"Personable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... moult clergy, about two dozen dames, that treated one another with illustrissima and brown kisses, the vice-legate, the gonfalonier, and some senate. The vice-legate, whose conception was not quite so immaculate, is a young personable person, of about twenty, and had on a mighty pretty cardinal-kind of habit; 'twould make a delightful masquerade dress. We asked his name: Spinola. What, a nephew of the cardinal-legate? Signor, no: ma credo che gli sia ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... French as though it were his native tongue, was an element of sensation which, if adroitly used, could be of great service. It might even defeat Barode Barouche. In the first place, Carnac was young, good-looking, personable, and taking in his manner. Barouche was old, experienced, with hosts of enemies and many friends, but with injurious egotism. An interview ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... books, and won his way somehow to Cambridge College; and from College, after doing famously, he took his foot in his hand and went up to walk the London hospitals; and so bloomed out into a great doctor, with a gold-headed cane and a wonderful gift with the women—a personable man, too, with a neat leg, a high colour, and a voice like a church-organ. The best of the fellow was he helped his parents and never seemed ashamed of 'em. And for this, and because he'd done credit to the town, the folks couldn't make too much ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... has not a single requisite for his office—he is several degrees less personable than M. Jullien—he does not even wear moustaches! and to suppose that a man can beat time properly without them is ridiculous. He looks a great deal more like a modest, respectable grocer, than a man of genius; for he ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 16, 1841 • Various
... was a personable lady, with a high and narrow brow, and a penetrating eye that few in the village could evade if they had aught upon their conscience. It was said, indeed, that she was better than a curate to her husband, for she could pass where a man ...
— The White Riband - A Young Female's Folly • Fryniwyd Tennyson Jesse
... found quite the refuge we wanted in the Bootham, which means very much more than the ignorant reader can imagine. Our upper rooms looked on a pretty grassy garden space behind, where there was sun when there was sun, and in front on the fine old brick dwellings of a most personable street, with a sentiment of bygone fashion. At the upper end of it was a famous city gate—Bootham Bar, namely—with a practicable portcullis, which we verified at an early moment by going up into "the chamber over the gate," ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells
... sound of the bell, the lovers, stepping asunder, repeated their hideous mutual grimace, and disappeared from the platform as suddenly as they had come. Their place was soon taken by another, a more mature, and heavier, but not less personable, couple, who proceeded to make love in their own somewhat different way. The lyrical notes seemed to be missing in them. But maturity, though it had stripped away magic, had not blunted their passion—had, rather, sharpened the ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... visitor of her mother's—a personable young Prussian officer of high rank and title. He was blonde and military and good-looking; he brought his bearing and manner from the Court at Berlin, and the click of his heels as he brought them smartly together, when he made his perfect automatic ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... could bring with him into this dull life of theirs all manner of interest—it was small wonder that in her present mood the girl should feel like this. And it must by no means be supposed that Georgiana was in the habit of experiencing this sort of wish every time she set eyes upon a personable man. Personable men had been many in her acquaintance during the four years of her college life, and more than one of them had followed her back to the old manse to urge ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... said, that Oloff Van Staats was a fair personable young man of vast stature, and with much of the air of a gentleman of his country; for, though a British subject, he was rather a Hollander in feelings, habits, and opinions. He colored at the allusion to the ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... him in his opinion was, that every man unbridled his horse, tied him to some shrub, and hung about his neck a bag of corn which they brought behind them. Then each of them took his saddle wallet, which seemed to Ali Baba to be full of gold and silver from its weight. One, who was the most personable amongst them, and whom he took to be their captain, came with his wallet on his back under the tree in which Ali Baba was concealed, and making his way through some shrubs, pronounced these words so distinctly: "Open, Sesame," that Ali Baba heard him. As soon as the captain of ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown
... address a crowd of workers. As the buzzing little audience gathered, boys climbed up telegraph poles with the stickers "We Want Hanna," and a small, pale-faced man with a protruding jaw was the center of a political argument for Hanna. At last the brake arrived. The major, a tall, personable man, stood up in the cart. But all the good old Ulster rallying cries he used, seemed to ...
— What's the Matter with Ireland? • Ruth Russell
... turned in the lock; and there appeared upon the threshold a gentleman, between forty and fifty, with a very open countenance and of a stout and personable figure. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Doctor Plausible was a personable man, apparently about five-and-thirty years old: he wore a little powder in his hair, black silk stockings, and knee-breeches. In this I consider Doctor Plausible was right; the above look much more scientific ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... was one to go much when I was to home, only amongst the near neighbors. I dono as ever I was in East Cyrus before. 'Tis a pleasant-lookin' place. Nice street; not many stores, but what there was was ship-shape and Bristol fashion; folks personable and well-appearin'; I was pleased with East Cyrus. I druv along kind o' slow, lookin' for my kind of a place; sure enough, I come to a little store with candy in the window. Hossy saw it too, and stopped of his ...
— The Wooing of Calvin Parks • Laura E. Richards
... Puritan laws and customs would allow him to put on. His hair was cropped close to his head, because Governor Endicott [Footnote: Governor Endicott: governor of the Massachusetts colony from 1647 to 1665.] had forbidden any man to wear it below the ears. But he was a very personable young man; and so thought the ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... suddenly broken by seeing that some one was close by my side, and a single glance said, a stranger. I was startled and rose up, but the stranger stood still and seemed to wish to speak to me. Yet he did not speak. I saw the air of a gentleman, the dress of a European in Syria, the outlines of a personable man; one glance at his face showed me a bronzed complexion, warm-coloured auburn hair, and a frank and very bright eye. I looked away, and then irresistibly was driven to look back again. He smiled. ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell
... one may judge from the fact that it is the municipality which keeps Abderrahman's mosque in repair. There are public gardens, far pleasanter than those of Valladolid, which we visited in an interval of the afternoon, and there is a very personable bull-ring to which we drove in the vain hope of seeing the people come out in a typical multitude. But there had been no feast of bulls; and we had to make what we could out of the walking and driving in the Paseo del ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... course! You must be Jan! Except for being bigger you haven't changed a bit since I saw you years ago one Speech Day at Harrow!" She looked with open admiration at the very personable young man before her who loomed large in the hall with his height of six feet two and a tremendous width of shoulder. His eyes were grey, and as honest as a genuine fine day; the jaw was just saved from a shadow of brutality in its strength by a remarkably fine ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... landlady, with sudden austerity, "I'll have you know as it's none of your business saying words what's onpleasant—and me his mother, too. What's it you say? Cloven hoof? He's a personable gentleman, if he has got summat a matter with a foot, and ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... Love walked from the old chapterhouse of saint Mary's abbey past James and Charles Kennedy's, rectifiers, attended by Geraldines tall and personable, towards the Tholsel ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... Abbot, and was of many minds concerning him. There was yet time; their colloquy was in secret; but now she tapped with her foot upon the stool, and the Abbot watched her narrowly. He was a tall and personable man, famous for his smile, stout and smooth, his skin soft as a woman's, his robe, his ring, his cross and mere slippers all ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... of regularity. All forenoon he worked on his great book, the "Comparative Pharmacopoeia, or Historical Dictionary of all Medicines," which as yet consisted principally of slips of paper and pins. When finished, it was to fill many personable volumes, and to combine antiquarian interest with professional utility. But the Doctor was studious of literary graces and the picturesque; an anecdote, a touch of manners, a moral qualification, or a sounding epithet was sure to be preferred before a piece of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... it would have been a hard-enough lot to be pooh-poohed through life by every personable female one met. Here the coupled syllables carried an added sting of contemptuousness. In the language of the country they meant runty, mean-figured, undersized. A graceful girl, her naked limbs glistening with coconut oil, ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... burnish; gild &c. (decorate) 847; set out. "snatch a grace beyond the reach of art" [Pope]. Adj. beautiful, beauteous; handsome; gorgeous; pretty; lovely, graceful, elegant, prepossessing; attractive &c. (inviting) 615; delicate, dainty, refined; fair, personable, comely, seemly; bonny [Scottish]; good- looking; well-favored, well-made, well-formed, well-proportioned; proper, shapely; symmetrical &c. (regular) 242; harmonious &c. (color) 428; sightly. fit to be seen, passable, not amiss. goodly, dapper, tight, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... the memory of man been so brilliant. The things done in it were called War Work and necessitated much active gaiety. Persons of both sexes, the majority of them in becoming uniform, flashed in and out in high spirits. If you were a personable and feminine creature, it was necessary to look as much like an attractive boy as possible when you were doing War Work. If one could achieve something like leggings in addition to a masculine cut of coat, one could swagger about most ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... douche and a swim in the cold pool had revived me. Also, in the cold pool I had encountered Nemestronia, still personable enough at eighty-odd to mingle daily with her social world, as nude as they, and enjoy herself thoroughly. Yet, at her age, she knew she looked better when under water, and spent most of her time in the pools. She and I did some fancy swimming together, while she questioned ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... arena Brilliana held herself unseen and then swiftly sped back to the pleasaunce. She stood for some seconds on the threshold of a yew arch watching the reading man and wondering why it had pleased Providence to make a Puritan so personable and skilful, wondering why she of all women should take any interest either in his person or in his skill, wondering how long he would remain buried in his tiresome book unconscious of her presence. She decided that she would slip away and leave him ignorant of her coming, and having decided that, ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... usually hidden in the portraits by a hat. We must think of Raleigh at this time as a tall, somewhat bony man, about six feet high, with dark hair and a high colour, a facial expression of great brightness and alertness, personable from the virile force of his figure, and illustrating these attractions by a splendid taste in dress. His clothes were at all times noticeably gorgeous; and to the end of his life he was commonly bedizened with precious stones to his very shoes. When he was arrested ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... looking-glass, which stood in the window, and surveyed himself critically. Yes, his cheeks were a bit puffy near the nostrils, and, as is generally the case in later life, the pores of the skin were a bit enlarged, but for all that he was quite a personable man. ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... flowers, and the captain's orderly, when he came to tell us our automobile was ready, had a huge peony stuck in a buttonhole of his blouse. I caught a peep at another soldier, who was flirting with a personable Flemish scullery maid behind the protection of the kitchen wall. The proprietress and her daughters stood at the door to wave us good-by and to wish us, with apparent sincerity, a safe journey down into France, and ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... Glenmire, instead of being tossed about, and wondering where she is to settle, will be certain of a home among pleasant and kind people, such as our good Miss Pole and Mrs Forrester. And Mr Hoggins is really a very personable man; and as for his manners, why, if they are not very polished, I have known people with very good hearts and very clever minds too, who were not what some people reckoned refined, but who were both true ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... not a personable gentleman. The early Saxon strain in him had taken the form of obesity, a tendency not confined, if we may trust the evidence of scholars, to descendants of Saxon kings. To those who had little sympathy with genius in its more alarming shapes, his fair chin whisker ...
— Tutors' Lane • Wilmarth Lewis
... the world in general is aware, a handsome, or even a personable woman. Her face was long; the eyes not large nor beautiful in colour—they were, I think, of a greyish blue—the hair, which she wore in old-fashioned braids coming low down on either side of her face, of a rather light brown. It was ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... to you can hear what is said. The King enters the room and goes round to the right; the Queen and Princesses to the left. The lord-in-waiting presents you to the King; and the lady-in-waiting does the same to her Majesty. The King is a personable man; but, my dear sister, he has a certain countenance, which you and I have often remarked: a red face and white eyebrows. The Queen has a similar countenance, and the numerous royal family confirm the observation. Persons are not placed according to their rank in ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... accession George was in his twenty-third year. He was a decidedly personable young Prince. He had the large regular features of his race, the warm complexion of good health, and a vigorous constitution, keen attractive eyes, and a firm, full mouth. He was tall and strongly ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... her, the slightest wayward impulse some lawless centaur came to know it, to exult over it, to make test of it. Her every word, her minutest expression of a natural coquetry was enlarged upon as a sign of weakness, of yielding. Every personable female was the focus of a natural desire, intensified by lonely brooding on the part of ...
— The Forester's Daughter - A Romance of the Bear-Tooth Range • Hamlin Garland
... himself once an Assistant Secretary of the Navy, often went over his head to deal directly with the naval bureaus on shipbuilding programs and manpower problems as well as the disposition of the fleet. But Knox was a personable man and a forceful speaker, and he was particularly useful to the President in congressional liaison and public relations. Roosevelt preferred to work through the secretary in dealing with the delicate question of black participation ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... coherent answer, but smiled always, then leaned forward and stroked Mrs. Benson upon her personable cheek. "Dear old thing, let me do as I like. It's much better ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... that poets and dreamers know when they lose hold upon their dreams. Measured by minutes, this hour was not long. Neil passed a hand across his forehead and sat up, reaching for his cap in a dazed way, for he was not to be permitted to hide longer from his trouble here. The plump and personable figure of Mr. Theodore Burr was crossing the square and disappearing into the door below. His unhurried step climbed the stairs. Neil ...
— The Wishing Moon • Louise Elizabeth Dutton
... employers, was sometimes invited by them to tea. When his wife died, Miss Hobson, who since her father's death had become a partner in the firm, met Mr. Newcome with his little boy as she was coming out of meeting one Sunday, and the child looked so pretty, and Mr. Newcome so personable, that Miss Hobson invited him and little Tommy into the grounds; let the child frisk about in the hay on the lawn, and at the end of the visit gave him a large piece of pound-cake, a quantity of the finest hot-house ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... of Acrington, told me this day much of young Sir Everard Charlett, whom he remember'd Commoner of University College, and thought was of the same Family as Dr. Arthur Charlett, now master of ye Coll. This Charlett was a personable young gent., but a loose atheistical companion, and a great Lifter, as they then call'd the hard drinkers, and for what I know do so now. He was noted, and subject to severall censures at different times for his extravagancies: and if the full ...
— A Thin Ghost and Others • M. R. (Montague Rhodes) James
... mother this, and Mrs. Wesley fenced with the question while hardening her heart. In truth she feared what might happen if Hetty stayed. They had made some new acquaintances at Wroote and at Bawtry there was a lover, a young lawyer . . . a personable young man, reputed to be clever in his profession. . . . Mrs. Wesley knew nothing to his discredit . . . and sure, Hetty's face might attract any lover. So her thoughts ran, without blaming the girl, whose heart she believed to be engaged, though she could not tell how deeply. But the Rector ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch |
