylike suavity. "What a comedy! But of course you don't know. Nobody knows, thank God! But we must tell you." She turned to her husband. "Will you tell her, ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... lest a cry of impatient agony should escape her throat, he,—like a snail that has shown its slimy horns too soon, and is not ready to face the enemy as yet,—seemed suddenly to withdraw within his former shell of careless suavity. The earnestness of his tone vanished, giving place to light and easy conversation, just as if he were discussing social topics with a woman of fashion in a ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... you were proposing to sell the place outright for twenty thousand francs," said Boniface with much suavity. "The interest on twenty thousand francs is only twelve hundred francs per annum ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac
... necessity of a conciliatory tone with the lower classes. The return home of Theodore Sedgwick in the latter part of December, gave a marked impulse to the government party, of whom he was at once recognized as the leader. He had the iron hand of Woodbridge, with a velvet glove of suavity, which the other lacked. To command seemed natural to him, but he could persuade with as much dignity as he could command, a gift at once rare and most needful in the present emergency. He it was who wore into the village the first white paper cockade which had been seen there, though within ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... steady northern blasts or by the intermittent gusts of the sirocco. A sensual race choleric and impetuous, with no intellectual or moral ballast, in which the mixture of Celt and Latin has destroyed the humane suavity of the Celt and the serious earnestness of the Roman; "complete, tough, powerful, and restless men,"[2401] and yet gay, spontaneous, eloquent, dupes of their own bombast, suddenly carried away ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... unpopular measures. She wanted to set that little jewelled shoe of hers on the neck of rebellion, when she should have held out her soft white hand to make friends of her foes. Her beauty and her grace might have done much, had she inherited with the pride of the Medici something of their finesse and suavity. But he loved her, Denzil, forgave all her follies, her lavish spending and wasteful splendour. 'My wife is a bad housekeeper,' I heard him say once, when she was hanging upon his chair as he sat at the end of the Council table. The palace accounts were on the table—three ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... such as are never dreamt of in the countries supposed to be eminently "social." Sociability does not consist in a readiness to talk at large with the first comer. It is not dependent upon natural grace and suavity; it is compatible, indeed, with thoroughly awkward and all but brutal manners. The English have never (at all events, for some two centuries past) inclined to the purely ceremonial or mirthful forms of sociability; but as regards every ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... "Green's Introduction to the Study of Arabic." With such a start, and the blood of youth running hot in his veins, everything seemed easy. He was a little frightened of the general; he had heard stories of his sternness to young officers, but with tact and suavity he hoped for the best. So, leaving his effects at "Shepherd's Hotel," he reported himself at headquarters. It was not the general, but the head of the Intelligence Department who received him, the chief being still absent upon that business which had called ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... to give biographies as well as portraits. That man of sixty, in rich, civil uniform, who entered with the Emperor, and who at once reminds an American of Edward Everett both in face and in the polished grace and suavity of his manner, is at present the first statesman of Europe,—Prince Alexander Gortchakoff. Of medium height and robust frame, with a keen, alert eye, a broad, thoughtful forehead, and a wonderfully sagacious mouth, the upper lip slightly ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... lightest emotion of the heart, while, through its magic, the most reserved, transitory, and trivial rencounter appeals to the imagination. Could it be otherwise in the presence of the women who give to this dance that inimitable grace and suavity, for which, in less happy countries, they struggle in vain? In very truth are not the Sclavic women utterly incomparable? There are to be found among them those whose qualities and virtues are so incontestable, so absolute, that they are acknowledged by all ages, ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt
... would become insupportable. Among the merely worldly, the difference between an ill-bred and a well-bred person is that the former displays his discomfort, ill-humor, or selfishness in his Manners, while the latter conceals them all under a veil of suavity and kindness. Selfishness prompts the one to be rude, and the other to be hypocritical, and each is ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler
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