"Urbanity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Hurrah! Hurrah!" And with that every one approached to clink glasses with him, and he readily accepted the compliment, and accepted it many times in succession. Indeed, as the hours passed on, the hilarity of the company increased yet further, and more than once the President (a man of great urbanity when thoroughly in his cups) embraced the chief guest of the day with the heartfelt words, "My dearest fellow! My own most precious of friends!" Nay, he even started to crack his fingers, to dance around Chichikov's chair, and to sing snatches of a popular song. To the champagne ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... think quickly; their conclusions are logical. They always search for the reason. The man whose desperate courage had been equal to that robbery—who had accomplished his task with the calm ease and urbanity which proclaimed him a finished product of his profession, should have argued the question with the messenger at greater length! He should have disputed with him possession of the hat, for in the desert a hat is more than a hat. It is a matter of life and death, and when the outlaw had abandoned ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... a very sweet one, for that was a peculiar trait in the native urbanity of Charley's disposition, and it would have gone far in civilized society to prepossess strangers in his favour; but it lowered him considerably in the estimation of his red friends, who entertained a ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... adventure began, indeed, to grow idiotically perilous. I had never been thrown out of doors in my life. I objected strongly to the idea. It might possibly hurt my body, and would certainly offend my dignity. I felt that I could not make my exit through the portals of life with the urbanity on which I had counted, if, as a preparatory step, I had been thrown out of a gambling-hell. There were only two things to be done. Either I must whip out my ridiculous revolver and do some free shooting, or I must make an appeal to the lower feelings of the assembly. ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... restraint to which most of his political friends attuned their utterances. He naturally assumed the functions of the leader of his Majesty's Opposition, and he discharged them, not only with the ability which every one expected of him, but with the urbanity and self-restraint of a man conscious of his responsibilities as well as of his powers. His was, amongst the Indian members, not only the master mind, but the dominant personality. The European members, on the other hand, showed themselves invariably courteous and good-tempered, ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... his old urbanity, and now stood, or rather straddled, with his legs apart, his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat, ...
— The Daffodil Mystery • Edgar Wallace
... wondered, but she could not help being impressed, and her attitude toward her dear friend Serena was never so gushingly cordial. As for Mr. Hungerford, he greeted the Chapter representatives with condescending urbanity. When the reception began, somehow or other, Cousin Percy was in ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln
... If he had shown any unwillingness they would have pushed their way in. His urbanity had ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine
... whiteness of the table linen, the silent efficiency of the colored waiters, coupled with the fact that all this was speeding onward through the night, made me feel as though I were partaking of a repast in an enchanted palace. The easy urbanity of the three well-dressed Americans gave me a sense of uncanny gentility ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... he arrived for tea in the Archduchess's white drawing-room he was urbane and smiling. Hedwig, standing with cold hands and terrified eyes by the tea-table, disliked both his urbanity and his smile. He kissed the hand of the Archduchess and bent over Hedwig's with ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... all that he could do to purify and intensify his infinitesimal share of the force that was to bring it about. Meanwhile he made friends with the fathers of Bengali schoolboys, who appreciated his manners, and sent him with urbanity flat baskets of mangoes and nuts and oranges, pomegranates from Persia, and little round boxes of white grapes in sawdust from Kabul. He seldom dwelt upon the converts that already testified to the ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... midst of domestic intrigues, remained a man of good character and pure manners. He was welcomed in the best society, where he soon became a favorite by his piquant sallies, as much as by his good manners and urbanity, for he amused without reminding that he ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... words she wept. It has been said that her tears flowed because of the indifference and incredulity towards her that the King's urbanity implied.[1299] But we must beware of attributing to the tears of the enraptured and the illuminated a cause intelligible to human reason. To her Charles appeared clothed in an ineffable splendour like that of the ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... Be not so downcast!" pleaded the musician, who was all urbanity, doing the honours of his one accomplishment there in that lonely hollow of the sands for all the world as though it had been a fine reception-room, and they his guests. "Stay, and I will play to you both the air of 'Yenki-dudal'—a noble air, none ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... took horse soon after to return to court, accompanied by the shouts of the inhabitants of Woodstock, who made the old oaks ring with re-echoing, "Long live Queen Elizabeth, and the noble Earl of Leicester!" The urbanity and courtesy of the Earl even threw a gleam of popularity over his attendants, as their haughty deportment had formerly obscured that of their master; and men shouted, "Long life to the Earl, and to his gallant followers!" ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... him. He gratulates them and their fortune. Another age, or juster men, will acknowledge the virtues of his studies, his wisdom in dividing, his subtlety in arguing, with what strength he doth inspire his readers, with what sweetness he strokes them; in inveighing, what sharpness; in jest, what urbanity he uses; how he doth reign in men's affections; how invade and break in upon them, and makes their minds like the thing he writes. Then in his elocution to behold what word is proper, which hath ornaments, which height, what is beautifully translated, where figures ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey
... us hope,' Lord John was saying as sternly as his urbanity permitted—'let us hope this exhibition in the House will be a lesson ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... had occasion to call on one of those "Criminal Curiosity Hunters" lately. He received me with extreme urbanity, and pointing to an old-fashioned-looking arm-chair, requested me to be seated.—I ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 2, 1841 • Various
... small blocks, and the confidence of them waxed apace. Amidon thought of a little money which his wife had saved from her boarders, and the barber immediately resolved to invest every cent he had in the United Fuel. Such was Captain Carroll's graciousness and urbanity that he idled away an hour in the barber-shop, and the other men melted away, although reluctantly, from an atmosphere of such effulgence. The milkman's hollow stomach drove him home for his breakfast. Little Willy Eddy thought uneasily of his Minna, and took his departure. The postmaster ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... of Coalville, imagines that Civilised Man Falls too much to the rear if he lives in a Van; But Caravan-dwellers, with force and urbanity, Declare that SMITH's views of Van life are ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. February 14, 1891. • Various
... accordingly. Casaubon (who saw that Persius could not laugh with a becoming grace, that he was not made for jesting, and that a merry conceit was not his talent) turned his feather, like an Indian, to another light, that he might give it the better gloss. "Moral doctrine," says he, "and urbanity or well-mannered wit are the two things which constitute the Roman satire; but of the two, that which is most essential to this poem, and is, as it were, the very soul which animates it, is the scourging ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... his manners, by his urbanity, by his brilliant and thought-provoking conversation, the Oriental repaid his host a hundred times over. To most of his fellow-guests he played the part of teacher, while seeming to act that of disciple; but to none was his manner so deferential and ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... subject Ravonino became so abstracted and deaf that no reply could be drawn from him. As if to compensate for this, however, the man was exceedingly communicative in regard to all other subjects, and there was a quiet urbanity in his manner which rendered his conversation exceedingly attractive. Moreover, to the surprise of Mark, this mysterious stranger gave evidence of a considerable amount of education. He also gratified ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... turn of features, which were not improved by a pair of enormous black eyebrows; there was, however, an expression in his physiognomy that indicated deep thought, and a degree of intelligence above the mediocrity. In addition to this, there was also a pleasing urbanity in his manner that was certainly contrary to what might have been expected from his personal appearance and known burly character in business. He gradually retreated up the steps towards the interior of the hotel, the excessive attentions paid by the crowd appearing troublesome to ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... exclusively reserved for women who are not distressed and clearly able to help themselves. We have to realise that it can scarcely even be said that our growing urban life, however it fosters what has been called "urbanity," has any equally fostering influence on instinctive mutual helpfulness as an element of that urbanity. We do not even see the helpless people who go to the wall or to the pavement. This is true of men and women alike. But when instinctive helpfulness is manifested it seems most likely to reveal ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... 'The Cheerful City,' and dwelt on the delights of civilization and urbanity. Doubtless it may serve a useful purpose, thought I, in reconciling Londoners to their wen; but, here, what does it spell for my ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps
... proceeded to comment upon Buerger's frequent lapses from good taste, his crudities, indecencies and vulgar ding-dongs, and to refer these things with remorseless directness to personal defects. The criticism was just and had all the other merits save discretion and urbanity, Goethe was pleased with it before he knew who wrote it,[84] and eleven years later Schiller saw nothing in it to change. In writing it, as a matter of fact, he was only breaking the rod over his own early self; ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... you, is it?" snapped the Court Godmother, with none of her customary urbanity. And then, recollecting the necessity of keeping up appearances, threw in a belated "my dear." "Well, I hear you are taking time before you put Mirliflor out of suspense, but I presume you've already decided to ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... stood erect, with his back to a fire-place, and resembled the picture which had been lately painted of him by Lely. The artist flattered him perhaps in the general air, as far as it implied ordinary good breeding, and an habitual urbanity of carriage; and yet the momentary look may not have been flattered even in that respect; for as the greater includes the less, so the princely serenity which Cromwell could assume as well as any man, or rather ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 534 - 18 Feb 1832 • Various
... of the female character were frankly canvassed, each view being held with fervour, but expressed with urbanity. Women were always so and so; women were absolutely never so and so: women felt, without exception, thus and thus; on the contrary, they were entirely devoid of such sentiments. A large experience and wide observation always supported each opinion, and eminent ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... trembling hand he pushed his grey hair up, and then, taking Clennam and his daughter for supporters, appeared at the window leaning on an arm of each. The Collegians cheered him very heartily, and he kissed his hand to them with great urbanity and protection. When he withdrew into the room again, he said 'Poor creatures!' in a tone of much ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... vast living expression of a whole epoch and a semi-barbarous civilisation. In order to make him a true classic, it was necessary to attribute to him later a design, a plan, literary invention, qualities of atticism and urbanity of which he had certainly never dreamed in the luxuriant development of his natural inspirations. And who appear by his side? August, venerable ancients, the AEschyluses and the Sophocles, mutilated, it is true, and only there to present ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... it best to supply the key, thinking, perhaps, that a little jealousy would do Jem no harm. But the effect on him was to produce a fit of hearty laughter, as he remembered poor Lord Ormersfield's unaccountable urbanity and suppressed exultation in the morning's ride. 'I honour the Ponsonbys,' he said, 'for not choosing to second his lordship's endeavours to tyrannize over that poor fellow, body and soul. Poor Louis! he ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... with equal urbanity. "That was a slick piece of work tying up my bank account. I can't get a bond to-day, the bank is closed, and I suppose you're going to insist upon payment of that eighteen thousand dollars before midnight to-night or take the Tillicum and ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... as we all are in the like case, and at the station he used an urbanity with the captain which was perhaps not thrown away upon him, but which was certainly disproportioned to the trouble he was asking him to take in saying whether he knew where he could ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... Exhibition in West Kensington, with its Wild West Show, has attracted its thousands, and at this moment two dramas (both from the United States) are very popular in the Strand and Oxford Street. A few nights ago, anxious to save you the trouble of filling a stall with your customary urbanity and critical acumen (to say nothing of your august person and opera-glasses), I visited the Princess's, to assist at a performance of The Shadows of a Great City. It was really a most amusing piece, ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 93, September 3, 1887 • Various
... were doing their duty to the public, and warning them against teaching which they believed to be insidious and even immoral. I honour them for doing this, and I applaud them, especially if they did violence to their own feelings of courtesy and urbanity in doing so. Then there were some good-natured reviewers who practically said that the book was simply a collection of amiable platitudes; but that if the public liked to read such stuff, they were quite at liberty to do so. I admire these reviewers for a different reason, ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... will be seen that Castruccio was a man of exceptional abilities, not only measured by men of his own time, but also by those of an earlier date. In stature he was above the ordinary height, and perfectly proportioned. He was of a gracious presence, and he welcomed men with such urbanity that those who spoke with him rarely left him displeased. His hair was inclined to be red, and he wore it cut short above the ears, and, whether it rained or snowed, he always went without a hat. He was delightful among friends, but terrible to his ...
— The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... certainly wants dignity, and his Tartar features appear to great disadvantage when contrasted with those of true Grecian mould, by which he is surrounded. However, his prepossessing manners and perfect urbanity, in some measure compensate for these personal defects; and, upon the whole, the people appear well pleased and contented with their youthful monarch. It is said the palikari, or soldiers of the late governments, do not unite themselves with the regular army which is forming, ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... for at a glance it may be seen it deserves all the cream of courtesy and flower of polite usage;" and raising her up by the hand he led her to a seat beside the duchess, who likewise received her with great urbanity. Don Quixote remained silent, while Sancho was dying to see the features of Trifaldi and one or two of her many duennas; but there was no possibility of it until they themselves displayed them of their own ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... his inferiors, his urbanity was perfection; for he cultivated in the depths of his soul—for women, for his inferiors, for his equals, and for ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... found a noble esteem, but politeness prepares the way. Indeed, as Montaigne says, Courtesy begets esteem at sight. Urbanity is half of affability, and affability is a ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... laughter and frivolity to cheer each other. Most of us had never been on a ship before, and only one of our number had ever voyaged away from South Africa. Ours was a very cheerless prospect, for, although we did not know our exact fate, banishment for life loomed over us. The ship's officers were urbanity itself, and did everything in their power for our comfort. I shall always remember their kindness, but it would have required much more than human effort to have made our voyage enjoyable owing to the fact that we suffered ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... the feeling there, and the wife announced that she would like of all things to see America, but—she did not wish to go there with her husband. I suggested that she come with me—an endeavor to rise to the Rumanian mood which was received with tolerant urbanity by her husband, and by the lady who looked like Nazimova with very cheering ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... to persons, and said that if he named an Attorney-General from Massachusetts, he had in mind Governor Clifford, whom he had met. Governor Clifford was my personal friend, he had been the Attorney- General of the State during my term as Governor, he was a gentleman of great urbanity of manner, a well-equipped lawyer, and as an advocate he had secured and maintained a good standing in the profession and through many years. He had come into the Republican Party from the Webster wing of the Whig Party. To me he was a conservative, and I was apprehensive that ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2 • George S. Boutwell
... She Stoops to Conquer, 1772, and Sheridan's Rival, School for Scandal, and Critic, 1775-9, our last strictly "classical" comedies. None of this school of English comedians approached their model, Moliere. He excelled his imitators not only in his French urbanity—the polished wit and delicate grace of his style—but in the dexterous unfolding of his plot, and in the wisdom and truth of his criticism of life, and his insight into character. It is a symptom of the false taste of the age that Shakspere's plays were rewritten for the Restoration ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... burdened with that new exaction. The pair always came out of their discussions better friends than when they went in; one delighted to have had an opportunity of hearing himself talk, the other pleased with himself for having displayed a truly Parisian urbanity. ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... for them by the profound thinker, ought not to be disgusted, if they find the former choleric, and the latter morose; because liveliness of fancy, and a tenacious comprehension of mind, are scarcely compatible with that pliant urbanity which leads a man, at least to bend to the opinions and prejudices of others, ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... uncapturable. But now, on this awful evening of crimson-lake, it seemed only prudent to face the prospect of his falling into the nets which were spread for him.... Susan the sister-in-law of a Contessa. Susan the wife of the man whose urbanity made all Tilling polite to each other, Susan a Wyse of Whitchurch! It made Miss Mapp feel ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... station in a wretched village near Portchester. The station platform lay all day bare as a prairie, exposed to the dusty yellow sun and to the glance of that most obnoxious type of countryman who lives near a metropolis and has attained its cheap smartness without its urbanity. A dozen of these yokels, red-eyed, cheerless as scarecrows, saw the incident. Dimly it passed across their confused and uncomprehending minds, taken at its broadest for a coarse joke, at its subtlest for a "shame." Meanwhile there upon the platform ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... foot, we will say nothing by way of defence. The Commons of Great Britain, my Lords, are a rustic people: a tone of rusticity is therefore the proper accent of their Managers. We are not acquainted with the urbanity and politeness of extortion and oppression; nor do we know anything of the sentimental delicacies of bribery and corruption. We speak the language of truth, and we speak it in the plain, simple terms in which truth ought to be spoken. Even if ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... please, signior," insisted Lichonin, opening the door before the sub-professor with courtly urbanity, bowing and spreading his arms ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... psalms), than has been put, I believe, into all the sweet whinings and the spiritual droopings of the world in three thousand years. I do not deny that I would quarrel, as a matter of form, with the lack of urbanity, with a certain ill-nature in the imprecatory Psalms; but with the spirit in them, with the motive and mighty desire, with the necessity in the man's heart that was poured into them, I have ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... Despite his visitor's urbanity, he was still a little nervous. The Colonel had a somewhat purposeful air, and he had seated himself directly in ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... turning to settle with his driver, a transaction that he invested with an air of dignified urbanity which almost made up for any small pecuniary disappointment that may have accompanied it. "This is indeed fortunate. Let us compare notes for a moment. I have just received an almost imploring message ...
— Four Max Carrados Detective Stories • Ernest Bramah
... pusillanimous Spoiled children most degenerate And tiresome rogues ridiculous And stupid censors passionate; Amid coquettes who pray to God And abject slaves who kiss the rod; In haunts of fashion where each day All with urbanity betray, Where harsh frivolity proclaims Its cold unfeeling sentences; Amid the awful emptiness Of conversation, thought and aims— In that morass where you and I Wallow, my friends, ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... career of folly, but it certainly served as an illuminating preface to a chronicle of wasted time. No proofs of the wit that endeared him to his contemporaries have been preserved; his fame for an unalterable urbanity is but an empty memory; his record is only rescued from oblivion by the series of incredible follies which began with the unjust attempt to ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... unconscious of his victory. He continued quietly giving last recommendations to the figurants, overseeing the setting of the scenes, and thanking the actors as they came off the stage, with the same self-possessed urbanity he had shown during the rehearsals. Finally, when the play was over, and we had time to turn and look for him, our author had disappeared, having quietly driven off with his wife to their house in the country, from which he never moved for ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... effecting every hour, insomuch that a man may go into a vast variety of families which he will find actuated by no other principles than those of the most cultivated politeness, and the most liberal urbanity. ...
— A Tour in Ireland - 1776-1779 • Arthur Young
... of having one's own way is the adherence to one's own "opinion." The clash of opinions is in its noblest aspect the basis of knowledge; the correction of opinion that results when man meets man is the growth of tolerance and urbanity. Wide reading, travel and experience teach us that our opinions can never be absolutely right, and we grow to look upon them in a detached sort of way. In fact, the prime result of the growth of intelligence and of experience is to make one, as it were, objective toward oneself, to view one's ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... to her precepts, in graces of manner as well as in the learning of the age—the latter might be forgotten; the former, never. As they became the wives and mothers of succeeding times, they have left upon their descendants an impress of politeness and urbanity that distinguishes the people of ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... the House of Commons of a man respected at once for scholarship and for profound scientific knowledge, and yet a chosen mouthpiece of the political sentiments of the most cultivated constituency in the country. The recognition of his genius was no doubt due in great part to the singular urbanity which made him the pride and delight of all Oxford common rooms. With the gentlest of manners and a refined and delicate sense of humour, he had powers of launching epigrams the subtle flavour of which necessarily ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... occupied by the man named by Esther. Upon further inquiry it was ascertained that the proprietor at that time was still alive, and one of the principal citizens of the place. Holden lost no time in calling upon him, but was doomed to disappointment. He was received, indeed, with great urbanity by the gentleman, one of the old school, who proffered every aid in his power, and made an examination of his papers to discover the name of his tenant. He was successful in the search, and found that the name was the same given by Esther, ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... window; "git out o' that, you brute; you're always agoin' in the winder, capsizin' things. There! you've been an' sat on the face o' that 'ere wax doll till you've a'most melted it. Out o' that with you! No, Miss Merryon," he added, turning to the girl with his wonted urbanity, "I don't keep turpentine, and I was only surprised you should ask for it in a toy-shop; but you'll get it of Mr White next door. I don't believe there's anythink in the world as he can't supply ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... the crew of our vessel with a shout of laughter, which, however, was peremptorily checked by the captain, whose expression instantly changed from one of severity to that of frank urbanity as he advanced towards the missionary and shook ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... rode up to the door of the mud mansion, and, according to Pampas etiquette, awaited permission to dismount. This was quickly given with much urbanity by a handsome middle-aged man, who was the ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... Luttrell's death; but a number of the volumes, referring chiefly to the latter part of Charles the Second's reign, have fortunately become the property of Mr. James Bindley of Somerset Place, who, with the utmost urbanity, permitted the Editor the unlimited use of these, and other literary curiosities in his valuable library.—It is so much a matter of course, with every adventurer in the field of antiquities, to acknowledge ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... that night extolled Bristol above her other rivals, it would be said of him that he was a verbose individual, who had called in past years Leeds a beautiful and inspiring city, Liverpool a rising seaport, and Glasgow a town where urbanity and sweet reasonableness prevailed. It might be remembered of him that he had praised the Birmingham man for his childlike humility, and the Edinburgh man for his excessive modesty. It was his first visit to Bristol, and it was presumption on his part to speak ...
— The King's Post • R. C. Tombs
... was a great crowd assembled, and they looked very hard at me, as I was dressed in my lace coat and a cocked-up hat, also bound with broad gold lace. On our arrival in the presence of the governor, we were received with much urbanity; and as I had brought the Jacobite gentlemen in my schooner, it was presumed that I was favourable to the cause, and I was very politely treated. The governor invited us all to dine with him on that day. I made some excuse, saying, that I was anxious to return to Liverpool; that I might ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... of the United States Government. From each of these unfortunate endeavors Mr. Gunterson had emerged with unblemished reputation, and even enhanced gravity and authority due to his wider experience, and with his air of slightly melancholy urbanity diminished not at all. ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... scored. He did it all with a twinkling, dimpling urbanity and deprecation, as if the Canon had been a beautiful lady he was paying court to, as if he thought it was rather a pity that beauty should lower itself to talk politics; but since he insisted on politics, he should ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... his are not obvious to them; and his favourite occupations strengthen his peculiarities, and increase his sensibility. Genius in society is often in a state of suffering. Professional characters, who are themselves so often literary, yielding to their predominant interests, conform to that assumed urbanity which levels them with ordinary minds; but the man of genius cannot leave himself behind in the cabinet he quits; the train of his thoughts is not stopped at will, and in the range of conversation the habits of his mind will prevail: the poet will sometimes muse till he modulates a verse; the ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... told by more than one correspondent, and not always in words of urbanity, that I owe an apology to the manes of Miss Hannah More, whose works I once purchased in nineteen volumes for 8s. 6d., and about whom in consequence I wrote a page some ten ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... respectable and so commanding in his appearance that I wondered if he could be Professor Henry, yet sincerely hoped he was not. I afterward found that he was only "Old Peake," the janitor. [4] When I found the real Professor Henry he received me with characteristic urbanity, told me something of his own studies, and suggested that I might find something to do in the Coast Survey, but took no ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... hearts without appearing to do so; was familiar without laying aside his dignity, and possessed that prudent coldness which inspires respect, though we scarcely know why. All this was blended with so much elegance, urbanity, and decorum, that it would have been difficult for the most acute eye to have distinguished the acquired, the artificial, and the assumed, from the plain and natural. Faustus, who had as yet seen ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger
... that magnificent asylum of the brave defenders of the glory and prosperity of our king and country, for the last three years of the American war. Besides being an eminent and experienced physician, Dr Lind was a man of exemplary humanity, and of uncommon urbanity and singleness of manners: He was truly the seaman's friend. The rules and expedients which he devised and proposed, founded on the solid basis, of observation and experience, for Preserving the Health of Seamen ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... disclosed a tendency to surreptitiously appropriate small articles belonging to us. A bed was made on the middle deck of one of the boats for Steward, and when all was ready we carried him down to it. The Navajos ranged themselves along the bank to see us off, and Clem, with his customary urbanity, went down the line all smiles, shaking each one cordially by the hand, and requesting him to "Give my love to all the folks at home," and "Remember me, please, to Eliza Jane," and similar expressions. The Navajos did not understand ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... lover ever delighted more to cherish and adorn a mistress, to heighten and illustrate her charms, and to vindicate and defend her against all the world than did the Moors to embellish, enrich, elevate, and defend their beloved Spain. Everywhere I meet traces of their sagacity, courage, urbanity, high poetical feeling, and elegant taste. The noblest institutions in this part of Spain, the best inventions for comfortable and agreeable living, and all those habitudes and customs which throw a peculiar and Oriental charm over the Andalusian ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... spoiled for confidence. Something he had, however, that his critic vaguely envied, something in his address, splendidly positive, a manner rounded and polished by the habit of conversation and the friction of full experience, an urbanity exercised for his own sake, not for his neighbour's, which seemed the fruit of one of those strong temperaments that rule the inward scene better than the best conscience. The Count had plainly no sense for ...
— Madame de Mauves • Henry James
... force had glanced up at Mr. Johnson's first entrance, but only to resume its work at once. Such industry is not the custom; among the assets of any bank, courtesy is the most indispensable item. Mr. Johnson was not unversed in the ways of urbanity; the purposed and palpable incivility was not wasted upon him; nor yet the expression conveyed by the back of the indefatigable clerical person—a humped, reluctant, and rebellious back. If ever a back steeled itself to carry out a distasteful task ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... it must be understood that such ill feeling as undoubtedly existed was only openly manifested by private persons, and those almost entirely of the lower classes. Official Japan was the very essence of politeness and urbanity whenever we came into ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood
... supposed to be taking place beneath our eyes. Faint frosty lights pass across the orchestra. This, we guess, is supposed to be an inward and musing passage. This is a finale, this a dramatic climax. But we are no more than languidly pleased with the cleverness and urbanity of the orchestration, the pleasant shapeliness of certain melodies, the neatness of composition. In the end, the man bores us thoroughly. He has invented a new musical ennui. It is that of being invariably pretty and ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... place in which one may so readily learn the meaning of that misused word "urbanity." Urbanity is the state of mind adapted to a city, as rusticity is adapted to the country. In each case the perfection of the adaptation is evidenced by a certain ease of manner in the presence of the environment. There is an absence of fret and worry over what is involved in the ...
— Humanly Speaking • Samuel McChord Crothers
... vegetables, is certainly one of the finest countries in the world. He found many Englishmen established in various sections of the country, and the better sort of inhabitants very much disposed to treat them with kindness and urbanity. ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... they wish to keep them in perpetual wardship. They think more of beaver skins than of souls, and their missions are pure mockeries." At the same time he assures the minister that, when he is obliged to correct them, he does so with the utmost gentleness. In spite of this somewhat doubtful urbanity, it seems clear that a storm was brewing; and it was fortunate for the peace of the Canadian Church that the attention of the truculent governor was ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... to this effect: "When an astronomer tells me that he has discovered a new planet, I would be the last man to brush the fly off the end of his telescope." Would not this have been a good occasion for a similar exercise of urbanity? Nay, may it not be said that my criticism of God the Invisible King is a breach of discipline, like duelling in the face of the enemy? I am proud to think that Mr. Wells and I are soldiers in the same army; ought we not at ...
— God and Mr. Wells - A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' • William Archer
... it is possible, Mr. Jarndyce, that that gentleman may have done me the honour so far to misapprehend my character as to induce you to believe that you would not have been received by my local establishment in Lincolnshire with that urbanity, that courtesy, which its members are instructed to show to all ladies and gentlemen who present themselves at that house. I merely beg to observe, sir, that the fact is ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... eloquence was wanting to that great muster of various talents. Age and blindness had unfitted Lord North for the duties of a public prosecutor; and his friends were left without the help of his excellent sense, his tact and his urbanity. But in spite of the absence of these two distinguished members of the Lower House, the box in which the managers stood contained an array of speakers such as perhaps had not appeared together since the great age of Athenian eloquence. There were Fox and Sheridan, the English Demosthenes ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... you, sir, to weigh anchor, so that we may get in, as my wife and daughters are waiting in their carriage, in the street.' The captain readily granted the request of his aquatic visitor, who took his leave with much urbanity, and the ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... amusement on Sundays after mass was to send a feather up into the air, each blowing at it in turn to prevent it from falling to the ground. This afforded them amusement enough to last until the following Sunday. The piety of my grandmother, her urbanity, her regard for the established order of things are graven in my heart as the best pictures of that old-fashioned society based upon God and the king—two props for which it may not be easy ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... these two authorities concur in opinion; although it must be confessed that the late Vice-President of the so-called Confederate States in urbanity of manner and in the art of diplomacy far surpasses the late Vice-President (as Mr. Johnson, if his logic does not fail him, must soon say) ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... different, sir," I said firmly. "If I may take the liberty of putting it so, I felt quite offended by your manner. I missed from it at the most critical moment, as one might say, a certain urbanity that I found ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... had voluntarily imposed limits on their genius, refusing to trespass beyond a traced circle of religious subjects, or to aim at effects unrealisable by purity of outline, suavity of expression, delicacy of feeling, and urbanity of style. The charm of manner they possess in common, can scarcely he defined except by similes. The innocence of childhood, the melody of a lute or song-bird as distinguished from the music of an orchestra, the rathe tints of early dawn, ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... declaration; a buffoon making subtle somersaults in the metaphysical blue. He was a metaphysician complicated by a poet. Von Hartmann it was who extorted his homage. "All is relative," was his war-cry on schools and codes and generalisations. His urbanity never deserted him, though it was an exasperated urbanity. His was an art of the nerves. Arthur Symons has spoken of his "icy ecstasy" and Maurice Maeterlinck described his laughter as "laughter of the soul." Like Chopin or Watteau, he danced on roses and thorns. All ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... to permeate his whole being, and to throw a chill upon the feelings of those to whom he addressed himself. So much was this the case that when ever he assumed an air of familiarity a dark, strange, and undefinable spirit, which was strongly felt, seemed not only to contradict his apparent urbanity, but to impress his auditors with a sense of uneasiness sometimes amounting to pain—an impression, however, for which they ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... to admire in Mrs. Jenkin, mildness of demeanour was not one of them. And here he found per sons who were the equals of his mother and himself in intellect and width of interest, and the equals of his father in mild urbanity of disposition. Show Fleeming an active virtue, and he always loved it. He went away from that house struck through with admiration, and vowing to himself that his own married life should be upon that pattern, his wife (whoever she might ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... lines; then consider how long it took the inhabitants of this island—the cultured ones who count as readers or writers—to recapture just that note of urbanity. Other things our forefathers —Britons, Saxons, Normans, Dutch or French refugees—discovered by the way; worthier things if you will; but not until the eighteenth century do you find just that note recaptured; the note ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... to be some humble cottage on the bank of a modest brook in England, or burn in Scotland. The more obscure or lowly their origin, the more difficult of access they are generally found. The real gentleman is easily discovered by his superior breeding and genuine urbanity. ...
— Trade and Travel in the Far East - or Recollections of twenty-one years passed in Java, - Singapore, Australia and China. • G. F. Davidson
... scholarship, but as a means to success. The Church had become his profession, and he had worked hard at his calling. He had taught himself to be courteous and urbane, because he had been clever enough to see that courtesy and urbanity are agreeable to men in high places. As a bishop he never spared himself the work which a bishop ought to do. He answered letters, he studied the characters of the clergymen under him, he was just with his patronage, ...
— Dr. Wortle's School • Anthony Trollope
... true Attic salt in which there was a peculiar quickness and delicacy. That same Attic salt seasoned almost all Greece, except Boeotia, and a great deal of it was exported afterward to Rome, where it was counterfeited by a composition called Urbanity, which in some time was brought to very near the perfection of the original Attic salt. The more you are powdered with these two kinds of salt, the better you will keep, and the more ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... just driven up to the hotel door; they at once ordered dinner with great condescension. We are all very much delighted with the urbanity of their manners, and the ease with which they adapt themselves to the forms and ceremonies of ordinary life. Immediately on their arrival they sent for the head waiter, and privately requested him to purchase a live dog,—as cheap a one as he could meet with,—and ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... 'Arry 'Ooker, the Private Inquiry Agent, is the feature of the performance. His politeness to ladies, his assumption of businesslike habits, suggested by his reading and spiking of bogus telegrams brought to him when he is engaged with a client, his urbanity under difficulties, and his cheerful acceptance of the inevitable in whatever shape presented, are all admirable points, and points that are fully appreciated by the audience. Roars of laughter follow the one after the other when 'Arry 'Ooker is ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 24, 1891. • Various
... excluding the air. The bedsteads are of gilded iron, with luxurious bedding and spotless mosquito-nettings. His head is tied up with a silk handkerchief. He rises from his rocking-chair, receives us with great urbanity, and expresses his appreciation of the American nation and their country, which he himself has visited. After a short interview we leave him, but not until he has placed his house and all it contains " la disposicion de Usted." We are then shown the pretty ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... friend," Kinglake called him; "odious" is the epithet I have heard commonly bestowed upon him by less affectionate acquaintances. Kinglake was reserved, shy, reticent, with the high breeding, grand manner, quiet urbanity, grata protervitas, of a waning epoch; restraint, concentration, tact of omission, dictating alike his silence and his speech; his well-weighed words "crystallizing into epigrams as they touched ...
— Biographical Study of A. W. Kinglake • Rev. W. Tuckwell
... of Pryce can offer such bargains is a mystery to the old school of red-necked bookmakers, whose Oxford accent was not pronounced. They fail to see what courtesy, urbanity and meat-teas at three shillings per head can do in the way of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 7th, 1920 • Various
... to see the acting Pasha, with the Consul. He received us with his usual urbanity, and gave coffee and lemonade twice. He mentioned the things which a functionary of government was permitted to receive as presents,—viz., two sheep, twelve pounds and a half of butter, fifty eggs, and two fowls. This to be received once only from a friend. But some of the functionaries ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson
... considerations. That was where she belonged of course; but she was fearful on the score of suspected shortcomings. So it was gratifying to be able to receive him in a smarter gown, to be wearing white cuffs, and to offer him tea with a touch of Mrs. Taylor's tormenting urbanity. Not so unreservedly as she. That would never do. It was and never would be in keeping with her own ideas of serious self-respect. Still a touch of it was grateful to herself. She felt that it was a ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... deal of Mr. Bunbury in the course of this month, as he was in waiting upon the Duke of York, who spent great part of it at Windsor, to the inexpressible delight of his almost idolising father. Mr. Bunbury did not open upon me with that mildness and urbanity that might lead me to forget the strokes of his pencil, and power of his caricature: he early avowed a general disposition to laugh at, censure, or despise all around him. He began talking of everybody and everything about us, with the ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... to use this great influence consistently as a counterpoise to the Medicean authority. It was he, for instance, who advised Lorenzo the younger to make himself Duke of Florence. Distinguished, as he was, above all men of his time for wit, urbanity, accomplishments, and splendid living, his want of character neutralized these radiant gifts of nature. His private morals were infamous. He encouraged by precept and example the worst vices of his age and ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... think Verona would be a very delightful sejour; everything is very cheap; a fine country highly cultivated; a remarkably healthy climate; a society which unites much urbanity and a love of amusement with a taste for the fine arts and for the graver sciences, and a general appearance of opulence and comfort. The shops in Verona appear very splendid, and the Bra, when lighted up in the evening, is a ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... to make breakfast; she showed us into a neat parlour, furnished with prints, a mahogany table, and other things which I was surprised to see, for her husband was only a day-labourer, but she had been Lady Buchan's waiting-maid, which accounted for these luxuries and for a noticeable urbanity in her manners. All the cottages in this neighbourhood, if I am not mistaken, were covered with red tiles, and had chimneys. After breakfast we set out in the rain to the ruins of Dryburgh Abbey, which are near Lord Buchan's house, and, like Bothwell Castle, appropriated to the pleasure ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth
... began to discuss with him a recent monograph on the Roman Wall, showing a plentiful and scholarly knowledge of the subject. And presently he drew in the girl opposite, addressing her with a man-of-the-world ease and urbanity which disarmed her. It appeared that he had just come back from mission-work in British Guiana, that he had been in India, and was in all respects a travelled and accomplished person. But the girl did not yield herself, ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... she looked for from her spirited words, his manner lost none of its urbanity. "Indeed? That's the name of our Pittsburg magnate. You ought to be sure of a position under him—you might turn out to be a relation," ...
— The Daughter of a Magnate • Frank H. Spearman
... three long-boats to approach her, and rowed up himself to one of the enemy's ships, to communicate with the commodore. This officer proved to be an old acquaintance, whom he had known in the West Indies; so he invited himself on board, and with that urbanity as well as decision which always characterised him, urged his claim to the ZEALAND so well that it was admitted. The men from the boats lashed a cable round her bowsprit, and the gun-vessel towed her away. It is affirmed, and ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... be grandly magnanimous, while the generosity of Francis flowed only from the shallow surface of a maudlin good-nature. He spoke many languages and had the tastes of a scholar, while his son had only the inclinations of an unfeeling pedagogue. He had an inkling of urbanity, and could in a measure become all things to all men, while Philip could never show himself except as a gloomy, impracticable bigot. It is for some such reasons as these, I suppose, that Mr. Buckle—no friend to despots—speaks ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... Spaniards were masters of Bridgetown, the islanders were disarmed, and at Government House, Governor Steed—his gout forgotten in his panic—supported by Colonel Bishop and some lesser officers, was being informed by Don Diego, with an urbanity that was itself a mockery, of the sum that would be required ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... Cole, with many a puff That haloed his urbanity, Would smoke till he had smoked enough, And listen most attentively. He beamed as with an inward light That had the Lord's assurance in it; And once a man was there all night, ...
— The Man Against the Sky • Edwin Arlington Robinson
... apart from all other questions, Sir Wilfrid's personal qualities had no small influence in bringing about his party triumphs. Alike in Opposition and in power, his unfailing tact, old-fashioned courtesy, conciliatory methods, urbanity, moderation, and unvarying good temper evoked the sympathy of thousands whom Blake's coldly intellectual feats failed to attract and Mackenzie's rigidity of demeanour served only to repel. Simultaneously with Mr Laurier's advent to the leadership of the Opposition in 1887, ...
— The Day of Sir John Macdonald - A Chronicle of the First Prime Minister of the Dominion • Joseph Pope
... an alcove and not in the kitchens, saw nothing of these things. Not even when the head waiter, shaking with apprehension, appeared with cocktails made by himself, in glasses that he himself had had to wipe, did Mr. Fyshe, absorbed in the easy urbanity of the Duke, ...
— Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich • Stephen Leacock
... smooth; And when, as much from universal trust In other states' goodwill as from the pinch Of blinking parsimony, we our fleets Let rot, and regiments shrink to skeletons.— From those fell rights to such urbanity The march indeed is long; tho' kindly freaks May sometimes clamour Justice from her throne; Yet gentleness is still a noble gain, And we will trust ...
— My Beautiful Lady. Nelly Dale • Thomas Woolner
... correspond to the urbanity merited by the letter with which you honoured me the 30th ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison
... mounted. The ancient capital of Virginia was aflame with the new rebel bunting. President Davis, with Generals Lee and Magruder, were in place on the pretty green before the old colonial college edifice when the Rosedale people came up. Davis saluted Mrs. Atterbury with cordial urbanity; but, as the troops were already in column, there was only time for ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... and Routledge; three of the bitterest enemies of Great Britain. This trio waited upon his lordship in Staten Island, on the 11th of September, and they were received with true English politeness and urbanity. His lordship commenced the conference by stating that though he could not treat with them as a committee of congress, yet as his powers enabled him to confer and consult with any private gentlemen of influence in the colonies, he would be glad, if they thought ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... and the printing press, and the unfailing tact with which he has carried on his mission is not unworthy of comparison with that of Franklin. No one who has been privileged to meet and know M. Lauzanne can fail to be impressed with his fine urbanity, his savoir faire and his perfect tact. Without any attempt at propaganda, he has greatly impressed American public opinion by his contributions to our press and his many public addresses. In none of them has he ever made a false step or uttered a tactless note. His words ...
— Fighting France • Stephane Lauzanne
... sobbings on my shoulder that recurred at regular intervals did not in the least mar our prosperity. I wonder that Stepan Trofimovitch did not grow stout during this period. His nose was a little redder, and his manner had gained in urbanity, that was all. By degrees a circle of friends had formed around him, although it was never a very large one. Though Varvara Petrovna had little to do with the circle, yet we all recognised her as our patroness. After the lesson she had received in Petersburg, she settled down in our town for good. ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... run in streaks. Man, to use the language of another, is a queer combination of cheek and perversity, insolence, pride, impudence, vanity, jealousy, hate, scorn, baseness, insanity, honor, truth, wisdom, virtue and urbanity. He's a queer combination all right. And those mixed elements of his nature, in their effects on other people, we call personal influence. Many a man is not altogether what he has made himself, but what others ...
— The Story of Cole Younger, by Himself • Cole Younger
... the United States, Thomas Jefferson, with less urbanity, but more acumen, said of these verses that they ...
— The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850 • Albert Smyth
... nothing helpful half so cheap As kind urbanity that doth so much of gladness bring; More precious too than all the treasures of the deep, Making the winter of ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... honorarium they demanded for their services. A double motive spurred them to spare no pains. For if they failed, not only was their reputation gone, but the next expert called in was likely enough to hint, with that urbanity so traditional in the profession, that the illness was in fact caused or much increased by the antagonistic nature of the remedies previously employed, whereupon the chances were that the doctor's life fell into greater jeopardy than that of his ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton
... herself an English picture," their visitor pronounced in the tone of a man whose urbanity was ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... pardon," the intruder began, addressing the Keeler family with exceeding urbanity of voice and manner; "I fear that I have happened in rather inopportunely, but I dared not of course transgress our happy Arcadian laws by knocking ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... to our former station near Sansawe's village, he ran to meet us with wonderful urbanity, asking if we had seen Moene Put, king of the white men (or Portuguese); and added, on parting, that he would come to receive his dues in the evening. I replied that, as he had treated us so scurvily, even forbidding his people to sell us any food, if he did not bring us a fowl and some eggs ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... "guessing," "calculating," "reckoning," and inexhaustible curiosity of the crew; but their admiration of the ship, her guns, her stores, and her tackle, were boundless; they felt that their pinnace was a mere toy in comparison. The urbanity of the officers also was a source of much gratification to them; Jack even declared that all the civilization of Europe had been shipped on board the Hoboken, and in so far as that was concerned, they had no occasion ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... ghosts, And that without reflectors; And creepy things With wings, And gaunt and grisly spectres! He can fill you crowds Of shrouds, And horrify you vastly; He can rack your brains With chains, And gibberings grim and ghastly. Then, if you plan it, he Changes organity, With an urbanity, Full of Satanity, Vexes humanity With an inanity Fatal to vanity— Driving your foes to the verge of insanity! Barring tautology, In demonology, 'Lectro biology, Mystic nosology, Spirit philology, High class astrology, Such is his knowledge, he Isn't the man to require ...
— Bab Ballads and Savoy Songs • W. S. Gilbert
... in his best professional manner, Herr Windt left the room with an air of triumphant urbanity which added not a little to the respect with ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... and triumphant he must have wondered more at that icy lassitude, and at the cloak of ceremony she wrapped about her to hide a terror. It was queer to hear the chill urbanity of her: "This is Christopher, Nelson; Christopher, this is your father's servant, Nelson." It was queerer still to see the fastidious decorum with which she led him over this, the ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... life, the frivolity of the drawing-rooms into which he had been admitted. "Suspicions, heart-burnings, apprehensions, coldness, reserve, hatred, treason, lurk incessantly beneath that uniform and perfidious veil of politeness, under that so much vaunted urbanity which we owe to the enlightenment of ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... she proposed to present to France. In the autumn of 1807, she set out for Vienna, and she there once more found, in the society of the Prince de Ligne, of the Princess Lubomirski, &c. &c. that urbanity of manners and ease of conversation, which had such charms in her eyes. The Austrian government, exhausted by the war, had not then the strength to be an oppressor on its own account, and notwithstanding preserved towards France, an attitude which was not without ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein
... their friends if they chose to bring them, provided they did not interfere with his habits or require any personal attention at his hands: from any such obligation he considered that his age and infirmities released him. He received his guests with the utmost urbanity and courtesy, did the honours of his table, and in every other respect left them free to abide as long as they pleased, but to amuse themselves as they could. Petworth was consequently like a great inn. Everybody ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... week nothing of moment happened, and then we spent an hour one morning with the surveyor and a gray-haired gentleman from Winnipeg. He differed from the former in many ways, and spoke with a deliberate urbanity, but I felt that he also spoke with authority and was quietly taking stock of us. We signed several papers, a receipt among them, and it was only then that I realized what that unfortunate coulee had cost us, while, when at last we went out, the ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... up perfectly," she said to Madame de Maintenon. "His urbanity is of good origin; that is how a king's son ought to ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... at my Round Table, Where they all hob-a-nob as friends, not foes! E'en the MACULLUM MORE cocks not his nose Too high in Punch's presence; he knows better! Supremacy unchallenged is a fetter E'en to patrician pride, provincial vanity; Scot modesty, and Birmingham urbanity, Bow at my shrine, because they can't resist. Thus I'm the only genuine Unionist, While all the same, my British Public you'll err, If you conceive I'm not a firm Home-Ruler. Perpend! There's sense and truth in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, July 9, 1892 • Various
... skirts and tiptoeing through the dew. They called to him, "Good-morning, Mr. Whitwell!" and "Are you going up Lion's Head to-day?" and "Don't you think it will rain?"—"Guess not," said Whitwell, with a fatherly urbanity and an air of amusement at the anxieties of the sex which seemed habitual to him. He waited tranquilly for them to come up, and then asked, with a wave of his hand toward Westover: "Acquainted with Mr. Westover, the attist?" He named each of them, and it would have been no great ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... urbanity is entirely French; it is of the same country with myself! I press in imagination the hand which you refuse me. Take your measures,—act as it may seem good to you; I will ...
— A Voyage in a Balloon (1852) • Jules Verne
... himself with the Republican Party, and as a Republican he filled with honor a place upon the bench of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, and upon the election of President Hayes, he was made Attorney-General of the United States. That office he filled with tact, urbanity, and reasonable ability. He belonged to a class of orators of which Massachusetts has furnished a considerable number—Mr. Everett was the chief. His disciples or followers included Hillard, Burlingame, Bullock, Devens, Long, and some others of lesser note. ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 • George Boutwell
... to contrast this urbanity of literature with the savage ferocity which characterized political controversy in the England of the Revolution and the Georges. Never has the strife of warring parties been carried on with so utter an absence of truth or fairness; never has the language of political opponents stooped to such ...
— History of the English People, Volume VII (of 8) - The Revolution, 1683-1760; Modern England, 1760-1767 • John Richard Green
... character, respecting the immediate neighbourhood and adjoining counties, our readers cannot do better than refer to the files of Birmingham newspapers, preserved in the Reference Library, or write to the present editors of the said papers, gentlemen noted for their urbanity, and readiness to tell ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... adherent. Slender, with intellectual features and a dark red moustache, which lights up his pale face, Colonel Lamont has the mouth of a man who is silent and the ears of a man who listens, while the quick glances of his eyes take in what there is to be seen. The possessor of great personal urbanity, always clear-headed, and very reticent, especially concerning the President, he is emphatically "the right man in the right place." He keeps up his Albany habit of calling Mr. Cleveland "Governor," while the President familiarly calls him "Dan." There is no "Kitchen Cabinet" ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... is carried to the highest pitch of sanguinary zeal precisely in that nation whose political and financial records show that they are not too honorable. What that nation is like in its private and domestic life, is a question which may be best put to those who are experienced in the matter. Their urbanity and social culture have long been conspicuous ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer: The Wisdom of Life • Arthur Schopenhauer
... Secretary could leash in his restless young First Assistant, with his Titanic energy and his head full of projects. No one believed that even Roosevelt could startle Governor Long out of his habitual urbanity, but every one could foresee that they might so clash in policy that either the head or the assistant would ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... concentrated malice which supplied the stock in trade of Abraham Hayward. More recent losses have been heavier still. Just ten years ago[15] died Mr. Matthew Arnold, who combined in singular harmony the various elements which go to make good conversation—urbanity, liveliness, quick sympathy, keen interest in the world's works and ways, the happiest choice of words, and a natural and never-failing humour, as genial as it was pungent. It was his characteristic glory that he knew how to be a man of the world without ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... the very jaws of danger, Muhlen-Sarkey made his adieux with no ruffle disturbing his customary urbanity. "Sorry we can't have your help," he remarked to Carter; "you have the place of honor, though. No need to caution you. Go ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... authors. Goldsmith became nettled, though he could scarcely be deemed jealous of one so far his inferior. He spoke disparagingly, though no doubt sincerely, of Kelly's play: the latter retorted. Still, when they met one day behind the scenes of Covent Garden, Goldsmith, with his customary urbanity, congratulated Kelly on his success. "If I thought you sincere, Mr. Goldsmith," replied the other, abruptly, "I should thank you." Goldsmith was not a man to harbor spleen or ill-will, and soon laughed ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... with his courtiers and friends, and finally he said that, on the whole, as it was the last day of the festival, he would not go out to the bath, but would remain in the theater; and then ordering refreshments to be brought to him there, he proceeded to distribute them with great urbanity to the ...
— Nero - Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott
... intelligence, urbanity, and quiet contentment of this good woman were very striking. She had beautiful white teeth, and was not prematurely aged, only very sun-burnt and shabby, her black stuff dress blue with age and mended in many places, her partially bare feet thrust in sabots. The women here wear ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... Broadway of human events and opinions,—how that which but a lustre ago was wicked is now virtuous,—we see no reason for despair; and our century may yet witness the time when it will be considered the highest mixture of philosophic courtesy and Christian urbanity to make the most graceful semi-lateral bow, as you pass your friend in the street, and, kissing the tip of your finger, to lisp, with bending ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... "Children of the Sun," as the Spaniards began already to be called, from their fair complexions, brilliant armour, and the thunderbolts which they bore in their hands.22 The most favorable reports, too, had preceded them, of the urbanity and gentleness of their manners, thus unlocking the hearts of the simple natives, and disposing them to confidence and kindness. The iron-hearted soldier had not yet disclosed the darker side of his character. ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... want of efficient staff-officers are realized in all their force, and I hope, among the elements which constitute a staff-officer for volunteers, you have duly estimated the qualities of forbearance and urbanity. Many of the privates are men of high social position, of scholarship and fortune. Their pride furnishes the motive for good conduct, and, if wounded, is turned from an instrument of good to one of great power ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis |
