"Complaisant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... me for the hero—or the victim—which is very much the same. The first duty of heroics is to be of your own choosing. When they are not that, they are nothing. And I assure you, as I walked back to my own room, I was in no very complaisant humour: thought my uncle and Mr. Romaine to have played knuckle-bones with my life and prospects; cursed them for it roundly; had no wish more urgent than to avoid the pair of them; and was quite knocked out of time, as they ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... that I cannot understand, so I changed the subject. "The plan is simple, monsieur," I said briskly. "Singing Arrow will come to the window, and you are to make love to her. After a time—not too long—you are to beguile her inside. I think the guards will be complaisant, if you play your part well. Be as debonair as possible. A soldier is always tempted to be lenient to ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... as a pillar of finance, for his judicious benevolence, for his support of wise and prudent reform movements, for his discretion in making permanent public gifts—"the Weightman Charities," one very complaisant editor called them, as if they deserved classification ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... recitations an attentive ear, and was ever ready with the expected commendation. It is not likely that her ladyship found much, difficulty in collecting around her a crowd of critics more docile than Thomson and quite as complaisant as Shenstone. ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson
... no more serious thought to the rights and feelings of his quarry than the gunner gives to the rights and feelings of his birds. From the beginning of the prohibition campaign, for example, the principle of compensation has been violently opposed, despite its obvious justice, and a complaisant judiciary has ratified the Puritan position. In England and on the Continent that principle is safeguarded by the fundamental laws, and during the early days of the anti-slavery agitation in this country it was accepted as incontrovertible, but if any ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... the Washington rule of contrariety, are fastened to the bottom instead of the top of the upright. Your theory is, that the destinies of the nation are to be hanged on these monstrous gibbets, and you wonder whether the laws of gravitation will be complaisant enough to turn upside down for the accommodation of the hangman, whoever he may be. It is not without pain that you are forced at last to the commonplace belief that these remarkable mountings of the Public Buildings are neither ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... friend. I look round at the translucent opal of the bay, the glittering white of the surf on the reef, the downward swoop on an albatross, and I listen to the dull roar of the breakers, to the solemn tang-tang of the bell-buoy on the bar, and the complaisant "ah-ha-a-a" of some argumentative penguin. Even the drab-coloured African hills in the distance, and the corrugated Catholic church (shipped in sections) with the sun blazing on its windows, are beautiful to me to-day, for I am not of those who think ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... an arrant swindler, takes truncheon in hand, and belabours him in presence of his intended victim and of a roomful of company. But setting aside any moral tendency which goodwill towards such a vastly pleasant author as De Bernard may induce us, by the aid of our most complaisant spectacles, to discover in his writings, his gentlemanly tone is undeniable, his pictures of French life, especially in Paris, are beyond praise. In the most natural and graphic style imaginable, he dashes off a portrait typifying a class, and in a page gives the value of a volume of the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... Kinloch. I hoped to find you in a more complaisant humor. There are topics which cannot be discussed with the square precision of legal rules,—thoughts that require sympathy before they can be expressed." And he dropped his eyes with a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... ought to be very complaisant, or else very much ashamed of yourselves. You send in an order: "The kind of girl that I like is a Methodist without bangs." And some nice girl begins to look up Methodist tenets and buys invisible hairpins ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell
... between forty and seventy, for there is nothing like privations and misery to alter the looks of a man! Faced by this queer fish, with a brain like a sieve, they had christened him "Crane a jour"—and the nickname had stuck to this anonymous individual. Besides, was not Cranajour the most complaisant of fellows, the least exacting of collaborators—always content with what was given him, always willing ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... induced them to let him go a long way up the sloping meadows towards the wall with one complaisant individual, and to him he promised to describe all that happened among the houses. He noted certain goings and comings, but the things that really seemed to signify to these people happened inside of or behind ...
— The Door in the Wall And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... fashion, an observer of the golden rule, for although he is constantly annoying and exasperating people by his easy-going ways, he is never afflicted if others do to him as he does to them. He goes through life with the notion that every one is as complaisant and comfortable as himself. "Easy-going-ness" (if one may coin a word for the occasion) is, many people would say, a combination of selfishness and stupidity, but I think such people judge rather too hardly of Ned and his compeers. It's all very well for some of ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... and had been the Marquis de Pries croupier, took me to see the Mazzoli, formerly a dancer, and then mistress to the Chevalier Raiberti, a hardheaded but honest man, who was then secretary for foreign affairs. Although the Mazzoli was by no means pretty, she was extremely complaisant, and had several girls at her house for me to see; but I did not think any of them worthy of occupying Leah's place. I fancied I no longer loved Leah, but I ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... see that woman in old rose brocade—she is sitting with a bald-headed man at the third table on your left. Well, that is the Countess of Porthcawl, and the man with her is Roger Ducrot, the banker. Porthcawl is a most complaisant husband. He never comes within a thousand miles of Millicent. She is awfully nice; clever, and witty, and the rest of it—quite a man's woman. We are sure to meet her in the lounge after dinner and ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... The complaisant register and the keeper of the privy seal took their departure together, when we forthwith proceeded to number ourselves in compliance with his advice. As the principle was already settled, we had no difficulty with its ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... growing late, and people had begun to leave, when it struck him that, through no active fault of his own, other than a certain complaisant indolence, he had as yet exchanged only the briefest of greetings with Lady Garnett, while of Miss Masters only a glimpse had been vouchsafed to him, at the further end of the crowded supper-room. He wandered into the studio, where a little, intimate party had assembled around an easel, and he ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... outweighs the evil, as it did in the King our master. I am of opinion that the troubles he was involved in in his youth, when he fled from his father and resided six years together with Philip, Duke of Burgundy, were of great service to him; for there he learned to be complaisant to such as he had occasion to use, which was no slight advantage of adversity. As soon as he found himself a powerful and crowned king, his mind was wholly bent upon revenge; but he quickly found the inconvenience of this, repented ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... her husband, was always with her and invariably spoke of his wife as an angel, where was the harm? Now the Russian magnate was dead, and the Marchesa Amici had retired to Lucca, to enjoy the spoils along with her discreet and complaisant marquis. ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... been under the impression that, if they were not actually engaged, they were on the verge of becoming so; and it was maddening to have to listen to Reggie advocating the claims of a rival as if he had no personal interest in the affair at all. Percy felt for his complaisant friend something of the annoyance which a householder feels for the watchdog whom he finds fraternizing with the burglar. Why, Reggie, more than anyone else, ought to be foaming with rage at the insolence of this American fellow in coming down to Belpher and planting ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... to blame for anything, I suppose, and very likely Pius IX. had not voluntarily disappointed his countrymen, who may have expected too much. But then the French had been there fifteen years, and were to be there another fifteen years yet. Now they are gone, with the archbishop's red coach, and the complaisant grocer, and the young man of twenty-seven in Via del Gambero, and the rest of the things that the sun looked on and will look on the like of again, no doubt, in our monotonous round ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... a hurry I never was satisfied till I had pulled the cunt open, and given it a general inspection, although it was generally but a rapid one in those days. If I had the same woman again another day, it was because I liked her and liked to talk to her, for I always found them more complaisant the longer I knew them. But here had I been having a woman daily, and sometimes twice a day, mainly because she was so exquisite in form (for I had some idea even then that her cunt was not a good fit ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... what is pleasant in daily life: He that is as he should be may be called Friendly, and his mean state Friendliness: he that exceeds, if it be without any interested motive, somewhat too Complaisant, if with such motive, a Flatterer: he that is deficient and in all ...
— Ethics • Aristotle
... silent, not knowing what to say in answer to this charge brought against her,—thinking, perhaps, that the questioner would allow his question to pass without an answer. But Vavasor was not so complaisant. "If there be any reason, Alice, I think that I have a right to ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... there was good reason to believe that the Afghan commander and his force, whose strength was estimated at about 5000 men, were in the vicinity of Urgundeh, about midway between Macpherson at Karez and Baker in the Maidan valley. If Mahomed Jan would be so complaisant as to remain where he was until Macpherson could reach him, then Roberts' strategy would have a triumphant issue, and the Warduk general and his followers might be relegated to ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes
... proof of his talent. He slightly knit his brows at this request, and resumed that sombre, almost savage, air he had worn when he met Antoinette at the foot of the mountain. He urged in excuse the lateness of the hour, but he allowed the promise to be wrested from him that he would be more complaisant the next day. ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... reproach. It signifies something which men feel is not quite right. It was, in fact, an indulgence. Still, perhaps it was wise not to force the new-born convert. Perhaps it did Naaman no harm. Possibly it did Elisha's soul no injury to be so far complaisant towards idolatry. But surely there was a germ of evil in the thing, and this germ found a nidus, found a nest in Gehazi's soul, in which to hatch its evil brood. It lighted on Gehazi at the psychological moment. He had seen the gorgeous equipage. He had gazed on the ingots of gold and the ...
— Men of the Bible; Some Lesser-Known Characters • George Milligan, J. G. Greenhough, Alfred Rowland, Walter F.
... compassionate, benign, tender; graceful, elegant; courteous, debonair, complaisant, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... remained two other acts collaterally and accidentally affecting the See of Rome; for the repeal of which the court was no less anxious than for the repeal of the Act of Supremacy, where the parliament were not so complaisant. ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... before long, when, stripped of all those exterior advantages which please the senses, you will possess only those qualities, less striking, but more solid, which satisfy the mind and heart and attract the complaisant regard of God and the angels. Youth will quickly pass, more quickly than you think, and the subsequent period of life will last much longer, hence, in all justice to yourself, let its preparation ...
— Serious Hours of a Young Lady • Charles Sainte-Foi
... to Guida's heart as she read the flowing tale of his buoyant love. Had she been the man and he the woman, she could never have written so smoothly of "fate," and "profession," nor told of this separation with so complaisant a sorrow. With her the words would have been wrenched forth from her heart, scarred into the paper with the bitterness of ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... My complaisant host, a little man, rather advanced in years, who in many respects was extremely useful to us, accompanied us, as soon as we had arranged our dress, to the President Freire. The latter received us ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... was a great favourite in the service, having had something uncommonly mild and complaisant in his manner; and his loss was therefore universally regretted. The circumstances of his case were also peculiarly distressing to his mother, as her husband, who was a seaman, had for three years past been confined ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... complaisant but still considerate valet bowed himself out of a dilemma, that he found, as he muttered to himself, while retiring, 'tant ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... heat of the southern day, the woodland fragrances of which the air was full, and the sense of being intimately alone with her, set up within him a turbulent vibration, half of delight, half of pained suspense. And the complaisant informality with which she met him played a sustaining counterpoint. 'What luck, what luck, what luck,' were the words which shaped themselves to the strong beating of his pulses. What would happen next? Whither would it lead? He had savoured the bouquet, he was ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... days. Some theologian once spoke of God as "the friend behind phenomena"; that Anglican deity had been rather a vague flummery behind court and society, wealth, "respectability," and the comfortable life. And even while he had lived in lipservice to that complaisant compromise, this true God had been here, this God he now certainly professed, waiting for his allegiance, waiting to take up the kingship of this distraught and bloodstained earth. The finding of God is but the stripping of bandages from the eyes. ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... were wrong, and on June 13th the 11th Manchesters arrived to relieve us, and we marched gaily back to Kantara—at any rate if not gaily—it was getting on for 130 deg. in the sun quite early in the day—still with a good heart. We were even complaisant when we found ourselves crowded into one camp area with the 7th, and with most of the tents to put up. As the afternoon wore on—(we had been up since 3 a.m. and were still hard at it in different ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... famous) was removed from his favourite's household and installed in the Imperial harem where, for a time at least, she seems to have shared her favours indiscriminately between her old master and her new—"an obscure and complaisant mistress"—until Menshikoff finally resigned all rights in her to ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... hatred of an unhappy child whose sorrows drive him to insanity; to be the table companion of a priest without dignity or moral elevation, who silently swallows the greatest outrages; to become the intimate, the complaisant friend of a great lord, whose past is suspicious, of an unnatural father who hates his son, of a man who at times transforms himself into a specter, and who, stung by remorse, or thirsting for revenge, fills the corridors of his castle with savage howlings— such a position is intolerable, and ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... he had found that rise, through virtue, was slow and beset with barriers. His ambition had become impatient. Now that he was a figure of local power and importance, temptation began to assail him with offers of rapid elevation if only he would be complaisant. In this situation, the father in him rose into the ascendency; he had compromised and yielded, though always managing to keep his dubious transactions secret. And now at length ambition ruled him—though as yet not undisturbed, for conscience sometimes ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... profess to one's own heart a complaisant dandyism of misanthropy. Such reflections leave behind them a tinge of a remorse, above all when they are, as these, absolutely whimsical and founded on a simple paradox of dilettantism. Dorsenne experienced a feeling of shame when he awoke the following morning, and, thinking ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget
... tall, sinewy and extraordinarily agile, while the women are slender and graceful, with perfectly modeled figures. The Nair girl is carefully chaperoned until she arrives at a marriageable age, say, fourteen or fifteen years, at which time some complaisant individual is selected, who goes through the marriage ceremony with her. As soon as the groom ties the tali, or marriage cord, about her neck, he is feasted and is then dismissed; the wife must never again speak to, or even look at, her husband. Once safely wedded, ...
— Religion and Lust - or, The Psychical Correlation of Religious Emotion and Sexual Desire • James Weir
... at his impudent companion with the complaisant good-humor which, since his much-talked-of bereavement, he was prepared to extend to those most fortunate among his courtiers who could succeed in diverting his melancholy. He was familiar with Chavernay's impertinences, ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... most conscious man among them that here was something uncommonly like the Golden Age, unless that epoch had been flattered. There had been reading and praising of odes and sonnets the whole blessed afternoon, and now he cried out to the complaisant, canorous company, "Behold ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... germ of old age and is hot upon the track of another germ that shall destroy it, so that we may all live virtually as long as we like; which, of course, disposes once for all of a world to come. The Psalmist was not always complaisant or even temperate in his language, but he lived a long time ago and must be pardoned; his curt summary stands: "Dixit insipiens!" But the writer vows that if he were addicted to the pursuit of any branch of physical knowledge he would insist upon being called ...
— The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) - A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest - Peak in North America • Hudson Stuck
... boon, good Sir Broyance?" replied the princess. "I know you for a true and loyal gentleman who has ever been welcome at my castle. Speak, then, your need, and if so be I may, you shall find me complaisant to your request." ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... almost cronies, among the lowly. Chief among them was the old sieve-maker of the Via Sacra. To his shop she made Utta lead her. Utta interposed no objection. Utta never objected to anything. But in this case she was especially complaisant, since opposite the sieve-maker's was a fascinating embroidery shop, the keeper of which was entirely willing, when he had no customers, to let Utta lounge on one of his sofas and inspect embroideries to her heart's content. So lounging, rapt ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... climacteric, by bringing gimblettes [A sort of gingerbread.] to the favourite lap-dog, or attending, with great assiduity, the egresses and regresses of her angola, who paces slowly out of the room ten times in an hour, while the door is held open by the complaisant Frenchman with a most ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... wits to work one morning after an evening of delight, and found the muse complaisant. My fancy spouted like a fountain, the rhymes swam in the water like gilded or silver fishes, so tame you had but to dip in your fingers and take your pick, while allusion and simile crowded so thickly about me that I should have needed an epic rather ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... prayer-meeting in conversation with her friend, Mr. Wayne, and she said not a single word to him about this matter. She could not talk with him, she told herself; he did not understand her, and it did no good. Some time, when he was in a less complaisant mood, she could do something for him, but not now. She was not very companionable, however; her mind was dwelling on her ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden
... Raja, was powerful in Mahoba in the time of Akbar. It is rather an indication that he was poor and weak. If he had been rich and strong, he would probably have refused his daughter to a Gond, even though complaisant bards might invent a Rajput genealogy for the bridegroom. The story about the army of fifty thousand men cannot be readily accepted as sober fact. It looks like a courtly invention to explain a mesalliance. The inducement ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... in his eyes as the train rolled away. He had said good-by to all of them—to Joey and Ruby and Casey, and they had wished him good luck with that complaisant philosophy which was ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... your Excellency that our minds are led to the conclusion that that gentleman possesses a disposition noble and generous, a mind discriminating, comprehensive, and combining a heart pure, benevolent and humane. Manners dignified, mild, and complaisant, and a firmness not to be ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... acts differently in the two Houses. Still the Senator was tranquil, for he knew that there is an esprit de corps in the Senate which does not exist in the House, the effect of which is to make the members complaisant towards the projects of each other, and to extend a mutual aid which in a more vulgar body would ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 6. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... considerable de tranches s'etaient succede dans l'estomac complaisant de ce nouveau Gargantua, quand on vint lui annoncer que la cavalerie de Henri IV, emportee par sa folle audace, s'etait engagee dans un taillis inextricable. "Il faut, sans delai, lui courir sus, declarerent aussitot tous les lieutenants du duc.—Attendez au moins que ...
— French Conversation and Composition • Harry Vincent Wann
... pearls for teeth like the altar brooch of Dolores. And Tomlin, for all his expressed scorn, was tingling with ardent desire for such piquant beauty and vivacity as Pascherette's. If such a creature were the slave, then what could the mistress be? He assumed a more complaisant attitude, and added his vote: "A good way of passing away this odious calm ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... no time to lose, and that circumstance made this case one of those in which forbearance and a show of generosity were called for, instead of defiance and force. He accordingly sent messengers to the council at Ruscino to say, in a very complaisant and affable manner, that he wished to see and confer with their princes in person, and that, if they pleased, he would advance for this purpose toward Ruscino; or they might, if they preferred, come on toward him at Illiberis, where he would ...
— Hannibal - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... among the killed at Elandslaagte, then as wounded and a prisoner, but who in fact got away from the fight almost unscathed, and now holds a command in the Boer force outside Ladysmith. Interviews with a senior commandant, who was by no means complaisant, and finally with Schalk-Burger, followed. The latter, after raising many difficulties and dangling prospects of imprisonment in Pretoria before Major King, finally consented to release that officer on condition that he would not take any military advantage of what he had ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... here comes a difference. Fortune is blind, but the poet has his eyes open, and is besides as complaisant as fortune is capricious. He makes every thing turn out exactly as we would wish it. He gratifies us by representing those as hateful or contemptible whom we hate ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... Never was there more complaisant chaperone than Hennie Penny. For, you see, she took no little credit to herself for having helped to bring about their happiness, and the very least she could do was to further it in ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... inscribes himself E. S. Aurifex. Specimens of his handicraft occur fairly often in the market; as to their merit, opinions differ. But after all, there is a soupcon of gratification in having a Baronet to your binder; and we understand that Sir Edward is complaisant enough to accept commissions outside his ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt
... complaisant conductor of the most accommodating special train could not wait any longer for us, and we must hurry on through Lamokin, where the Baltimore Central, a tributary road, turns off and traverses a most picturesque country, round by Port Deposit to Perryville, where it again reaches the main road. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... be told? How when she and Ascott sat over the wine and desert he had ordered for them, listening to the rich man's complaisant pomposities, were they to explain that they had come a begging, asking him, as the climax to his liberalities, to advance a few pounds in order to keep the young man whom he had for years generously and sufficiently ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... is my own soft speaking, in recognition of your complaisant welcome. But I bear a message of his Excellency. He directs that you march the entire force under you, without delay, by way of Bethlehem and Easton, and effect a ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... "such suspicion were a poor return for the Chancellor's putting himself in our hands all the days we spent with him at his Castle of Crichton. To your lodgings, Sholto, and give God thanks if there be therein a pretty maid or a dame complaisant, according to the wont of young ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... improved my appearance, and in consequence made me more vain, for although I would not have been willing to add art to Nature, yet I was very complaisant to myself. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... longer venture to love them, except, perhaps, the two eldest; I no longer venture to look at them, to call them to me, to kiss them; I cannot take them onto my knee without asking myself: 'Can it be this one?' I have been correct in my behavior towards you for six years, and even kind and complaisant; tell me the truth, and I swear that ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... continued promenades with Miss Laura, but, like a benevolent old gentleman, encouraged in every way the intimacy of that couple. Were there any exhibitions in town? he was for Warrington conducting her to them. If Warrington had proposed to take her to Vauxhall itself, this most complaisant of men would have seen no harm,—nor would Helen, if Pendennis the elder had so ruled it,—nor would there have been any harm between two persons whose honour was entirely spotless,—between Warrington, who saw in intimacy a pure, and high-minded, and artless ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... in many of the regions where the French were most active, and that the protectionist policy which France had adopted stimulated into a new life the ancient rivalry of these neighbour and sister nations. Towards the colonial ambitions of Germany, and still more of Italy, Britain was far more complaisant. ...
— The Expansion of Europe - The Culmination of Modern History • Ramsay Muir
... NOTE O, p. 301. In the preceding parliament, the commons had shown a disposition very complaisant to the king; yet there happened an incident in their proceedings which is curious, and shows us the state of the house during that period. The members were either country gentlemen or merchants, who were assembled for a ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... yonder cup," he said easily, "and we'll drink to his home-coming. Good fellow, I am Mr. Marmaduke Haward, and I am glad to find so honest a man in a place of no small trust. Long absence and somewhat too complaisant a reference of all my Virginian affairs to my agent have kept me much in ignorance of the economy of my plantation. How long have you ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... by these tokens of deference on the part of her new lord, now fell on her knees and entreated his permission to pass a few moments in private with her former husband, and the request was instantly granted by the complaisant Saracen. Sir Isumbras still smarting from his bruises, was conducted with great respect and ceremony to his wife, who, embracing him with tears, earnestly conjured him to seek her out as soon as possible in her new dominions, to slay his infidel rival, ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... by possibility such an abuse may exist: but, prima fronte, there is no reason to presume it. The House of Commons is not, by its complexion, peculiarly subject to the distempers of an independent habit. Very little compulsion is necessary, on the part of the people, to render it abundantly complaisant to ministers and favorites of all descriptions. It required a great length of time, very considerable industry and perseverance, no vulgar policy, the union of many men and many tempers, and the concurrence of ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... introduced herself as Mademoiselle Heger, co-directress of the pensionnat, and "wholly at our service." In response to our apologies for the intrusion and explanations of the desire which had prompted it, we received complaisant assurances of welcome; yet the manner of our kind entertainer indicated that she did not appreciate, much less share in, our admiration and enthusiasm for Charlotte Bronte and her books. In the subsequent conversation it appeared that Mademoiselle ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... and bid them farewell. Some were aware of the trick that had been played upon him: others were not; but the poor little man's credulity was so great, that it was impossible to undeceive him; and he went from house to house bewailing his fate, and followed by the complaisant marshal's officer. ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... complaisant and friendly when we came to know them well, which we did in the course of an hour, and they enjoyed as much as we did the bargaining for pottery. They have for sale a great quantity of small pieces, fantastic in form and brilliantly ...
— Our Italy • Charles Dudley Warner
... of thirty. In 1672, Love in a Wood was acted with more success than it deserved, and this event produced a great change in the fortunes of the author. The Duchess of Cleveland cast her eyes upon him, and was pleased with his appearance. This abandoned woman, not content with her complaisant husband and her royal keeper, lavished her fondness on a crowd of paramours of all ranks, from dukes to rope-dancers. In the time of the commonwealth she commenced her career of gallantry, and terminated it under Anne, by marrying, when a great-grandmother, that worthless fop, Beau Fielding. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... younger men envied him, for there were also cliques among them. This was the third year of his professorship and, although the first in which he had taught physics and chemistry, he already passed for a sage, not only with the complaisant students but also among the other nomadic professors. Padre Millon did not belong to the common crowd who each year change their subject in order to acquire scientific knowledge, students among other students, with the difference only that they follow a ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... through the evening he was affable and complaisant and forbearing. She made no attempt to conceal her dislike of him. Concealments were not familiar to Margie's nature. She was frank and open as ...
— The Fatal Glove • Clara Augusta Jones Trask
... wickeder the older he grew, and that to such degree as is not fit to write of, and made me so weary of him that upon one of his capricious humours, which he often took occasion to trouble me with, I took occasion to be much less complaisant to him than I used to be; and as I knew him to be hasty, I first took care to put him into a little passion, and then to resent it, and this brought us to words, in which I told him I thought he grew sick of me; and ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... industry, obtained a little knowledge in the Latin grammar, and afterwards so much money, as not only to procure his father's discharge from prison, but also to bind himself apprentice to Mr. Draper a dancing master in Holbourn, London. Soon after, by his dexterity in his profession, and his complaisant behaviour to his master's employers, he obtained the favour of them to lend him as much money as to buy out the remaining part of his time, and set up for himself; but being afterwards appointed to dance in the duke of Buckingham's great Masque, by a false step, he strained ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... sex-complaisant women were really filled with remorse, burdened with a sense of shame, we should all know it. Their eyes, their voices, their daily lives would reveal it. Could a million women be in physical pain, say from starvation, without all the world ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... lingering in the long dark lashes that veiled her sad and downcast eyes. The Captain was rocking to and fro in an easy chair, smoking his pipe and glancing first towards his daughter, and then at her starch prim-looking aunt, with no very complaisant expression. ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... wave this: let me ask you, is Mr. B.'s conduct to you as respectful, I don't mean fond, when you are alone together, as in company?—Forgive me—But you have hinted two or three times, in your letters, that he always is most complaisant to you in company; and you observe, that wisely does he act in this, as he thereby does credit with every body to his own choice. I make no doubt, that the many charming scenes which your genius and fine behaviour furnish out to him, must, as often as they happen, inspire him with joy, and even ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... closed, "to receive Mr. Washington with a distinction suitable to your dignity as well as his own quality and great merit."[136] No form of courtesy had, in fact, been wanting. "He appeared to be extremely complaisant," says Washington, "though he was exerting every artifice to set our Indians at variance with us. I saw that every stratagem was practised to win the Half-King to their interest." Neither gifts nor brandy were spared; and it was only by ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... said la Peyrade, dryly. "The court is a thing essentially amiable and complaisant. 'Tiens!' it said to itself, 'here's this good Monsieur Thuillier going to be a candidate for the Chamber; how hampered he'll be by his attitude to his ex-friend Monsieur de la Peyrade, with whom he wishes now he hadn't quarrelled. I'll summon him for fees he doesn't owe; ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... complaisant disciples from whom Socrates could get whatever answer he chose, Anne gave her ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley
... constitution and consequently enemies of the principles which all good Frenchmen had imbued with religious enthusiasm;" and who, "instead of a democratic embassador, would prefer a minister of the ancient regime, very complaisant, very gentle, very disposed to pay court to people in office, to conform blindly to everything which flattered their views and projects; above all, to prefer to the sure and modest society of good farmers, simple citizens, and honest artisans, that of distinguished personages who speculate ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... other land, soon to change its exquisite dream-features for the still more thrilling, appealing marvel of reality—could it all be true? Was this the response of the genius of the ring, the magic ring that we call will? And would the complaisant genius always appear and obey one's behests, ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... The soldiers were complaisant; they had found the grasp of Porthos pretty powerful and that it was no joke to fight ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... returned self-complaisant Roland. "I say, Jenkins, isn't it a shame about Arthur Channing? Galloway has his money back from the very thief himself, as the letter said, and yet the old grumbler won't speak out like a man, and say, 'Shake hands, old fellow,' and 'I know you are innocent, and come back to the office ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... of meanness with which pious lying, like every other kind of lying, tends to infect character. The motive may no doubt ennoble the act, though the act remains in the category of forbidden things. But the motive of these complaisant assents and false affirmations, taken at their very best, is still comparatively a poor motive. No real elevation of spirit is possible for a man who is willing to subordinate his convictions to his domestic affections, and to bring himself to a habit of viewing falsehood ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... consciously done wrong. He did not know what wrong was—his one conception being an act putting him within reach of the law; and of such an indiscretion he had never been guilty. Throughout his scheming he had always pictured himself as a complaisant Napoleon of finance, combining business with pleasure. His conduct toward Lois had been based on this standpoint. He was genuinely fond of her, and is there any law forbidding a man to lay firm hold upon his wife's ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... glad to find your lordship is so close an observer," returned the complaisant Dutton; "a certain sign, my lord, that your lordship will make ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... dragons they went on the horses. John Thomas paid each time, so she could but be complaisant. He, of course, sat astride on the outer horse—named 'Black Bess'—and she sat sideways, towards him, on the inner horse—named 'Wildfire'. But of course John Thomas was not going to sit discreetly on 'Black ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... Faith, Liberty, and social generosity; for when a man does not love his neighbour, he says he loves God, his Country, or even Humanity. Sometimes the poor master is himself a slave to the State. Under threat of punishment, the social machine forces him to acts which are repugnant, but the complaisant intelligence persuades him that these are fine and glorious, and performed by him of his own free will. In either case the intelligence knows what she is about, and is always at our disposition if we really want her to tell us the truth; but we take good care to ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... favourable. Let the guardian be ever so considerate and civil, it would be a terrible ordeal to be literally never alone, night or day; and too often, doubtless, the guardian would be not at all complaisant. To many a man, certainly to any man of the refined mental and moral nature of St Paul, this slow fire of indescribable annoyance would be far worse to endure than a great and sudden infliction of pain, even to death. ...
— Philippian Studies - Lessons in Faith and Love from St. Paul's Epistle to the Philippians • Handley C. G. Moule
... adjacent gravel pit. Trefusis was glad of the interruption; and, when he gave the boy twopence and bade him begone, half hoped that he would insist on remaining. But though an obdurate boy on most occasions, he proved complaisant on this, and withdrew to the high road, where he made over one of his pennies to a phantom gambler, and tossed with him until recalled from his dual state by the ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... Ferrante's appeal to Spain against a Pope who showed himself so ready and complaisant a friend to Spain went unheeded by Ferdinand and Isabella. And what time the Neapolitan nursed his bitter chagrin, the alliance between Rome and Milan was consolidated by the marriage of Lucrezia Borgia to Giovanni ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... morning office, and, on one occasion at least, they keep the unhappy monks of the convent where they are staying (who do not seem to dare to begin vespers without them) waiting a whole hour while they are finishing not particularly edifying stories. The less complaisant casuists, even of the Roman Church, would certainly look askance at the piety of the distinguished person (said by tradition to have been King Francis himself) who always paid his respects to Our Lady on his way to illegitimate assignations, ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... authorities lost no time in representing to parliament that the City had always been exempt from the charge of providing horse. They were ready, however, to bear their proportion of the necessary charge with the rest of the kingdom.(1022) Later on they became more complaisant, and expressed their readiness to furnish the number of horse demanded "in respect of the pressing occasions and necessities now lying on the Commonwealth," notwithstanding the proportion laid on the ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe
... latter was at that time emperor of Germany. With their assistance, it was enabled, though not without great difficulty, and much bloodshed, either to suppress altogether, or to obstruct very much, the progress of the reformation in their dominions. It was well enough inclined, too, to be complaisant to the king of England. But from the circumstances of the times, it could not be so without giving offence to a still greater sovereign, Charles V., king of Spain and emperor of Germany. Henry VIII., accordingly, though he did not embrace himself the greater part of the doctrines of the reformation, ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... days the major said not a word of Grace Crawley to any one. Nothing could be more courteous and complaisant than was his father's conduct to him. Anything that he wanted for Edith was to be done. For himself there was no trouble which would not be taken. His hunting, and his shooting, and his fishing seemed to have become matters of paramount consideration to his father. And then the archdeacon ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... purchased the property it somehow never occurred to Dan that the new owner might not be so complaisant as his predecessor in the matter of the best trouting pond in ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... wrote the complaisant King of France in his directions to the confidential messenger sent to discuss matters with ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... avenue of the elms yonder. They won't relent so far as to admit buds, but there is an unmistakable bloom upon them, like the promise of a smile. The rooks have known it for some weeks, and already their Jews' market is in full caw. The more complaisant chestnut dandles its sticky knobs. Soon they will be brussels-sprouts, and then they will shake open their fairy umbrellas. So says a child of my acquaintance. The water-lilies already poke their green ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... Mr Hobson, "for what I say is, rudeness is a thing that makes nobody agreeable; but I don't see because of that, why a man is not to speak his mind to a lady as well as to a gentleman, provided he does it in a complaisant fashion." ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... that arising out of exclusively missionary purposes, which was to force a translation of the Bible from a tongue not adapted to its terms and ideas, and then to compile a grammar and dictionary from the artificial result. A little ingenuity will direct the more intelligent or complaisant gesturers to the expression of the thoughts, signs for which are specially sought; and full orderly descriptions of such tales and talks with or even without analysis and illustration are more desired than any other form ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... legs, declared himself prepared and willing to proceed. No doubt the course as now directed was the proper course to be pursued. The Solicitor-General, rising gracefully and bowing to the court, gave his consent with complaisant patronage. "Your Lordship, no doubt, is right." His words were whispered, and very probably not heard; but the smile, as coming from a Solicitor-General,—from such a Solicitor-General as Sir William Patterson,—was sufficient to put any judge ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope
... inclining to be large; his Eyes full and lively, with Eye-Brows and Beard pretty thick; of a dark brown Colour; and his Skin was clear, his Shoulders were strong and well set, and Limbs rather large than small, but exactly shap'd: He was perfectly good natur'd, complaisant in his Behaviour, and gallant in his Amours, his Dress was easy and genteel, his Approaches sprightly, and his Conversation the most endearing. Amaryllis was extremly fond of Sempronius and Sempronius was fond of Amaryllis, without each other they ...
— Tractus de Hermaphrodites • Giles Jacob
... "I am a complaisant monarch, as I think," he said. "Now, lady, do your best to make your sweetheart see reason. Honestly, I do not think he is worth so many words, but you think otherwise, and for your sake I wish ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... this strong instinct of Nationality which rendered the masses so long tolerant, if not complaisant, toward Slavery and the Slave Power. Merchants and bankers were bound to their footstool by other and ignobler ties; but the yeomanry of the land regarded slavery with a lenient if not absolutely ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... he thought of imposing upon the Thebans the cult of his god, but as he shrank from employing force in such a delicate matter, he had recourse to stratagem. He took counsel with his princes and generals, but they were unable to propose any plan. The college of diviners and scribes was more complaisant: "Let a messenger go to the regent of the city of the South to tell him: The King Ra-Apopi commands thee: 'That the hippopotami which are in the pool of the town are to be exterminated in the pool, in order that slumber may ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... through, and we pause to note their graceful movements and glossy coats. I have seen no bird walk the ground with just the same air the crow does. It is not exactly pride; there is no strut or swagger in it, though perhaps just a little condescension; it is the contented, complaisant, and self-possessed gait of a lord over his domains. All these acres are mine, he says, and all these crops; men plow and sow for me, and I stay here or go there, and find life sweet and good wherever I am. The ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... complaisant, though an egotist and somewhat loquacious; but nature had, nevertheless, bestowed upon him a prepossessing exterior with an enviable pair of jet black whiskers, and the most expressive eyes; he could sing a tonadilla divinely; dance the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, - Volume 12, No. 329, Saturday, August 30, 1828 • Various
... proceeded with a droll air of extreme carefulness to treat the hand. The other knaves fell into the joke, and the Spaniard had no option but to submit; though his scowling face showed that he bore Maignan no good-will, and that but for my presence he might not have been so complaisant. La Trape was bringing his surgery to an end by demanding a fee, in the most comical manner possible, when the King returned to our part of the court. "What is it?" he said. "Is anything ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... have guessed how glad I was of their absence, they would not have seemed so complaisant," he thought, recalling the happy day he had spent with Dainty; while he resolved to make sure of more like it by inviting some other fellows to Ellsworth, so that Olive and Ela might be provided with escorts, and not ...
— Dainty's Cruel Rivals - The Fatal Birthday • Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
... all are ridiculously remote from real life. It was bad enough that boys' time should be wasted thus, but the evil was further emphasized by the practice of recitation. These exercises, duly corrected and elaborated, were often recited by their youthful authors to an audience of complaisant friends and relations. Of such training there could be but one possible result. 'Less and less attention was paid to the substance of the speech, more and more to the language; justness and appropriateness of thought ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... every definite action is conditioned upon a definite resistance, and is impossible without it. We walk in virtue of the earth's resistance to the foot, and are unable to tread the elements of air and water only because they are too complaisant, and deny the foot that opposition which it requires. Precisely that, accordingly, which makes the difficulty of an action may at the same time make its possibility. Why is flight difficult? Because the weight of every ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... greatly deceived if they are not very desirous that one of them shall devote herself, and make the first dash, that they may profit by her pretended fault. I know who will not be the last to come and station herself amongst the furniture of your apartment. The marechale de Mirepoix was too long the complaisant friend of madame de Pompadour not to become, and that very soon, the friend of the comtesse du Barry." "Good heaven," I exclaimed, "how delighted I should be to have the friendship of this lady, whose wit and amiable manners are so greatly talked of." "Yes," said de Maupeou, laughing, ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... irreparable behind us, and the weight of what we have done lies heavy upon our shoulders. But so long as the life of our mind and character flows uninterruptedly on, so long will the past remain in suspense above us; and, as the glance may be that we send towards it, will it, complaisant as the clouds Hamlet showed to Polonius, adopt the shape of the hope or fear, the peace or disquiet, that ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck
... His eyes were so small that sometimes they disappeared under his fat cheeks altogether, or only gleamed like little sharp points of light from under his heavy, shaggy eyebrows. Then, although he tried to make his voice pleasant, Jeremy felt that that complaisant friendliness was not his natural tone. Sometimes there would be a sharp, barking note that made Jeremy jump and his cheek pale. The Captain told him no more fascinating stories, and when Jeremy wanted to know about ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole
... small, piquant, almost child-like, with a dainty up-turned nose, a large and lustrous eye, a constant, bird-like animation of manner—the Folly of artists, the adorable, lovable, harmless Folly standing tiptoe on a complaisant world. ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... dangerous to wish for anything so intensely. There are wishes the gratification whereof is fatal. There are a dozen old stories in the classics to show that; to say nothing of all those mediaeval legends in which Satan is complaisant to some eager wisher." ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... into her native element, discussed the whole house from attic to kitchen. Mr. Harper listened with a complaisant and amused look. Beginning to discern the sterling good there was in the little woman, he passed over her harmless small-mindedness; knowing well that in the wide-built mansion of human nature there must be always a certain order of beings honourable, useful, ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... said, "I have no objection, and so far, on the whole, I do agree with you; though I am bound to point out that you might easily find an opponent less complaisant. Your argument is ...
— The Meaning of Good—A Dialogue • G. Lowes Dickinson
... made it a point to taste every dish that had been partaken of by the Nuncio and his neighbour; and I found that they were all fish; but fish so treated, that they could hardly know what to think of themselves. You may remember, however, that an Archbishop of Paris was sufficiently complaisant to declare a particular duck, of which one of Louis the Sixteenth's aunts was fond, to be fish, and, of course, fit ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... myself)—Ver. 116. Cooke remarks here: "A complaisant father, to go to the funeral of a courtesan, merely ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... indeed, but of beauteous features. His smitten heart is immediately inflamed, and he gradually burns with unchaste desires. His crafty shrewdness invents a thousand pretences for seeing her more frequently. Wrought upon by daily intercourse, by degrees she became more complaisant to the stranger, and soon enthralled his heart by a closer tie. While the careful Guard is here passing his nights, a body is missed from one of the crosses. The Soldier in his alarm relates to the Woman what has happened; but the chaste Matron ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... girl, with all her ignorance and all her desires, committed to the mercy of a man who, even though he be in love, cannot know her shrinking and secret emotions, will submit to him with a certain sense of shame, and will be obedient and complaisant so long as her young imagination persuades her to expect the pleasure or the happiness of that morrow which ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac
... him obediently, as mildly complaisant as she had once been coldly aloof. Though the allurement of the remote had deserted her, she still possessed, in his eyes, the attraction of the beautiful. If the excitement of the chase was ended, the pleasure of the capture was still amply sufficient to ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... endured at her hands. But time had apparently softened her resentment, and changed her feelings towards me. Perhaps she thought that the misery I had undergone during more than two years would render me more complaisant and ready to yield to her desires; at any rate, she received me with joy and treated me with kindness, and, taking an opportunity that same evening to come alone to the place where I was picketed with the other horses, she stooped ...
— Tales of the Caliph • H. N. Crellin
... palace, with the pure heart of poverty. Many venerable pastors dwell in the Church with the same heart, but the spirit of poverty is not preached sufficiently, not preached as Christ preached it. The lips of Christ's ministers are too often over-complaisant to those who seek riches. There are those among them who bow the head respectfully before the man who has much, simply because he has much; there are those who let their tongues flatter the greedy, and too many preachers of the word and of the example of Christ ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... could not have been guaranteed against the effects of it! Now, the Marquise has a strong reason the more for contributing to the defeat of her friend; she has become positively ugly, and consequently obliged to be more complaisant in retaining a lover. Will she suffer another woman to keep hers at a less cost? That would be to recognize too humiliating a superiority, and I can assure you that she will do the most singular things to bring her amiable widower up to ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... not be lacking in will, in determination, or individuality. In fact it is the complaisant person's strength of will that holds in check and harmonizes all the other traits of character and moulds them into ...
— The Girl Wanted • Nixon Waterman
... French are proceeding steadily in the reconstruction of their Government, but they have evinced a strong democratical spirit. The new King, too, conducts himself in a way that gives me a bad opinion of him; he is too complaisant to the rage for equality, and stoops more than he need do; in fact, he overdoes it. It is a piece of abominably bad taste (to say no worse) to have conferred a pension on the author of the Marseillaise ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... claimants of the Persian throne, he at once took refuge with the Ephthalites, and sought to persuade the Great Khan to embrace his cause and place an army at his disposal. The Khan showed himself more than ordinarily complaisant. He can scarcely have sympathized with the religious leanings of his suppliant; but he remembered that he had placed him upon the throne, and had found him a faithful feudatory and a quiet neighbor. He therefore received him with every mark of honor, betrothed him ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson
... Street as shall be requisite for making their intended new building straight and uniform." And so the most important of "the streamlike windings of the glorious street" was in part determined by a corrupt bargain between "a vile Whig" (as Hearne calls this hated Provost) and a complaisant mayor. But much of the credit for the beauty of this part of the High must also be given to the architect of University College (seen in Plate IX on the left), who, whether by skill or by accident, combined at a most graceful angle the two quads, ...
— The Charm of Oxford • J. Wells
... of Directors he is very little more complaisant, and not at all more satisfactory; he states merely as a supposition their inquiry concerning matters of which he positively knew that they had called for an explanation. He knew it, because he presumed to censure them for doing so. To the hypothesis of a further inquiry he gives a conjectural ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Emperor, for political reasons, considered it more advisable to employ kindness. Lauding the extreme affability and leniency of Charles, Melanchthon wrote to Luther, January 25: "The Emperor greets our Prince very kindly; and I would that our people, in turn, were more complaisant towards him. I would ask you to admonish our Junior Prince by letter in this matter. The Emperor's court has no one milder than himself. All others harbor a most cruel hatred against us. Caesar satis benigne salutat nostrum principem; ac ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... in and out, it would be unfair to expect from them much character of their own. To make the best provisions for the transmission of produce is their office, and the people who live there are such as are suited for this,—active, complaisant, inventive, business people. There are no provisions for the student or idler; to know what the place can give, you should be at work with the rest; the mere traveller will not find it profitable to loiter there as ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... if they have the temper and prudence to make such a previous reflection, they will be more richly rewarded by their own inward triumph, at having suppressed a lively but severe remark, than they could have been with the dissembled applauses of the whole company, who, with that complaisant deceit, which good breeding too much authorises, affect openly to admire what they secretly resolve never ...
— Essays on Various Subjects - Principally Designed for Young Ladies • Hannah More
... her temper was ruffled was on the back of an armchair, where she would sit with her bill in the air and her head cocked disdainfully on one side, pretending not to hear or see any one. In her affable moods, however, no one could be more complaisant and entertaining than Bessie. ...
— Dickey Downy - The Autobiography of a Bird • Virginia Sharpe Patterson
... some such creature—about whom Mr. Tom was much exercised; and Frank King professed himself quite interested in hearing about this person. The grave young Lieutenant was indeed extraordinarily complaisant this evening. He was unusually talkative—when he was not a most attentive listener. You would have thought that he had acquired a sudden admiration for the brilliant social qualities of Mr. Tom, and that he had never ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... me some very handsome presents of Scotch linen. He also obliged his eldest sister, Mrs. Selby,[27] and her husband, to write to me as their sister. Lady Cranstoun likewise wrote to my father in a very complaisant style, thanking him for the civilities he had shewn her son; and hinting, that she hoped it would be in her power to return them to me, when she should have the pleasure of seeing me in Scotland, which she begged might be soon. Lord Cranstoun, his brother, also wrote ...
— Trial of Mary Blandy • William Roughead
... the discourse with that grace which was natural to him, "I believe, Madam," says he, "I may venture to think you were speaking of me as I came in, that you had a design to ask me something, and that Madam de Cleves is against it." "It is true," replied the Queen-Dauphin, "but I shall not be so complaisant to her on this occasion as I was used to be; I would know of you, whether a story I have been told is true, and whether you are not the person who is in love with, and beloved by a lady of the Court, who endeavours to conceal her passion from you, ...
— The Princess of Cleves • Madame de La Fayette
... she had doubts, they were dissipated by a certain constraint in his manner, and the importance he seemed to be attaching to his departure, and she was warned to go within her defenses. Even the most complaisant women like at least the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... from Edinburgh,—it happened, that at this time the sacrament was to be administered in that parish upon Saturday,—his mother-in-law earnestly pressed them to go with them to church and hear sermon; at first he shewed much unwillingness, but partly by their persuasion, and partly by his complaisant disposition, he went along with them. The minister that preached that day was extremely affectionate and serious in his delivery, and though the sermon was a plain familiar discourse, yet his seriousness fixed ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... nothing to do but be quiet and as complaisant as his captors wished, and await developments. And the irony of such a situation—happening in the most crowded and most popular hotel in the Capital, with hundreds of guests at hand, and scores of servants poised to obey one's slightest nod—struck him with all the force of ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott
... winning lines of her face. The girl's eyes shone with a joyful excitement, and her little head, defined by its dark hair, trembled as she slowly turned it from side to side, after she removed the airy scarf which had covered it. Her father, in evening dress, looked the Third Emperor complaisant to a civil occasion, and took a chair in the front of the box without resistance; and the ladies disputed which should yield the best place to the other, till Miss Triscoe forced Mrs. March fondly into it for the first act ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... monarchy, and of the elective over the hereditary principle! The Republicans, he said, had twice elected to the chief magistracy an austerely virtuous Republican whom they had finally been compelled to throw out at the window of the Elysee, as 'the complaisant and guilty witness, if not the interested accomplice, of scandals which revolted the public conscience!' And whom had the elective principle put into his place, under the pressure of irreconcilable personal rivalries, ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... corpses full of fluid blood, and whose beard, hair and nails had grown again. One may dispute three parts of these prodigies, and be very complaisant if we admit the truth of a few of them. All philosophers know well enough how much the people, and even certain historians, enlarge upon things which appear but a little extraordinary. Nevertheless, it is not impossible to explain their ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet |
