"Phlegmatic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... grip of a strange apathy. He was tired, physically weary. His body was dull and heavy, sluggish. So was his mind. He was aware of this, aware that a nervous reaction of some sort was upon him. He wished that he could always be like that,—dull, phlegmatic, uncaring. To cease thinking, to have done with feeling, to be a clod, dead to desires, to ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... a small, square skin window in the roof. The only noticeable furniture consists of two board beds, with skins for bed-clothes. The women sit on these beds, sewing upon seal-skin boots. They receive us with their characteristic fat and phlegmatic good-nature, a pleasant smile on their chubby cheeks and in their dark, dull eyes,—making room for us on the bedside. Presently others come in, mildly curious to see the strangers,—all with the same aspect of unthinking, good-tempered, insensitive, animal content. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... one instant, combating a strong temptation to seize the phlegmatic page by the collar, and give him such another shaking as he would not get over for a week to come; but suddenly recollecting he was Leoline's brother, and by the same token a marquis or thereabouts, he merely paused to cast a withering look upon ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... though a most worthy and estimable person, was of a phlegmatic temperament; her sympathies were not easily aroused, her mind was lazy and torpid, in conversation she was unutterably dull. There were times when she was painfully conscious of this, and would have given much for ...
— The Autobiography of a Slander • Edna Lyall
... George had been as fair of face and hair as Andrew was dark, as cheerful and amusing as Andrew was gloomy and dispiriting, as agile and dexterous of mind and body as his brother was slow and angular, as emotional and warm-hearted as the other was phlegmatic and sour—or so it seemed to the father and to nearly ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... a great singer unquestionably," responded her more phlegmatic friend, "but the registers of her voice are not so even ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... well cut, and the misfortunes and disappointments of life are the more keenly felt in consequence of the possession of this temperament! Whether the balance is equally maintained or not is a question only to be answered by the individual, but I incline to the belief that life is smoother to the phlegmatic than the artistic temperament!—though I should not believe it would be possible to find any person possessing the latter who would be willing to renounce it, in spite of its disadvantages, so I must perforce conclude it to be a ...
— The Idler Magazine, Vol III. May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... of faith. Lady Dorinda, having shut her curtain for the night, declined to take any part in this household festivity, though she contributed some unheard sighs and groans of annoyance during its progress. A phlegmatic woman, fond of her ease, could hardly keep her tranquillity, besieged by cannon in the daytime, and by chattering and laughter, the cracking of nuts and the thump of soldiers' feet half ...
— The Lady of Fort St. John • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... apron round his waist, than Gyp ran forward and looked up in his master's face with patient expectation. If Gyp had had a tail he would doubtless have wagged it, but being destitute of that vehicle for his emotions, he was like many other worthy personages, destined to appear more phlegmatic than nature had ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... The phlegmatic old fox asked to see the deed which, on thinking the matter over, seemed to him to contain the solution of the enigma. Birotteau drew the fatal stamped paper from his pocket and gave it to Monsieur de Bourbonne, ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... principally to the imagination and fears of the people. He ascertained, however, enough from Bartley Sullivan to justify a belief that there was something certainly uncommon about the woman; and being of a cold, phlegmatic disposition, with some humor, he desired them to go home, if they were wise—he shook his head mysteriously as he spoke—"and do the woman no injury, if they didn't wish—" and with this abrupt hint he sent ...
— Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee • William Carleton
... be pardoned —of a horse with certain points; but you wouldn't dare go on a journey with a man merely upon the strength of knowing that his temperament was the proper mixture of the sanguine and the phlegmatic. Science is not able to teach us concerning men as it teaches us of horses, though I am very far from saying that there are not traits of nobleness and of meanness that run through families and can be calculated ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... with the mixture of unusual emotions that assailed her. She was exceedingly sticky and uncomfortable from honey and tears, and she shivered with repugnance at the odor of Marthy's unbathed person. She was astonished at the outburst from phlegmatic Marthy Meilke, and her pity was now alloyed with her promise to wash all those dirty dishes. Billy Louise felt that she had been a trifle hasty in making promises. There was not a drop of water in the house nor ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... methodical service of women and enjoined deeds of heroism, cours d'amour, bombastic Troubadour songs and so forth, although it is to be observed that these last absurdities, which have an intellectual side, were principally at home in France; while among the material phlegmatic Germans the knights distinguished themselves more by drinking and robbing. Drinking and hoarding their castles with plunder were the occupations of their lives; and certainly there was no want of stupid love-songs in ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... we oppose the excess rather than the defect, because it is of more common occurrence: for human nature is more disposed to take than to forgo revenge. And the Cross-grained are worse to live with [than they who are too phlegmatic]. ...
— Ethics • Aristotle
... these last words with so sovereign a confidence; her beautiful countenance shone, as is it were, with such intrepid joy, that Rodin, notwithstanding his phlegmatic audacity, was for a moment frightened. Yet he did not appear in the least disconcerted; and, after a moment's silence, he resumed, with an air of almost contemptuous compassion: "My dear young lady, ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... That very noon he was fighting with his back against the wall. In Workingman's Hall he was making his last fierce fight to hold from crumbling the resolution of the strikers who still stood by their guns.... He threw the fire of his soul into their dull, phlegmatic faces. It struck no answering spark. Never before had he spoken to men without a consciousness of his powers, without pose, without dramatics. Now he was himself, and more dramatic, more compelling than ever before. ... He pleaded, ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... articles of food than of medicine: they are supposed to afford little or no nourishment, and when eaten liberally they produce flatulencies, occasion thirst, headachs, and turbulent dreams: in cold phlegmatic habits, where viscid mucus abounds, they doubtless have their use; as by their stimulating quality they tend to excite appetite, attenuate thick juices, and promote their expulsion: by some they are strongly recommended in suppressions of urine and ...
— The Botanist's Companion, Vol. II • William Salisbury
... known in Chapelizod that Sturk was poking after Lord Castlemallard's agency that Nutter felt the scene going on before his eyes between him and Dangerfield like a public affront. His ire was that of a phlegmatic man, dangerous when stirred, and there was no mistaking, in his rigid, swarthy countenance, ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... had been reported absent from his cabin, the day that Murphy came up from the valley, and he had not returned. So there was mystery in plenty to keep the talk going. One man shot dead from ambush and three persons missing, were enough to stir the most phlegmatic soul—and Mrs. Singleton Corey, however self-possessed her manner, was ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... shade of displeasure had come over the King's countenance, when Wilton expressed a doubt as to answering the question at all; but whether it was from his natural command over his features, the coldness of a phlegmatic constitution, or that he really was not seriously angry, the cloud upon his brow was certainly not a hundredth part so heavy as it would probably have been with any other sovereign in Europe. He contented himself, then, when Wilton had come to the end of the sentence, by merely saying, ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... through overhanging cliffs of party-colored sandstone out of its thread-like gorge into the wide chasm of the Mississippi. A small steamer lay at anchor and tooted a discordant horn to signify to the world that she intended to be up and doing. A crowd of phlegmatic-faced revelers stood upon the bank and watched her with absorbed indifference, while a smaller number pushed aboard and prepared for true joy by laying in a store of cracker-jack and peanuts ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... her fan. The dull, slow rage was simmering within her. Even her vanity could not misinterpret the meaning of Hector's devotion to Mrs. Brown. He was deeply in love, of course, and she, Morella, was robbed of her hopes of being Lady Bracondale. Her usually phlegmatic nature was roused in all its narrow strength. She was like some silent, vengeful beast waiting a ...
— Beyond The Rocks - A Love Story • Elinor Glyn
... F very phlegmatic about it. Says another twelve hours of observation may be of value. She and A rowed ashore over the runners trailing in the water and with great difficulty succeeded in hacking off a few runners of the sprayed Grass. I ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... most ardent and the coolest man alive. When his emotions slumbered he appeared almost phlegmatic; when they were moved he was no less than passionate. And now, without having quite intended an early marriage, he put the question plainly. It came with all the ardour which was the accumulation of long years behind a ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... suddenly from ambush; but in all the beautiful squares, with their pompous statues, and in all the wider streets, and out in the wide Theresien Field before the colossal figure of Bavaria, the women were gathered; relapsing into phlegmatic calm as soon as she had given her message ...
— The White Morning • Gertrude Atherton
... all these circumstances we should find our hero somewhat hardened in his estimate of human sympathies, and not altogether disinclined to view everything, whether it concerned life or death, or marriage, or parting or meeting, all in one phlegmatic way, as occurring as a matter of course? What ought to strike us as more curious is that he was only reduced to that level of intellect where he thought even that much of anything at all besides his actual eating, drinking, ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence
... grace, and promise of the youthful Rosina, had he been ten times a Dutchman; and if he heard of her intended emigration to America, as he possibly might have done, it most likely excited no particular emotion in his phlegmatic bosom. He could not have imagined that the exportation of a little singing-girl to New York should interfere with a potential venture of his own in fair linen. The gods kindly hid the future from ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... second part of the oratorio. I had almost forgotten that I was to sing at all, and was watching von Francius and listening to his sharp speeches. I remembered what Anna Sartorius had said in describing this haupt-probe to me. It was all just as she had said. He was severe; his speeches roused the phlegmatic blood, set the professional instrumentalists laughing at their amateur co-operators, but provoked no reply or resentment. It was extraordinary, the effect of this man's will upon those he had to do with—upon women ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... small head, the fluttering or chafing of her brown fingers, and not unfrequently by an impatient stamp, or other movement of her foot that exposed fairy toe and instep. Contemplation of the one rested and refreshed the observer; of the other, amused and excited him. Mr. Dorrance's phlegmatic nature found supreme content in dwelling upon the incarnation of patrician tranquillity at his right hand, and he regarded the actions of his frisky would-be tormentor very much as a placid, well-gorged salmon would survey, ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... without feeling. Her temperament was far from phlegmatic. She had experienced great cyclones of grief and loss in her varied career, though many years had elapsed since she had known what the French ...
— An Ambitious Man • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... tells us, been subject from his earliest manhood, and he attributes to overtoil in boyhood this tendency which was probably a part of his natural temperament. To a disposition like his, raptures, exaltations, agonies came as naturally as a uniform neutral-tinted existence to more phlegmatic spirits. But we may be sure that every cause of self-reproach which his past life had stored up in his memory tended to keep him more and more familiar with the lower pole in that ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... deep lower jaw, strong legs and neck, semi-hanging ears, truncated tail, and frequent presence of a fifth toe, distinguish the noble Mastiff. They are silent, phlegmatic dogs, conscious of their own strength, seem to consider themselves more as companions than servants, are resolute, and face danger with the utmost self-possession. A cold region, such as the highest ranges of Central ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... Wolford, phlegmatic as he was, seemed slightly moved by this unexpected change in the manner and position of Tompkins. He narrowly observed the expression of his face, but did not reply. He was afraid to trust himself to speak, lest he should betray ...
— Finger Posts on the Way of Life • T. S. Arthur
... infernal duffer off so easily. By-the-bye, Isaacs," he said aloud, coming up to us, "you know you won the game. Nobody stopped the ball after you hit it, and the saices say it ran right through the goal. So cheer up; you have got something for your pains and your tumble." It was quite true; the phlegmatic saices had watched the ball instead of the falling man. Miss Westonhaugh, who was really a sensible and self-possessed young woman, and had begun to be sure that the accident would have no serious results, expressed the ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... fate's transferred decree, The visitor becomes the visitee, Oh, then, indeed, it pulls another string; Your ox is gored, and that's a different thing! Your friend is sick: phlegmatic as a Turk, You write your recipe and let it work; Not yours to stand the shiver and the frown, And sometimes worse, with which your draught goes down. Calm as a clock your knowing hand directs, Rhei, jalapae ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... reconciled to the best theories. Yes, water is a cure for all sorts of dropsies, just as it is good for rheumatisms and the green sickness. It is excellent, too, in those fevers where the effect is at once to parch and to chill; and even miraculous in those disorders ascribed to cold, thin, phlegmatic, and pituitous humors. This opinion may appear strange to young practitioners like Cuchillo, but it is right orthodox in the best and soundest systems; so that if persons of that description were capable of taking a philosophical view, instead of crying me down, ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... surgeon. It is evident from the bearing of patients, nurses, and students that they are dealing with a less highly strung population than ours. Indeed, the surgeons who know both countries tell me that here in Germany they have more endurance of this phlegmatic kind. They suffer more like animals. Their patience reaches down to the very ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... apparently phlegmatic, are somewhat given to Blowing up, and, when about to die, instead of taking the matter coolly and philosophically, they are always terribly Flurried. In fact, the whale, when in articulo mortis, makes a more tremendous rumpus about ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 19, August 6, 1870 • Various
... beseech you, be not so phlegmatic. Hear the truth of it: he came of an errand to ...
— The Merry Wives of Windsor - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... extraordinary display of deep feeling and quaint rugged eloquence which had just been wrung from their hitherto phlegmatic and taciturn skipper, stretched to their oars in dead silence, mechanically keeping the boat stern on to the sea, and so regulating her speed as to avoid the mischance of being pooped or overrun ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... sandy-haired German squatted beside the hunchback, watching an unproductive pole with a patience worthy of a better cause. At John's corner, a party of voluble loafers joked noisily as they unwound long, many-hooked throwlines and jointed nondescript rods. Beside Bill, a phlegmatic Scandinavian puffed morosely at an empty pipe. Just beyond, a fat negress shifted her bulk from time to time as she baited the hooks on one of her husband's numerous fishing outfits. Farther landward, a mixed throng—nattily clad business ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... Temple Oliphant. Remarkably similar in personal appearance, they were hardly less so in personal character. Both of them were about forty years of age; both of them were tall and fair, with bushy whiskers and mustaches; both of them were phlegmatic in temperament, and both much addicted to the wearing of their uniforms. They were proud of their nationality, and exhibited a manifest dislike, verging upon contempt, of everything foreign. Probably they would have felt no surprise if they had been told that Anglo-Saxons were fashioned out of some ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... authority in the administration of it. In corroboration of this, the little black eye of Judge Mondelet brightly twinkled, and he nodded his head in dignified approbation. Judge Van Feloon, who seemed more phlegmatic, quietly settled the matter by saying, that he supposed if a man did work for another, and the other had agreed to pay him, he was entitled to the money, and that therefore the court would have to see that a bargain ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin
... this in music, that it is suited to please all the varieties of the human mind. The illiterate and the learned, the thoughtless and the giddy, the phlegmatic and the sanguine, all confess themselves to be its votaries. It is a source of the purest mental enjoyment, and may be obtained by all. It is suited to all classes, and never ceases to ...
— Sketch of Handel and Beethoven • Thomas Hanly Ball
... the psychologists and philosophers have been too broad and too classical to be of practical value. Sanguine and choleric temperament, the bilious, the nervous and the phlegmatic, the quick and the slow, all these are broad divisions, and no man really exemplifies them. What I propose to do is less ambitious, but perhaps more practical. I shall take a few of the qualities with which the previous pages have concerned themselves and show how they ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... worth anything," she replied nonchalantly. "As a nation, you might sometimes give us the impression of being phlegmatic and slow-witted. Both ideas may have some basis of fact, yet not be absolutely true. We are not all abnormally quick in America. Look at our ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... disaster threatening the great republic, and now that it was safe to do so, did not hesitate to show their delight. Sensitive and proud of his country, Dick was cut to the quick, but Warner was more phlegmatic. ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler
... to-morrow a little Infanta—without any other desire than to rise in rank among the members of the royal household, to see a cross of red cloth sewed on his black jerkin. He was a lofty soul, enclosed in a phlegmatic body that never tormented him with nervous desires nor disturbed the calm of his work with violent passions. When he died the good Dona Juana, his wife, died too, as though they sought each other, unable to remain apart after their long, ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... something he could never have! I got out of patience with the fellow. Even if she loved him, what chance had he against the legions of the King? Hillars was a wild-headed fellow, and, if at liberty, was not incapable of creating a disturbance. It might land him in jail, or on the gallows. The phlegmatic German is not particular whom he hangs. In that wide domain there is always some petty revolution going on. In each of those petty kingdoms, or principalities, or duchies, there are miniature Rousseaus and Voltaires who shout liberty and equality in beer halls and rouse ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath
... the blackberries are dead on the bushes, and the long-suffering corn looks as though afflicted with the yellow jaundice. I sup this same evening with a family of Germans, who have been settled here forty years, and scarcely know a word of English yet. A fat, phlegmatic-looking baby is peacefully reposing in a cradle, which is simply half a monster pumpkin scooped out and dried; it is the most intensely rustic cradle in the world. Surely, this youngster's head ought to be level on agricultural affairs, when he grows up, if anybody's ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... most phlegmatic tones. "Aye, just so! And where d'ye intend to cut in, now, like? Is it a sort of Gordian knot affair that you're thinking of? Going to solve ...
— The Rayner-Slade Amalgamation • J. S. Fletcher
... by with his arm familiarly passed through that of a phlegmatic-looking young Chinaman whom he led up to Miss Maitland's portrait. Ling Hop had been cook on a yacht, when an artistic friend of Pelgram's and a parasite of the yacht's owner had discovered one day that the guardian of the galley was a fair draughtsman with some little imagination; ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... phlegmatic brain of her people, was stupefied for a little time, then, recovering some vivacity, she inquired hesitatingly as though she was never at her ease with the ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... horses, and horses seem pleased with their company; but dogs and cats are proverbially discordant. I presume that two species of animals do not consider one another companionable, or clubable, unless their behaviour and their persons are reciprocally agreeable. A phlegmatic animal would be exceedingly disquieted by the close companionship of an excitable one. The movements of one beast may have a character that is unpleasing to the eyes of another; his cries may sound discordant; ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton
... of the train, upon its arrival at Philadelphia, there was an aspect of absolute exhaustion, varied in its expression according to the individual. Phlegmatic men lay upon their backs, across the seats, with their legs dangling in the aisles. One might send them spinning round or toss their feet out of the passage, and their worn faces showed no more sign than if they were ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... shaken by the failure and disappearance of Blake, had been peremptorily ordered South by his physician. Seizing the opportunity, Ashton, instead of interfering with the work, as McGraw expected, had astonished the phlegmatic general foreman by pushing operations with utmost ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet
... virtue in her eyes. What was going on in her mind no one ever knew. She was more phlegmatic than an Indian; but the tails of the sheep on the Town Hill did not better show the quarter of the wind than the changing colour of Aimable's face indicated Jean's coming or going. For Mattresse Aimable had one eternal secret, an unwavering passion for Jean Touzel. If he patted her on the back ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... which set the heart of Europe beating high. Italians were proclaiming a foreign army the liberators of their country, while Jacobins growled fiercely against the Pope. Kosciusko, in Poland, organised a futile revolution, and fell in the cause of national freedom. Even phlegmatic Englishmen caught the spirit of the times, hated intensely or worshipped enthusiastically that liberty which some saw as an imperial goddess for the sake of whose bare limbs and pale, noble face death might be gladly met; while others beheld in her a blood-spattered ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham
... and still our wond'ring eyes With deeds magnanimous like these surprize, And lest some wretch, phlegmatic, dull, and cold, Without applause such actions should behold, Aloud to list'ning crowds your worth proclaim, Yourself the herald of your deathless fame. To spacious Berks your dignity avow, From Buscot's meads, to Windsor's lofty brow, Till LOVEDEN's daring ...
— An Heroic Epistle to the Right Honourable the Lord Craven (3rd Ed.) • William Combe
... type, not easily influenced from without, and not so much suggestible as autosuggestible. The other type, which is significant from our present point of view, is thus described by Miss Stein: "In general the individuals, often blonde and pale, are distinctly phlegmatic. If emotional, decidedly of the weakest, sentimental order. They may be either large, healthy, rather heavy, and lacking in vigor or they may be what we call anaemic and phlegmatic. Their power of concentrated ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... coal-man cursing another for not moving on, smothered his shrieking spouse in a pillow brought over for that purpose from the Blaisdells', where most of the actors were boarding. We were not inclined to endure this quietly. The more phlegmatic among us moved uneasily in our seats, and one or two men, excitable beyond the ordinary, sprang up, with an oath. Mrs. Wilson ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... but from the loins and the calves of the legs. They excite vomiting by means of certain herbs which they chew, and keep in their mouths. They use likewise various other remedies and antidotes, which it were tedious to enumerate. They are subject to different sanguineous and phlegmatic humours, occasioned by the nature of their food, which consists of fish, with various roots, fruits, and herbs. They use no meal of any kind of corns or other seeds; but their chief food is made from the root of a certain tree, which they bruise down into a tolerably good ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... man," a sort of sluggishly responded Don Benito, like a phlegmatic appreciator, who would neither find fault ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... officers quickly made their appearance under its arched avenues; they were accompanied by a little thick-set man, with a phlegmatic, almost sleepy, expression of face—the army doctor. He carried in one hand an earthenware pitcher of water—to be ready for any emergency; a satchel with surgical instruments and bandages hung on his left shoulder. It was obvious that he was thoroughly used to such excursions; ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... bothering to look from behind his paper. Phlegmatic old Buzz, McGee thought, what was the use of getting excited over an ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke
... the rest of the last century put together. This was largely due to the climax of Irish affairs in the House. For effect in debate the English and Scotch Members,—not to speak of the Welsh Representatives,—are failures compared with those Members from across the water. No matter how hard the phlegmatic Englishman, the querulous Scotchman, or the whinings of those from gallant little Wales may try for effect, they have to give way to the Irish in the art of making a scene in the House. Occasionally, as ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... the phlegmatic attitude of a strong man who feels himself vanquished; his countenance, cold, silent, entirely English, revealed the consciousness of his dignity in a momentary resignation. Moreover, he had already ...
— The Girl with the Golden Eyes • Honore de Balzac
... Wendell Phillip's name to one of the "Chivalry." Politics ran high in Italy in these days of the Renaissance, and to have a pair of stout fists shaken in one's face in a drawing-room for a difference of opinion is not as much "out of order" as it would be on this more phlegmatic side of the Atlantic, where fists have a deep significance not dreamed of by expansive Italians. In another corner we have had many a tete-a-tete with Dall' Ongaro, the poet, who is as quick at an impromptu as at a malediction ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... too hard," said Miss Du Prel. "I used to think I was bad in that way, but I am phlegmatic compared with you. One would ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... expression of great good humor. He provides me with a substantial breakfast of rice and pork, and fetches his wife and children in to enjoy the exhibition of a Fankwae feeding, likewise permitting the crowd to look in through the doors and windows. He is a phlegmatic, easy-going Celestial, and occupies about two hours copying my passport and writing a letter. At the end of this time he musters a squad of twelve retainers in faded red uniforms and armed with rusty pikes, who lead the way back ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... by this sudden outburst on the part of a man whom up to that time he had taken to be unusually cool-headed and phlegmatic, did not immediately answer. He was watching the Ellersdeane constable, who was running after Gabriel Chestermarke's rapidly retreating figure. He saw Gabriel stop, listen to an evident question, and then lift his hand and point to various features ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... view it will be understood that people possessing a calm and phlegmatic temperament, will not attain to high degrees of fever, except in cases of very serious complications, while nervous people may quickly reach very considerable degrees of temperature. Children and younger people are more inclined to high fever, ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann
... traps, to retake the same village ten times, to burrow into the soil and crouch there, to watch day after day for the moment when the beast at bay ventures from his lair—where have we acquired the phlegmatic coolness for such things? Has it come from the proximity of our English allies? It is in the English reports that we read the eulogies of our army for its ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... belongings; malaria and typhoid are prevalent and even bubonic plague is not unknown, the combined effect of all these showing in the sallow and enervated faces of its inhabitants. Yet it is a bustling, up-and-doing city, as different from phlegmatic, conservative old Batavia as Los Angeles is ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... born farmer, as was his father. He had come honestly by his nickname. In face, figure, expression, and manner he was a five-hundred-year throwback to his Holland ancestors. Apple-cheeked, stocky, merry of eye, and somewhat phlegmatic. When, at school, they had come to the story of the Dutch boy who saved his town from flood by thrusting his finger into the hole in the dike and holding it there until help came, the class, after one look at the accompanying picture in the reader, dubbed ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber
... establishment in the Rue de Grammont appeared a signboard with the name of Van Klopen, dressmaker, and in the thousands of handbills distributed with the utmost profusion, he called himself the "Regenerator of Fashion." This was an idea that would have never originated in the brain of the phlegmatic Dutchman, and whence came the funds to carry on the business? On this point he was discreetly silent. The enterprise was at first far from a success, for during nearly a month Paris almost split its sides laughing at the absurd pretensions of the self-dubbed "Regenerator of Fashion." ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... bowsprit pointing to the wind, and her white mainsail flapping and quivering in the breeze, which seemed to send mimic waves chasing each other along it from mast to edge, while the jib lay all of a heap waiting to be hoisted, being one that would have roused the most phlegmatic to a desire to have a cruise, and see some of the wonders of the deep ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... that the stone as it stood was entire, and that it had been fixed there to mark a boundary or place of meeting. Anyhow, whatever the origin of the relic, there was and is something sinister, or solemn, according to mood, in the scene amid which it stands; something tending to impress the most phlegmatic passer-by. ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... his poetic temperament, his exquisite and almost morbid sensibility, so grievously tried by circumstances, it would be equally absurd and untrue to pretend that he was as impassible as a stoic, or phlegmatic as some good citizen who vegetates rather than lives. Did such qualities, or rather faults,—for they betoken a cold nature,—ever belong to Milton, Dante, Alfieri, and those master-spirits whose strength of ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... lightly. One cheer went up from scores of thousands; hats darkened the air; eyes blazing with filial veneration followed the stately figure of the monarch, as he passed by, gratefully smiling and greeting on either hand. I stood among the people and watched their faces. I saw the phlegmatic Slavonic features transformed with a sudden and powerful expression of love, of devotion, of gratitude, and then I knew that the throne of Alexander II. rested on a better basis than tradition or force. I saw therein another side of this shrewd, cunning, patient, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... theoretically under the control of Lord Dorchester at Quebec; but his relations with Dorchester were somewhat strained, and he succeeded in making himself virtually independent in his western jurisdiction. Though he seemed phlegmatic, he possessed a vigorous and enterprising disposition, and he planned great things for Upper Canada. He explored the country in search of the best site for a capital; and it is interesting to know that he had such faith in the future of Upper Canada that he actually contemplated placing ...
— The United Empire Loyalists - A Chronicle of the Great Migration - Volume 13 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • W. Stewart Wallace
... from Mars understand this better, for their quarter is a penal colony. Sleepy-eyed, phlegmatic Martians, self-condemned for minute violations of their incredible and complex mores—without guards save themselves—will return to the subterranean cities, complex philosophies, and cool, dry air of Mars when ...
— Foundling on Venus • John de Courcy
... disposition, to halt at his whisper or proceed at his word. As the principal part of the work was performed at midsummer under the rays of a scorching sun, the cattle were, of course, irritable and restive to a degree that in colder weather would have seemed inconsistent with the phlegmatic ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... an idea John Shelley could not accept so suddenly. His slow phlegmatic mind could not travel beyond his own ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 355, October 16, 1886 • Various
... interest or even knew what it was about. During the course of the Revolution there were thirty thousand Hessians in the British armies in America, and, as their owners, the German princelings, received L5 apiece for them it was a profitable arrangement for those phlegmatic, corpulent, and braggart personages. The Americans complained that the Hessians were brutal and tricky fighters; but in reality they merely carried out the ideals of their German Fatherland which remained behind the rest of Europe in its ideals of what was fitting in war. Being uncivilized, ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... talked of bygone days, Jeanne with tears in her throat, and Rosalie in the quiet tone of a phlegmatic peasant. The servant kept referring to the subject of unpaid interests; and at last requested Jeanne to give her up all the business papers that Jeanne, in her ignorance of money matters, was hiding from her, out ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... artist lives much more in his art than in his life; his life has become the dream, his art the reality. His creative powers had been reawakened by contact with Paris. There is no stronger stimulant in the world than the sight of that city of work. The most phlegmatic natures are touched by its fever. Christophe, being rested by years of healthy solitude, brought to his work an enormous accumulation of force. Enriched by the new conquests forever being made in the fields of musical technique by the intrepid curiosity of the French, he hurled himself in ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... lady burns nothing about her phlegmatic admirer but his tobacco. You must know, Sir, every woman carries in her hand a stove with coals in it, which, when she sits, she snugs under her petticoats; and at this chimney dozing Strephon lights his pipe. I take it that ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... mortified vanity, nor the energy which he discovers when stung by the poisoned darts of sarcasm; but, on the other hand, the man that is roused to fighting-fury by a personal attack usually subsides very promptly. The more phlegmatic race, who take these things quietly, lay their account with the oblivion which speedily overtakes the spiteful article. These are the truly courageous men of letters; and if the weaklings seem at first to be the strong men, they cannot hold out for ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... apart from the other races of their countrymen, in small villages, full of ignorance, suspicion, and bigotry, and displaying an apparent phlegm, from which it would seem impossible to arouse them. This phlegmatic temperament lessens the credit of the men with the females, who uniformly prefer the European, or the still more vivacious negro. "The indigenous Mexican is grave, melancholic, silent, so long as he is not under the influence of intoxicating ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 372, Saturday, May 30, 1829 • Various
... a cry of joy, and with a rapid movement, of which so phlegmatic a man might have been thought incapable, he ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... to which we have thus bravely sacrificed ourselves, even a phlegmatic Englishman being the judge? It is the idea of the nation—the idea that the nation is the gift of God, to be cherished and defended as a sacred trust; and that we can no more rid ourselves of its obligations than we can ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... that the aforesaid Frenchman finds himself with one side of his body uncovered and frozen, and the other side sunk in the feather bed and perspiring profusely. This arises, say the Germans, from the circumstance of the French being so impetuous and lively. With a calm and phlegmatic German the case is quite different. The latter raises the counterpane very cautiously, creeps underneath, and places himself with his back against the pillows, and his feet against the bottom of the bed, screwing himself up into the shape of the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... of sentiment, such discrepancy of opinion should exist, is not in the least surprising; it is, in fact, the natural result of those physical causes to which, as long as he exists, he is at all times submitted. The man of a heated imagination cannot accommodate himself to the god of a phlegmatic, tranquil being: the infirm, bilious, discontented, angry mortal, cannot view him under the same aspect as he who enjoys a sounder constitution,—as the individual of a gay turn, who enjoys the blessing of content, who wishes to live in ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... the coati mundi of South America. It is one of the most nervous and restless animals we know. An individual of sanguine temperament rarely is seen. Out of about forty specimens with which we have been well acquainted, I do not recall one that was as quiet and phlegmatic as the raccoon, the nearest relative of Nasua. With a disposition so restless and enterprising, and with such vigor of body and mind, I count it strange that the genus Nasua has not spread all over our south-eastern states, where it is surely fitted to exist in a state of nature ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... regardless, unconcerned, calm, dispassionate, negligent, stolid, uninterested, careless, frigid, phlegmatic, stony, unmindful, cold, heedless, purposeless, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... parole, and to receive visits from his friends. One of the most impulsive of these friends was Jean Jacques. Their first meeting after Diderot's imprisonment has been, described by Rousseau himself, in terms at which the phlegmatic will smile—not wisely, for the manner of expressing emotion, like all else, is relative. "After three or four centuries of impatience, I flew into the arms of my friend. O indescribable moment! He, was not alone; D'Alembert ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... find a more vivid contrast between the two men who faced each other in the Prince's room, and who represented those two schools of thought which have ever been in conflict in religion—reason and authority, and those two types of character which have ever collided in life—the phlegmatic and the empassioned. ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... naturally expect from the same sanguine disposition. He shewed us that grey hairs could add nothing but hypocrisy to him; for he avowed public prostitution, laughed at all honour, public spirit, and patriotism; and gave convincing proofs that the most phlegmatic old miser upon earth could not be sooner tempted with gold to perpetrate the most horrid ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... speaking when we shot down in a long curve, like the swing of a pendulum, apparently making directly for the group of Martians. They were not seized by any quick panic; they were too phlegmatic for that. But just as the projectile threatened to smash into them, they seemed to realize the danger, and to grasp the idea that it was being operated and directed by some power and mind inside. Then ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass
... that you are such a phlegmatic man, when I said that,' answered Schreiermeyer with the frankness of a conjurer who admits that ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... and was, I could see, striving to grasp the purpose and the inner meaning of the mystery. I was myself tolerably patient, and half inclined again to throw aside doubt and to accept Van Helsing's conclusions. Quincey Morris was phlegmatic in the way of a man who accepts all things, and accepts them in the spirit of cool bravery, with hazard of all he has at stake. Not being able to smoke, he cut himself a good-sized plug of tobacco and began ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... a good view of the interior through an open door or window. From each door men and boys, sometimes women and children, sallied forth eagerly into the cold night to see what was wanted, and to each inquiry the phlegmatic Turrif repeated Trenholme's tale. Trenholme would have given a good deal to be able fully to understand what was said. There was much conversation. From each house one or two men joined them, and in one case, from a squalid-looking doorway, a ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... He ruled her—she was his property. She found it easier to accept his rule than to rebel. Had his treatment of her descended to brutality, she would have flown to her lover or else died. One critic says: "Laura must have been of a phlegmatic type, not of a fine or sensitive nature, and all of her wants were satisfied, her life protected and complete. The adoration of Petrarch was not a necessity to her—it came in as a pleasing diversion, a beautiful compliment, but something she could easily do ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... chilly; frigid, gelid, icy; nipping, bleak, raw, frosty, freezing; unresponsive, phlegmatic, passionless, chilling, stoical, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... The monotony of the weird song of the sea winds, the nerve-tearing, lazy creak of the wooden timbers, the sinuous crawling, rolling, or plunging over the most wondrous of God's works, invariably produces a sepulchral impression even on the most phlegmatic mind, but to the mystically constituted brain of Nelson, under all the varied thoughts that came into his brain during the days and nights of watching and searching for those people he termed "the pests of the human race," it must have been one long heartache. No ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... raving in one common darkness and with one common gesture plucking out their vitals for exportation? There is no doubt that our continuous receipt of this commodity has had a bracing effect on our national character. We used to be rather phlegmatic, used we not? We have learnt ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... hitherto gone house-hunting with Mr Mariner, the child Tibby, of whom up till now she had seen little except at meals, presented himself to her, coated and shod for the open and regarding her with a dull and phlegmatic gaze. ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... he was more intimate than any others of the party. He would not have been drawn to the Scotchman, but for his being Tom's room-mate. Through him he came to appreciate and respect the Scot's sterling virtues, and to overlook his dry, phlegmatic manner. ...
— The Young Miner - or Tom Nelson in California • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... This grave, phlegmatic, and silent individual was called Hans Bjelke; and he came recommended by M. Fridrikssen. He was our future guide. His manners were a ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne
... understand you!-the art of Orville has prevailed;-cold, inanimate, phlegmatic as he is, you have rendered him the most envied of men!-One thing more, and I ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... add that, desperate as your case seems to be, I participate in your sanguine hopes? I do not deem them entirely romantic, but share in that which the phlegmatic would call the frenzy of your mind; and half-persuade myself that you will finally ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... that thing before him was Big Ivan—Big Ivan the giant, the man without nerves, the man of iron, the Cossack turned freebooter of the seas, who was as phlegmatic as an ox, with a nervous system so low that what was pain to ordinary men was scarcely a tickle to him. Well, well, trust these Nulato Indians to find Big Ivan's nerves and trace them to the roots of his quivering soul. They were certainly doing it. It was inconceivable ...
— Lost Face • Jack London
... pancake; emptier than Judge ——'s wig when the head is in it; duller than a country stage when the actors are off it; a cipher, an O! I acknowledge life at all, only by an occasional convulsional cough, and a permanent phlegmatic pain in the chest. I am weary of the world; life is weary of me. My day is gone into twilight, and I don't think it worth the expense of candles. My wick hath a thief in it, but I can't muster courage to ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... not thirty years ago. Another work, issued also in London, says, "Cynthia, 'the queen of heaven,' as the ancients termed her, or the MOON, the companion of the earth, and chief source of our evening light, is a cold, moist, watery, phlegmatic planet, variable to an extreme, in astrological science; and partaking of good or evil, as she is aspected by good or evil stars. When angular and unafflicted in a nativity, she is the promissory pledge of great success in life and continual ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... The British with their phlegmatic coolness and their terrible rolling fire, the Russians, with that inertia that is called their tenacity, have given way before attack. The German has given way, he who on account of his subordination and stability has been called excellent ...
— Battle Studies • Colonel Charles-Jean-Jacques-Joseph Ardant du Picq
... suspicion, in short, enthusiasm and panic, especially if he is French, that is to say, excitable and communicative, easily thrown off his balance and prompt to accept foreign impulsion, deprived of the natural ballast which a phlegmatic temperament and concentration of lonely meditations secure to his German and Latin neighbors; and all this we shall see at work.—These constitute some of the brute forces that control human life. In ordinary times we pay no attention to them; being subordinated they do ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... it is disastrous to try to "hustle the East.'' The Chinese are phlegmatic and will endure much, but this was a little too much. Myriads of scholars and officials, who saw their hopes and positions jeopardized by the new tests, protested with all the virulence of the silversmiths of Ephesus, ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... New Yorker in appearance, thirty-two years old, good-looking, manly, self-poised, and somewhat phlegmatic in temperament. ...
— The Girl with the Green Eyes - A Play in Four Acts • Clyde Fitch
... father talk of the drive north. But he would have remembered that day and the night that followed, even though he had never heard a word about it. The bawling of the herd became a doleful chant of misery. Even the phlegmatic oxen that drew the wagons bawled and slavered while they strained forward, twisting their heads under the heavy yokes. They stopped oftener than usual to rest, and when Buddy was permitted to walk with the perspiring Ezra by the leaders, ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... absorbent ground of modesty and reserve; and such a one I do, without vanity, profess myself.[149] Now these are the very persons who are likely to attach themselves to the character of Emilius, and of whom it is sure to be the bane. This dull, phlegmatic, retiring humour is not in a fair way to be corrected, but confirmed and rendered desperate, by being in that work held up as an object of imitation, as an example of simplicity and magnanimity—by coming upon us with all the recommendations of novelty, surprise, and superiority ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... up Your "ha!" and "hum!" in a tune. I not deny, But such as are not graced in a state, May, for their ends, be adverse in religion, And get a tune to call the flock together: For, to say sooth, a tune does much with women, And other phlegmatic people; it ...
— The Alchemist • Ben Jonson
... phlegmatic, florid countenance had taken on a mild glow of animation during his narrative. It relapsed into lethargy at the advent of ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... thumbed and tattered that by the backs of them each player guessed pretty shrewdly what the other held. Yet they went on playing night after night; the Snipe shrilly blessing or cursing his luck, the Scotsman phlegmatic as a bolster. ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... at his wife in scornful pity. He wondered sometimes, in his phlegmatic reasoning, why ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... of Spain and the Empire. Please to observe that these two Courts, which had made incredible solicitations to him while he wavered, began, as soon as his purpose was fixed, to draw back,—a fatality due to the phlegmatic temper of the Spaniard, dignified by the name of prudence, joined to the astute politics of the house of Austria. You may observe at the same time that the Count, who had continued firm and unshaken three months together, changed his mind as ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... parliament of Vezelay he spoke before the king; and Louis the Seventh, with his nobles, received their crosses from his hand. The abbot of Clairvaux then marched to the less easy conquest of the emperor Conrad: [311] a phlegmatic people, ignorant of his language, was transported by the pathetic vehemence of his tone and gestures; and his progress, from Constance to Cologne, was the triumph of eloquence and zeal. Bernard applauds his own success in the depopulation of Europe; affirms that cities and castles were emptied ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... often thought that a spirit of observation is necessary in order to our doing or communicating much good; and were it not for a very phlegmatic habit, I think my soul would be richer. I, however, appear to myself to have lost much of my capacity for making observations, improvements, etc., or of retaining what I attend to closely. For instance, I have been ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... stumbled ever so little on their way. Stung into action by one of those sudden indignations against cruel conditions which at times fill the young with unexpected energy, I found myself across the square, in company with mine host, interviewing the phlegmatic owner of the brewery who received us with exasperating indifference, or rather received me, for the innkeeper mysteriously slunk away as soon as the great magnate of the town began to speak. I went back to a breakfast for which I had lost ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... yellowish tawny complexion. The keenness of the wind and the glare of the snow, render them subject to painful disorders in the eyes: they are also afflicted with many diseases, which tend to render them short lived. They are a quiet, orderly, and good-humoured people; but of a cold, phlegmatic, and indolent disposition. They never wash themselves with water, but lick their hands, and then rub their faces with them; in the same manner as a cat washes herself with her paws. In most of their habits they are ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley
... betrothal, there may be surprise and seeming incongruity, but as the years pass by it is demonstrated that the selection was divinely arranged. There may be great difference of temperament, great difference of appearance, great difference of circumstances. That is no objection. The sanguine and the phlegmatic temperaments make appropriate union, the blonde and the brunette, the quick and the slow, the French and the German. In the machinery of domestic life there is no more need for the driving wheel than ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... transient folly then before the public. Originally a lawyer, he was in succession a mechanician, a poet, and an editor, meeting with far less success in each of these departments than usually attends men of less varied gifts, but of more tranquil and phlegmatic composition. But who is ignorant that there is a class of minds characterized by qualities like those I have mentioned; minds with many bright and even beautiful traits; but aimless and fickle as the butterfly; that settle upon ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... we are thus introduced, was a man of some mark in the history of literature. Johnson always spoke of him with affection and afterwards wrote his life in complimentary terms. Cave, though a clumsy, phlegmatic person of little cultivation, seems to have been one of those men who, whilst destitute of real critical powers, have a certain instinct for recognizing the commercial value of literary wares. He had become by this ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... being equal, the men with the greatest store of nervous energy came best through this expedition. Having more imagination, they have a worse time than their more phlegmatic companions; but they get things done. And when the worst came to the worst, their strength of mind triumphed over their weakness of body. If you want a good polar traveller get a man without too much muscle, with good physical tone, and let his mind be on wires—of ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... spot like that to rouse excitement in the breast of the usually phlegmatic Andrew Thorne? Why had he been in such haste to drag Lynch thither, and what had passed between the two before the older man came to his sudden and tragic end? Was it possible that somewhere within that four square miles of desolate wilderness might lie the ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... for her freedom, Motley was actuated by the same reason that prompted his forefathers to fight on Bunker Hill. He wanted to play at least a historian's part in presenting "the great spectacle which was to prove to Europe that principles and peoples still existed, and that a phlegmatic nation of merchants and manufacturers could defy the powers of the universe, and risk all their blood and treasure, generation after generation, ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... it all, as though his eye had power to pierce the dust-cloud, and now he, too, lost his phlegmatic calm. He threw up his arms as if in prayer and shouted, as though his ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... and violent passions into which he was apt to fall if thwarted or overlooked were purely Spanish; there seemed to be nothing of the patient, phlegmatic Netherlander about this side of him. Indeed it was this temper of his perhaps more than any other desire or tendency that made him so dangerous, for, whereas the impulses of his heart were often good enough, they were always ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... A timid, phlegmatic fellow, he was frightened by everything and found all things difficult. His strong impressions were manifested neither in his motions nor his words, but in a sudden flush, which coloured his cheeks and his forehead, and which would soon disappear ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... origin, and, as we have already said, by his physical characteristics, he belonged. He had none of the more pleasing qualities of the Netherlander; but he had the sluggish temper, the slow but laborious mind. "He is phlegmatic as well from natural disposition as from will," remarks an Italian contemporary. "This king," says another Venetian minister, "is absolutely free from every kind of passion." The word "passion" is here used in a strict, if not the most correct sense. Philip could, perhaps, love; that he ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... nature; I, being young, was full of amazement at the news just given us and of the excitement of hunting down the man we knew as Sir Gilbert Carstairs. But I am not sure that Mr. Lindsey struggled much with anything—he was cool and phlegmatic as usual, and immediately began to think of ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... may be a very wise fellow; if you are patient because you think it a duty to meet insult with submission, you are an essential sap, and in no shape the man for my money; if you are patient because your nature is phlegmatic, flat, inexcitable, and that you cannot get up to the pitch of resistance, why, God made you to be crushed; and lie down by all means, and lie flat, and let Juggernaut ride well ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... Climate is not, therefore, able to change the colour of a nation; but it seems to have a greater effect on the temperament. Cold can produce a change of temperament from the melancholic and choleric to the phlegmatic and sanguine, and heat acting on the human frame, is capable of producing a contrary revolution. Hence, rosy cheeks and lips are frequently observed among the mountain Hindus of Nepal, although they are very little fairer ...
— An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal • Fancis Buchanan Hamilton
... South American ladies. "These Germans are not so phlegmatic as they seem. It is an attention . . . something very distinguished. . . . And is it possible that some still believe that they and the ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... and dark, that the land, which had hitherto been our guide, was no longer discernible. We could not see three hundred fathoms from the ship. The change in our pilot's countenance showed that our situation had become critical. The little, stout, and hitherto phlegmatic fellow became suddenly animated by a new spirit. His black eyes lightened; he uttered several times the well-known English oath which Figaro declares to be "le fond de la langue," rubbed his bands violently together, and at length exclaimed, ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... barbarous withal. His whole life is spent in the bare process of procuring a living. He consumes a large amount of oleaginous food, and breathes a damp heavy atmosphere, and is, consequently, of a dull phlegmatic temperament. Notwithstanding his uncertain supplies of food, he is recklessly improvident, and indifferent to all the lessons of experience. Intellectual pursuits are all precluded. There is no motive, no opportunity, and indeed ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... of Michelangelo's temperament has been calmly investigated, the truth seems to be that he did not possess a nervous temperament so evenly balanced as some phlegmatic men of average ability can boast of. But who could expect the creator of the Sistine, the sculptor of the Medicean tombs, the architect of the cupola, the writer of the sonnets, to be an absolutely normal individual? To identify genius with insanity ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... shouted, gesticulating and showing more excitement than he had ever displayed before, his disposition generally being phlegmatic in the extreme. "One big smokee go long. Me see three piecee ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... phlegmatic burgher. "We must hasten home. Farewell, Monsieur de Rose. Your news indeed is ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... dogs, and also rather resembled the Chinese chow, with broad heads and rather short muzzles, prick ears, and a tail inclined to curl over the back. "All these people have a very cheerful disposition, laughing often, yet at the same time they are somewhat phlegmatic. They talk very deliberately, as if desiring to make themselves well understood, and, stopping suddenly, they reflect for a long time, ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston
... had assumed a good deal of definiteness and greatly interested foreign travellers. There was, by those who knew what foreign manners were, much foolish aping of the same. English visitors noted Brother Jonathan's drawl in talking, his phlegmatic temperament, keen eye, and blistering inquisitiveness. Jonathan was a rover and a trader, everywhere at home, everywhere bent upon the main chance. He ate too rapidly, chewed and smoked tobacco, and spat indecently. He drank too much. During the first quarter of the century nearly ...
— History of the United States, Volume 3 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... had stooped down and kissed his wife, as he had also done before during the recital of the story. It was done in a way that was so real and genuine that it completely broke them down. They declared that morning that they would not quickly judge anyone again. They had thought him phlegmatic and unlovable, and now here had come out from the heart of this Indian, of such a rugged exterior, a story and an exhibition of love and devotion more genuine and beautiful than any that had ever been revealed to them in song ...
— Winter Adventures of Three Boys • Egerton R. Young
... a little crestfallen, it may be, by my phlegmatic reception, so different from what he had looked for; with much apparent alacrity he commenced the survey; throwing open the cupboards on the first floor, and peering into the closets on the second; measuring one within, and then comparing that ...
— I and My Chimney • Herman Melville
... exclaimed Asa, usually one of the most phlegmatic of the youths, "the girl is blown away ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper |
