"Complaisant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... her temper was ruffled was on the back of an armchair, where she would sit with her bill in the air and her head cocked disdainfully on one side, pretending not to hear or see any one. In her affable moods, however, no one could be more complaisant and entertaining than Bessie. ...
— Dickey Downy - The Autobiography of a Bird • Virginia Sharpe Patterson
... induced them to let him go a long way up the sloping meadows towards the wall with one complaisant individual, and to him he promised to describe all that happened among the houses. He noted certain goings and comings, but the things that really seemed to signify to these people happened inside of or behind the windowless ...
— The Door in the Wall And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... and the white hair come back to me!—fell to quoting from the famous sonnet scene in "Le Misanthrope": first of all, Alceste's rage with Phillinte's flattery of the wretched verses declaimed by Oronte—"Morbleu! vil complaisant, vous louez des sottises"; then the admirable fencing between Oronte and Alceste, where Alceste at first tries to convey his contempt for Oronte's sonnet ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... age, then it is surely by dress; if a woman never does a foolish thing in any other way, yet at least she errs in her habiliments; if she be fickle at all, (and speak to the fact, ye disappointed bachelors and ye complaisant husbands!) in what is she more fickle than in dress? We might waste a life in finding a suitable simile for her volatility in this matter: rainbows with changing colours, water on a windy day, the wind itself ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... inheritance, also in some cases with a view to gain, and so forth. There are also disorderly marriages, in which, by mutual consent, the licence of unlimited amour is allowed to each party, and yet they are civil and complaisant to each other when ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... of Daniel and Munday in "Cynthia's Revels" must be added Anaides (impudence), here assuredly Marston, and Asotus (the prodigal), interpreted as Lodge or, more perilously, Raleigh. Crites, like Asper-Macilente in "Every Man Out of His Humour," is Jonson's self-complaisant portrait of himself, the just, wholly admirable, and judicious scholar, holding his head high above the pack of the yelping curs of envy and detraction, but careless of their puny attacks on his perfections with only too ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson
... active party starts the conquest by making eyes, next she becomes more intimate, and finally proposes. Women being highly adaptable, the neophyte, unless she is rebellious, gets into the spirit of it all. If she is not complaisant, she must prepare for conflict, because the prey becomes more desirable the more the ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... lose no time. You have many a weary step to tread, before you can overtake those travellers who set out for it from a less remote quarter. But you have a charming pole-star to guide you; that's your advantage. I wish you joy of it: and as I have never yet expected any highly complaisant thing from you, I make no scruple to begin first; but it is purely, I must tell you, in respect to my new cousin; whose accession into our family we most heartily congratulate ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... tender letters to me, always directing to me by the name of "Mary Cranstoun," and sent me some very handsome presents of Scotch linen. He also obliged his eldest sister, Mrs. Selby,[27] and her husband, to write to me as their sister. Lady Cranstoun likewise wrote to my father in a very complaisant style, thanking him for the civilities he had shewn her son; and hinting, that she hoped it would be in her power to return them to me, when she should have the pleasure of seeing me in Scotland, which she begged might be soon. Lord ...
— Trial of Mary Blandy • William Roughead
... now, Mr. Tomkins, don't you think I am right?' To be sure he does; and so does Mr. Jenkins, and so does Wilkins, and so does Mr. Dickins, and you would swear that they were all her kins. Now this is very foolish, to say the least of it. None of these complaisant kins would like this in their own case. It is the fashion to say aye to all that a woman asserts, or contends for, especially in contradiction to her husband; and a very pernicious fashion it is. It is, in fact, not to ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... lived, and since her father would never consider moving to any other locality nor rebuilding the rather patriarchal homestead which he had occupied for twenty-five years, it was just as well that the daughter was so complaisant. She, moreover, was the only person who looked upon John M. Hurd with a clear understanding of his habits of thought. She could herself accomplish things with him, when her way did not conflict too directly with ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... out that I was up to a thing or two, they insisted on making me an officer. What rank I held I never could tell. I only knew that everybody obeyed me, and that none of the officers interfered with my commands. This complaisant conduct did not arise so much from respect for me, as that they might save themselves trouble. I never met with men who seemed to hate it so much, from the captain to the youngest powder-monkey. My great difficulty arose from no one understanding a word I said, nor could I understand ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... inflated diction of the complaisant Court newswriter, let us endeavour to approach somewhat nearer ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... so on, until at last the brothers pluck up determination, and make choice of an employer. So our Caledonian friends begin to gather together their traps and make preparations to accompany their complaisant and well-satisfied boss to his farm on the banks of the Waikato. And an indescribable joy is in their hearts, for they are to receive six shillings and sixpence a day, and to be provided with comfortable lodging and lavish "tucker" ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... [Less complaisant laws needed.] If, therefore, it is not possible entirely to eradicate the vices under which the interior administration of these Islands labors, owing to the difficulty of finding persons possessed ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... My complaisant host, a little man, rather advanced in years, who in many respects was extremely useful to us, accompanied us, as soon as we had arranged our dress, to the President Freire. The latter received us ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... upon our shoulders. But so long as the life of our mind and character flows uninterruptedly on, so long will the past remain in suspense above us; and, as the glance may be that we send towards it, will it, complaisant as the clouds Hamlet showed to Polonius, adopt the shape of the hope or fear, the peace or disquiet, that we are ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck
... recognize an equal amount of truth in all of them. The idea that all the Religions teach much the same thing—or that, while they vary about that unimportant part of Religion which is called doctrine or dogma, they are all agreed about Morality—is an idea which could only occur to the self-complaisant ignorance which of late years has done most of the theological writing in the correspondence columns of our newspapers. The real student of comparative {150} Religion knows that it is only at a rather advanced stage in the development of Religion ...
— Philosophy and Religion - Six Lectures Delivered at Cambridge • Hastings Rashdall
... letters, and subscribes or inscribes himself E. S. Aurifex. Specimens of his handicraft occur fairly often in the market; as to their merit, opinions differ. But after all, there is a soupcon of gratification in having a Baronet to your binder; and we understand that Sir Edward is complaisant enough to accept commissions ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt
... must learn to parse my lesson, for the present, and be quiet. Yes, yes; she shall find me very complaisant. I must be so, for live without her I cannot. She must she shall be mine. It is a prize which I am born to bear away from all competitors. This is what ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... proved in worse plight than was at first thought. The Nina also found this or that to do besides squaring her Levant sails. We stayed in Gomera almost three weeks. The place was novel, the day's task not hard, the Admiral and his captains complaisant. We had leisure and island company. To many it was happiness enough. While we stopped at Gornera we were at least not drifting upon lodestone, equator fire ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... aim, and he acquired it earlier than Robespierre. A barrister without talent but upright, he had imbibed no more of philosophy than the Social Contract; young, good looking and a patriot, he was destined to become one of those complaisant idols of whom the people make what they please except a man; his credit in the streets and amongst the Jacobins gave him a certain amount of authority in the Assembly, where he was listened to as the significant echo of the will ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... complaisant smile caused Arthur to look away with disgust. He turned to Harold, and they were conferring about Rawbon's strange proposition, when Oriana raised her head suddenly and her face assumed an expression of attention, as if her ear had caught a distant sound. She had not forgotten ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood
... her, to see her spouse cut off so in the flower of his youth, as one may say: and you ought to scorn to take exceptions at a lady's proudness when she's in so much trouble. To be sure, I can't say myself as she was over- complaisant to make us welcome; but I hope I am above being so unpitiful as for to owe her a grudge for it now she's so down ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... and misrule, which hastened a separation that sooner or later must have occurred, had not yet commenced. The mother country, if not just, was still complaisant. Like all old and great nations, she was indulging in the pleasing, but dangerous, enjoyment of self-contemplation. The qualities and services of a race, who were believed to be inferior, were, however, soon forgotten; or, if remembered, it was in ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... very desirous that one of them shall devote herself, and make the first dash, that they may profit by her pretended fault. I know who will not be the last to come and station herself amongst the furniture of your apartment. The marechale de Mirepoix was too long the complaisant friend of madame de Pompadour not to become, and that very soon, the friend of the comtesse du Barry." "Good heaven," I exclaimed, "how delighted I should be to have the friendship of this lady, whose wit and amiable manners are so greatly talked of." ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... had actually appeared before its gates, although they had subsequently retired. Liberalism had been routed and a Moderado Cabinet, under the leadership of Count Ofalia, ruled the city and such part of the country as was sufficiently complaisant as to permit itself to be ruled. As the Moderados represented the Court faction, Borrow saw that he had little to expect from them. He was unacquainted with any of the members of the Cabinet, and, what was far more serious for him, the relations between the new Government and ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... no assistance: The queen gave her confidence to Concini, a Florentine like herself, whom she created a marshal of France. Her son, Lewis XIII, ordered him to be killed in the courtyard of the palace; and his wife, the queen's foster-sister, was put to death by complaisant judges. The young king's favourite, Luynes, governed for a time, until the queen obtained the first post for an adviser of her own, who was the strongest ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... And so the complaisant but still considerate valet bowed himself out of a dilemma, that he found, as he muttered to himself, while retiring, 'tant ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... heat of the southern day, the woodland fragrances of which the air was full, and the sense of being intimately alone with her, set up within him a turbulent vibration, half of delight, half of pained suspense. And the complaisant informality with which she met him played a sustaining counterpoint. 'What luck, what luck, what luck,' were the words which shaped themselves to the strong beating of his pulses. What would happen next? ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... been stiff in their demands and Papa had been more complaisant than he should have been. Altogether that marriage ...
— The Innocent Adventuress • Mary Hastings Bradley
... make herself responsible—she, Felice!—for my innocence and honor. She had also been obliged to show Gaston the piece of gold I had given her and to assure him there would be another for him if he were complaisant. I judged, also, that she had found it necessary to offer him a bribe quite as tangible as the gold piece but less mercenary, for her face was rosier and her eyes brighter and her hair a little more disheveled than when I had first ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... Erh's tone of voice was, how complaisant she was, and how simpleton-like unaffected in her language and smiles, and he soon felt the warmest affection for her; and particularly so, when she started the conversation about Pao-ch'ai. "Where do her qualities lie?" ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... the hereditary principle! The Republicans, he said, had twice elected to the chief magistracy an austerely virtuous Republican whom they had finally been compelled to throw out at the window of the Elysee, as 'the complaisant and guilty witness, if not the interested accomplice, of scandals which revolted the public conscience!' And whom had the elective principle put into his place, under the pressure of irreconcilable personal rivalries, and of a threatened popular outbreak? A man whose recommendations ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... banter, Mrs. Kinloch. I hoped to find you in a more complaisant humor. There are topics which cannot be discussed with the square precision of legal rules,—thoughts that require sympathy before they can be expressed." And he dropped his eyes ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... features. His smitten heart is immediately inflamed, and he gradually burns with unchaste desires. His crafty shrewdness invents a thousand pretences for seeing her more frequently. Wrought upon by daily intercourse, by degrees she became more complaisant to the stranger, and soon enthralled his heart by a closer tie. While the careful Guard is here passing his nights, a body is missed from one of the crosses. The Soldier in his alarm relates to the Woman what has happened; but the chaste ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... with a smiling face. He felt unusually complaisant, having succeeded in his designs against ...
— Fame and Fortune - or, The Progress of Richard Hunter • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... his post, was not reprimanded in France, but was, without apology, received back again in Portugal. His conduct afterwards could not be surprising. He only insisted that some faithful and able Ministers should be removed, and others appointed in their place, more complaisant ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... sleeves, made one feel in a rather laughable sort of way that finality had been reached! They had that curious half-laugh on their faces which signifies an intense nervousness being politely concealed. Up to three o'clock these complaisant shopmen were still selling things at a purely nominal price, which was not entered in the books, but quietly pocketed by them for their own benefit. Having completed my own arrangements, I began idly watching their actions, ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... time we pass, and often exchange a couple of friendly words with her; and yet it is thirty years ago since she was gracious to me. But now I swear it is not four weeks since this young lady showed herself more complaisant to me than was reasonable; and yet I will not recognize her, but insult her in return for her favors! Do I not always say, that ingratitude is the greatest of vices, and no man would be ungrateful if he were ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... "I am a complaisant monarch, as I think," he said. "Now, lady, do your best to make your sweetheart see reason. Honestly, I do not think he is worth so many words, but you think otherwise, and for your sake I wish you a ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... blame for anything, I suppose, and very likely Pius IX. had not voluntarily disappointed his countrymen, who may have expected too much. But then the French had been there fifteen years, and were to be there another fifteen years yet. Now they are gone, with the archbishop's red coach, and the complaisant grocer, and the young man of twenty-seven in Via del Gambero, and the rest of the things that the sun looked on and will look on the like of again, no doubt, in ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... no time to lose, and that circumstance made this case one of those in which forbearance and a show of generosity were called for, instead of defiance and force. He accordingly sent messengers to the council at Ruscino to say, in a very complaisant and affable manner, that he wished to see and confer with their princes in person, and that, if they pleased, he would advance for this purpose toward Ruscino; or they might, if they preferred, come on toward him at Illiberis, where he would await their ...
— Hannibal - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... neighbour, he says he loves God, his Country, or even Humanity. Sometimes the poor master is himself a slave to the State. Under threat of punishment, the social machine forces him to acts which are repugnant, but the complaisant intelligence persuades him that these are fine and glorious, and performed by him of his own free will. In either case the intelligence knows what she is about, and is always at our disposition if we really want her to tell us the truth; but we take good care to avoid it, and never to be left ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... be told? How when she and Ascott sat over the wine and desert he had ordered for them, listening to the rich man's complaisant pomposities, were they to explain that they had come a begging, asking him, as the climax to his liberalities, to advance a few pounds in order to keep the young man whom he had for years generously and sufficiently maintained out of prison? This, ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... friend behind phenomena"; that Anglican deity had been rather a vague flummery behind court and society, wealth, "respectability," and the comfortable life. And even while he had lived in lipservice to that complaisant compromise, this true God had been here, this God he now certainly professed, waiting for his allegiance, waiting to take up the kingship of this distraught and bloodstained earth. The finding of God is ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... is a good deal the system on which the Spaniards carry on business. They always appear to be trying to take advantage of a purchaser, and if successful have very complaisant consciences; but should they themselves be taken in, or have the worst of a bargain, their virtuous horror and indignation on discovering it know no bounds. There is very little, or almost none, of that mutual confidence existing between them which exists between ...
— Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines - During 1848, 1849 and 1850 • Robert Mac Micking
... his daughter, no matter how guilty she was; and in all our records of that period no instance occurs. As to husbands, we have repeated complaints in the literature of the day that they had grown so complaisant towards erring wives that they could not be induced to prosecute them.[92] A typical instance is related by Pliny.[93] Pliny was summoned by the Emperor Trajan to attend a council where, among other cases, that of a certain Gallitta ...
— A Short History of Women's Rights • Eugene A. Hecker
... knock down a husky ruffian who has insulted the woman you love; but it is a desperate undertaking, and rarely crowned with success. For in real life ruffians are surprisingly unwilling to play this complaisant role. ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... graceful movements and glossy coats. I have seen no bird walk the ground with just the same air the crow does. It is not exactly pride; there is no strut or swagger in it, though perhaps just a little condescension; it is the contented, complaisant, and self-possessed gait of a lord over his domains. All these acres are mine, he says, and all these crops; men plow and sow for me, and I stay here or go there, and find life sweet and good wherever ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... and clear to France when necessary. When he arrived in a town he would soon become a favorite with other skilled workers. Naturally he would be introduced to their lady friends. These ladies were usually "complaisant," to use his own phrase. Soon he would be on very good terms with one or more of them; then would come jealousies; he would tire of the lady, or she of him more probably; then, if she took up with a goldsmith, Benvenuto would hate the pair ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... German and his wife, who, he well knew, waited for his exit, started back, and gave tokens of confusion, which was partly real and partly affected. The jeweller, fully satisfied with Fathom's declaration to his daughter, received him with a complaisant look, and, in order to alleviate his concern, gave him to understand, that he already knew the reason of his being in that apartment, and desired to be informed of what had procured him the honour to see him at ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... the World would not be reduc'd to the Misfortune of seeing in a Carnaval but one Theatre provided with eminent Performers, without Hopes of[98] an approaching Remedy. Let them take it for their Pains. Let the World learn to applaud Merit; and (not to use a more harsh Expression) be less complaisant to Faults. ...
— Observations on the Florid Song - or Sentiments on the Ancient and Modern Singers • Pier Francesco Tosi
... as I was in a state of convalescence, I became more ardent than before, in search of an immediate opportunity of embarking. My complaisant doctor introduced me to the captain of a running felucca, and I hired ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... me, Lorenzo, in these times there is no very great happiness in being pope and the so-called father of Christendom. The princes have become very troublesome and disobedient children; they are no longer willing to recognize our paternal authority, and if the holy father does not manifest a complaisant friendliness toward these refractory princely children, and wink at their independence, they will renounce the whole connection and quit the paternal mansion. We should then, indeed, be the holy father of Christendom, ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... proceeding steadily in the reconstruction of their Government, but they have evinced a strong democratical spirit. The new King, too, conducts himself in a way that gives me a bad opinion of him; he is too complaisant to the rage for equality, and stoops more than he need do; in fact, he overdoes it. It is a piece of abominably bad taste (to say no worse) to have conferred a pension on the author of the Marseillaise hymn; for what can be worse than to rake up the old ashes of Jacobinism, and what more necessary ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... Juan if, amid the correspondence of his father, which he may have preserved, there be any signed Marigny or Duval—any, in short, which can throw light on this very obscure complication of circumstances. A grand seigneur would naturally be more complaisant to a man of your station than he would be to an agent of police. Don Juan's son, inheriting his father's title, is Monsieur le Marquis de Rochebriant; and permit me to add, that at this moment, as the journals doubtless ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... sartain, now," he said, with a complaisant glance over his dashing rig, on departing for the chief's, as soon as he ascertained the fair object of his pursuit had returned to her father's. But he soon came back, in a great miff, and offered to sell the whole of his fine new outfit ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... had," replied the duc, with careless naivete, and a complaisant forgetfulness, of which no words could translate the tone and the vocal expression. "Now, here is poor Raoul, who is your ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... of what is pleasant in daily life: He that is as he should be may be called Friendly, and his mean state Friendliness: he that exceeds, if it be without any interested motive, somewhat too Complaisant, if with such motive, a Flatterer: he that is deficient and in all instances unpleasant, Quarrelsome ...
— Ethics • Aristotle
... good orator must be a good man. The highest talents are nothing if distorted by evil thoughts. We thus see that he took a worthy view of his profession, and would never have degraded it to be the instrument of tyranny or a means of saturating the ears of the idle with seductive and complaisant theories of life, by which a spurious popularity is so cheaply obtained. He was a high-minded man "quantum licuit;" i.e., as far as a debased age allowed of high-mindedness. His domestic life was clouded by sorrow. His first wife died at the early age of nineteen, ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... Cissy's new hat, and to the young girl the coherence was perfectly plain. Miss Tibbs looked at "it" severely. It would not do for a protegee to be too complaisant. ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte
... equally cold and equally complaisant on the Mount of Olives. He would willingly have avoided the ascent could he have done so without displeasing his son; but George made a point of it. A donkey was therefore got for him, ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... to struggle for front places in his attention. In this blind and brutal scramble for social recognition in Europe the traveling American toady and impostor has many chances of success: he is commonly unknown even to ministers and consuls of his own country, and these complaisant gentlemen, rather than incur the risk of erring on the wrong side, take him at his own valuation and push him in where his obscurity being again in his favor, he is treated with kindly toleration, and sometimes a genuine hospitality, to which he has no ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... these kindnesses are not outbalanced by the inaccuracies which surround them. For it may as well be said at once that the younger colonists do not relish being denied all native individuality, and depicted with a complaisant condescension as mere imitators of English life. It is well to be a Briton, they say, but better to be an Australian. And who shall say that their self-satisfaction ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... son of a man who had been thrice consul, was in the prime of life, and of an easy, prodigal disposition. This opinion, which had been long entertained of him, Vitellius confirmed by some late practices; having kissed all the common soldiers whom he met with upon the road, and been excessively complaisant in the inns and stables to the muleteers and travellers; asking them in a morning, if they had got their breakfasts, and letting them see, by belching, ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... king, "does not stand so much in need of assistance, in affairs of this nature, as the Duke of York; but I know Lord Chesterfield is of such a disposition, that he will not suffer men to quarrel about his wife, with the same patience as the complaisant Shrewsbury; though he well deserves the same fate." Here follows a true description ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... flock for our earth above all the other members of the solar system?—seeing that the sea-bird theory requires that this comet, and not Newton's comet alone but all others having tails, should not only be thus complaisant with respect to our little earth, but should behave in a totally different way with respect to every other member of the ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... la Peyrade, dryly. "The court is a thing essentially amiable and complaisant. 'Tiens!' it said to itself, 'here's this good Monsieur Thuillier going to be a candidate for the Chamber; how hampered he'll be by his attitude to his ex-friend Monsieur de la Peyrade, with whom he wishes now he hadn't quarrelled. I'll summon him ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... the younger set which had grown up on the farthest fringe of a mining civilization. Who cared for tradition in these days, when spirits could be evoked from black bottles, and black bottles could be evoked from the complaisant white men for a few hours' sweat or a mangy fur? Of what potency the fearful rites and masked mysteries of shamanism, when daily that living wonder, the steamboat, coughed and spluttered up and down the Yukon in defiance of all law, a veritable ...
— Children of the Frost • Jack London
... the supper came off at the very "Rod and Fly," with the tap open to the roaring, jubilant public; a score of healths were drunk upstairs with all the honours, the bride and bridegroom being king and queen of the company: even Uncle Barnet owned that Sam Winnington was very complaisant—rather exceed in his complaisance, he supplemented scornfully; but surely Sam might mend that fault with others in the bright days to come. It is only the modern English who act Hamlet minus the Prince of Denmark; sitting at the bridal ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... 1. A very kind and complaisant one to the lady, but very so-so to her poor kinsman—That people can give up their own flesh and blood with so much ease!—She tells her 'how proud all our family would be of an alliance with such an excellence.' She ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... Delcasse went on, rapidly. "A million francs would not be too much to pay for definite information. We have spent that already! We have had a Prince babbling in his cups; we have had I know not how many admirals and generals and diplomats confiding in their suddenly complaisant mistresses; we have searched their hearts, shaken them inside out—but they know nothing. Such and such orders have been issued; they obey the orders, but they do not know their purpose. They all talk war, shout war—Germany seems mad for war—and ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... that event, a change had come over the spirit of our intercourse. He, indeed, ignorant that the still hour, a cloudless moon, and an open lattice, had revealed to me the secret of his selfish love and false friendship, would have continued smooth and complaisant as ever; but I grew spiny as a porcupine, and inflexible as a blackthorn cudgel; I never had a smile for his raillery, never a moment for his society; his invitations to take coffee with him in his parlour were invariably rejected, and very stiffly and sternly rejected too; his ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... which was of such a character as to remain by itself for an indefinite period. Nobody was convinced by his reasoning. But the Imperial majorities, recruited as they were by the system of official candidatures, asked not of the complaisant minister reasons which he had not to give. They sought only pretexts which should allow them to vote, with a show of decency, according to the ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... association with royalty. Margaret of Navarre was his early friend, and at a later period had occasion to complain of his ingratitude. He was at this time fifty-five years of age, severe, stern, fond of arms, complaisant to royalty, but harsh and overbearing in his relations with inferiors. Of his personal valor there can be no doubt, and he was generally regarded as the ablest general in France—an opinion, it is true, which his subsequent ill-success contributed much to shake.[527] ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... it did in the King our master. I am of opinion that the troubles he was involved in in his youth, when he fled from his father and resided six years together with Philip, Duke of Burgundy, were of great service to him; for there he learned to be complaisant to such as he had occasion to use, which was no slight advantage of adversity. As soon as he found himself a powerful and crowned king, his mind was wholly bent upon revenge; but he quickly found the inconvenience of this, repented by ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... a Reform Bill,—very generous in its enlargement of the franchise,—but no ballot. Mr. Turnbull expressed his doubt whether this would be satisfactory to the country; but even Mr. Turnbull was soft in his tone and complaisant in his manner. As there was no reporter present,—that plan of turning private meetings at gentlemen's houses into public assemblies not having been as yet adopted,—there could be no need for energy or violence. ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... in faultless English, introduced herself as Mademoiselle Heger, co-directress of the pensionnat, and "wholly at our service." In response to our apologies for the intrusion and explanations of the desire which had prompted it, we received complaisant assurances of welcome; yet the manner of our kind entertainer indicated that she did not appreciate, much less share in, our admiration and enthusiasm for Charlotte Bronte and her books. In the subsequent conversation it appeared that Mademoiselle ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... uncultured, shallow people. Their irritation with him was merely a surface vexation, which had no real foundation in a deep principle. They became complaisant and smiling at my first word, and Boy escaped with a look of great relief to another seat, where they gave him a simple luncheon of saleratus gingerbread. "Boys not allowed" to go in to dinner at the Massasoit, thought I to myself; ...
— Bits About Home Matters • Helen Hunt Jackson
... said, book reviews are too flattering. Professor Bliss Perry, being of this opinion, offered some time ago a statement that "Magazine writing about current books is for the most part bland, complaisant, pulpy.... The Pedagogue no longer gets a chance at the gifted young rascal who needs, first and foremost, a premonitory whipping; the youthful genius simply stays away from school and carries his unwhipped talents into the market place." At a somewhat different angle of the same opinion, Dr. Crothers ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... friends, and bid them farewell. Some were aware of the trick that had been played upon him: others were not; but the poor little man's credulity was so great, that it was impossible to undeceive him; and he went from house to house bewailing his fate, and followed by the complaisant marshal's officer. ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... went fortune-seeking in a more complaisant way. They were big and hardy and the world had no real terrors for them. As twins should go, they fared forth together in quest of the road to wealth. They had been told that it lay toward the West and that it grew broader as one drew nearer ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... the close of the second year, the young doctor had only half completed Cheselden's article on Osteology. It began now to be evident that at this rate he would never become an M.D., easily as this honor is obtained; and it was equally doubtful whether the most complaisant censors of a medical society, would, at the end of three years, admit him to practice. The distinguished medical gentleman with whom he was attempting to play the student, saw that if Harvey had not discovered the theory of ...
— Ups and Downs in the Life of a Distressed Gentleman • William L. Stone
... door blushing redly, and so fluttered by their leave-taking that I thanked God that Jim was not in my place. There would have been division in our ranks at once; for it seemed to me that her conduct to Cornish was too complaisant by far. ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... without child in belly; drooping, yet not leaning on its side; becoming dirty yet purifying itself; cleaving to its fere, yet changing; copulating without a yard, wrestling without arms: resting and taking its ease; bitten, yet not crying out: now more complaisant than a cup-companion and then more troublesome than summer-heat; leaving its mate by night and embracing her by day and having its abode in the corners of the mansions of the noble?" The physician was silent awhile in perplexity and his colour changed and he ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... tempting order for the hungry young man. He thoroughly enjoyed this provision for his comfort; and as he ate, he talked to his father of those things interesting to him, answering all questions with that complaisant positiveness of youth which decides everything at once, and without reservation. No one understood this better than General Hyde, but it pleased him to draw out his son's opinions; and it also pleased him to watch the ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... face, which was black enough at all times, was blackest of all to us; nor was his brother the Papist more complaisant. They had but brought us there that they might dazzle us with their glitter and gee-gaws, in order that we might bear a fine report of them back to the West with us. There were supple-backed courtiers, ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... come, and before long, when, stripped of all those exterior advantages which please the senses, you will possess only those qualities, less striking, but more solid, which satisfy the mind and heart and attract the complaisant regard of God and the angels. Youth will quickly pass, more quickly than you think, and the subsequent period of life will last much longer, hence, in all justice to yourself, let its preparation ...
— Serious Hours of a Young Lady • Charles Sainte-Foi
... and seized her hand, exclaiming, "If the best girl in the village was to be Rosiere, where should we find another equal to you, Victorine? Now own it, mother," continued the indulged child, "own that Victorine is the most obedient and complaisant ...
— The Young Lord and Other Tales - to which is added Victorine Durocher • Camilla Toulmin
... more complaisant. They recognised in Akbar the founder of a set of principles such as had never been heard before in India. In his eyes merit was merit, whether evinced by a Hindu prince or by an Uzbek Musalman. The race and creed of ...
— Rulers of India: Akbar • George Bruce Malleson
... insulted by her brother. Barry, remembering the meeting, felt very awkward at the idea of entering into amicable conversation with him, and crept in at the door like a whipped dog. Moylan was too old to feel any such compunctions, and consequently made what he intended to be taken as a very complaisant bow to his future patron. He was an ill-made, ugly, stumpy man, about fifty; with a blotched face, straggling sandy hair, and grey shaggy whiskers. He wore a long brown great coat, buttoned up to his chin, and this was the only article of wearing ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... was natural to him, "I believe, Madam," says he, "I may venture to think you were speaking of me as I came in, that you had a design to ask me something, and that Madam de Cleves is against it." "It is true," replied the Queen-Dauphin, "but I shall not be so complaisant to her on this occasion as I was used to be; I would know of you, whether a story I have been told is true, and whether you are not the person who is in love with, and beloved by a lady of the Court, who endeavours to conceal her passion from you, and has confessed ...
— The Princess of Cleves • Madame de La Fayette
... still to encounter the scrutiny of the Senate, and Providence sometimes acts differently in the two Houses. Still the Senator was tranquil, for he knew that there is an esprit de corps in the Senate which does not exist in the House, the effect of which is to make the members complaisant towards the projects of each other, and to extend a mutual aid which in a more vulgar body would ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... medical "expert." Only two years had passed since the police and the reporters of the Tenderloin had ceased calling him "Doc." In a celebrated criminal case in which Gaylor had acted as chief counsel, he had found Rainey complaisant and apparently totally without the moral sense. And when in Garrett he had discovered for Mr. Hallowell a model servant, he had also urged upon his friend, for his ...
— Vera - The Medium • Richard Harding Davis
... acts collaterally and accidentally affecting the See of Rome; for the repeal of which the court was no less anxious than for the repeal of the Act of Supremacy, where the parliament were not so complaisant. ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... the conditions were favourable. Let the guardian be ever so considerate and civil, it would be a terrible ordeal to be literally never alone, night or day; and too often, doubtless, the guardian would be not at all complaisant. To many a man, certainly to any man of the refined mental and moral nature of St Paul, this slow fire of indescribable annoyance would be far worse to endure than a great and sudden infliction of pain, even to death. ...
— Philippian Studies - Lessons in Faith and Love from St. Paul's Epistle to the Philippians • Handley C. G. Moule
... I copy music, and God knows that in the notes I write, there is little or no thought. I have written books that I might give occasion to the French to think, but they have never profited by the opportunity. They are more complaisant now that I copy music. I give them a chance to sing, and they sing." [Footnote: This is Rousseau's own language. ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... a piece of heroics and cast me for the hero—or the victim—which is very much the same. The first duty of heroics is to be of your own choosing. When they are not that, they are nothing. And I assure you, as I walked back to my own room, I was in no very complaisant humour: thought my uncle and Mr. Romaine to have played knuckle-bones with my life and prospects; cursed them for it roundly; had no wish more urgent than to avoid the pair of them; and was quite knocked out of time, ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... complaisant. You are more complaisant than enough; than is fitting. But to what Purpose is all this Ceremony? Let us leave these trifling Ceremonies to Women, they are quite kick'd out of the Court already, although they came from thence ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... looked about him in a complaisant manner, and gave some order, when half a dozen of the courtiers darted off as fast as their legs could carry them, eager to obey it. On seeing Hendricks, he desired him to approach. The hunter advanced without considering it necessary ...
— Hendricks the Hunter - The Border Farm, a Tale of Zululand • W.H.G. Kingston
... behaviour, that frequently, in public, he wagged his tongue in satirical animadversions upon that poverty which his hand had in private relieved. Yet, far from shunning the acquaintance, or discouraging the solicitation of those who, he thought, wanted his assistance, he was always accessible, open, and complaisant to them, even when the haughtiness of his temper kept his superiors at a distance; and often saved a modest man the anguish and confusion of declaring himself, by penetrating into his necessity, and anticipating his request, in a ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... demanded to know where the Christ should be born. Too often has the priest been subject to the beck and call of the king. Bad men will use the church for their own evil purposes when they can, and will then grow condescending and complaisant towards the minister and liberal in their gifts. We must be ready to receive and help any man, but we must beware of men that push their way into the church for sinister ends. The church is no man's tool, and when it is thus prostituted its ...
— A Wonderful Night; An Interpretation Of Christmas • James H. Snowden
... did want to talk about her broken engagement. Always complaisant, he put the letter away. But she, at once exclaimed in a high voice, "Oh, do tell me more about the Miss Alans! How perfectly splendid ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster
... that, too, at some future period. I happened to be in a very good humour just then; but, though I was complaisant and gracious enough, I took care not to compromise myself in any possible way. But, however, the conceited wretch chose to interpret my amiability of temper his own way, and at length presumed upon ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... her beauty? She had been told that the Landhofmeisterin, like some evil giant tree, seemed to grow more beautiful, more resplendent each year. It was not true; for Time had set his cruel fingermarks upon Wilhelmine, but her wonderful health and her complaisant knowledge of success gave her a seeming youth. True, the pert little French dressmaker could have told the Duchess of violent scenes over gowns made to the measurements of former years, which could ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... work is equal to a man's, she should contend for wages equal to his; where it is inferior, she should be willing to accept less; where superior, she should demand more. In these matters women are apt to be either too complaisant or too clamorous. They should first be sure that they are justified in their claims, and then, if right, be firm in their demands, and, if wrong, be resigned to abandon them. The law of supply and demand acting in ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller
... the tent; the touch of her hand on his sleeve reminded him of a thoroughbred horse stepping on to turf, so full of life, of electric thrill, of excitement was it. But then, Karl Steinmetz was a cynic. No one else could have thought of comparing Etta's self-complaisant humor to that of a horse ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... discoverer's name partly that schoolboys may remember him, or not, in their prayers. It was Al-Khalil Ibn Ahmad who, at Mecca, had besought Allah to bestow upon him a science hitherto unknown. Allah being in a complaisant mood, it followed that not long after, walking in the bazaar, Al-Khalil invented prosody as he passed a coppersmith's and heard him hammering ...
— A Boswell of Baghdad - With Diversions • E. V. Lucas
... lodger, had the night before gone to bed sober and was inclined to be complaisant and to interest herself in Lavinia. She was pleased to hear ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... hospital here, and Canker had to go without him. But I wish you would see Armstrong and tell him about Gray, so that I may know the whole situation as soon as I return. Canker evidently intended not to let us know his proofs. He probably believes that he will find a more credulous and complaisant listener in Drayton; but his insinuations pointed to Gray as at least an abettor in the theft, and he went so far as to say that if Armstrong could be brought before the court some very interesting ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... lines of his First Satire Pope follows Horace pretty closely. Both poets complain that some persons think them too severe, and others too complaisant; both take the advice of a lawyer, Horace of C. Trebatius Testa, who gives him the pithiest replies; and Pope of Fortescue. Both complain that they cannot sleep, the prescription of a wife and cowslip wine being given by the English adviser, while ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... your lordship is so close an observer," returned the complaisant Dutton; "a certain sign, my lord, that your lordship will make ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... character has something too much of the centripetal system about him—that is to say, desires things to centre in himself as much as possible—and neither has any great natural impulse to the amiable, nor will take the trouble to assume the complaisant. Now, it is not uncommon to observe traces of dissatisfaction in the unpopular characters, as if they felt themselves to be treated unjustly by the world. But can these persons reasonably expect to be ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 420, New Series, Jan. 17, 1852 • Various
... all preparation, to the American Scholar. We have listened too long to the courtly muses of Europe. The spirit of the American freeman is already suspected to be timid, imitative, tame. Public and private avarice make the air we breathe thick and fat. The scholar is decent, indolent, complaisant. See already the tragic consequence. The mind of this country, taught to aim at low objects, eats upon itself. There is no work for any one but the decorous and the complaisant. Young men of the fairest promise, who begin life upon our ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... conversation with her friend, Mr. Wayne, and she said not a single word to him about this matter. She could not talk with him, she told herself; he did not understand her, and it did no good. Some time, when he was in a less complaisant mood, she could do something for him, but not now. She was not very companionable, however; her mind was dwelling on her ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden
... and extremely complaisant, though an egotist and somewhat loquacious; but nature had, nevertheless, bestowed upon him a prepossessing exterior with an enviable pair of jet black whiskers, and the most expressive eyes; he could sing a tonadilla divinely; dance the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, - Volume 12, No. 329, Saturday, August 30, 1828 • Various
... if in the presence of royalty, and the eccentric statesman was left with his chief valet. The toilet was completed in solemn silence. Then, the count walked to the mirror to take another look at his adored person. He gave a complaisant stroke to his ruff of richest Alencon, smoothed the folds of his habit, carefully arranged the lace frills that fell over his white hands, and then turning to his ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... if to curse her in his fury: "Remain in your shame and your crime; for you are more guilty than they are. You are the complaisant wife! There is nothing more for me to do here." And he went off so furious that he trembled ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... first confinement greatly improved my appearance, and in consequence made me more vain, for although I would not have been willing to add art to Nature, yet I was very complaisant ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... Elandslaagte, then as wounded and a prisoner, but who in fact got away from the fight almost unscathed, and now holds a command in the Boer force outside Ladysmith. Interviews with a senior commandant, who was by no means complaisant, and finally with Schalk-Burger, followed. The latter, after raising many difficulties and dangling prospects of imprisonment in Pretoria before Major King, finally consented to release that officer on condition that he would not take any military advantage of what he had seen ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... that some bookseller should be induced to take the risk; and such a bookseller was not readily found. Dodsley refused even to look at the manuscript unless he were trusted with the name of the author. A publisher in Fleet Street, named Lowndes, was more complaisant. Some correspondence took place between this person and Miss Burney, who took the name of Grafton, and desired that the letters addressed to her might be left at the Orange Coffee-House. But, before the bargain was finally struck, Fanny thought it her duty to obtain her father's ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... necessary purposes, and by appointment of the council; but somewhat they must say," &c. As Sir Thomas has not been pleased to specify those purposes, and as in those times at least privy counsellors were exceedingly complaisant to the ruling powers, he must allow us to doubt whether the purposes of the queen's relations were quite so innocent as he would make us believe; and whether the princes of the blood and the antient nobility had not some reasons to be jealous that the queen was usurping ...
— Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third • Horace Walpole
... headstall of the so-called watering bridle, whose toggled and detachable snaffle bit was generally "toted" from start to finish of a field scout in the saddle bags,—a twist of the flexible lariat, Indian fashion, between the complaisant jaws of his pet, being the troop's ready substitute. Add to this that, full, free and unmutilated, in glossy waves the beautiful manes and tails tossed in the upland breeze (for the heresies of Anglomania never took root in the American cavalry) and you have Ray's famous ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... two or three days of complete rest. If the reader is fond of travel, he will understand how great was my desire to begin exploring that labyrinth of picturesque streets in which swarms a vari-coloured crowd, but it was out of the question for the time being. I thought that Cairo, more complaisant in this respect than the mountain to the prophet, would come to me if I could not go to it, and as a matter of fact, Cairo was polite enough to ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... were complaisant; they had found the grasp of Porthos pretty powerful and that it was no joke to fight ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Church from new ideas, brings it nearer to its ruin. And the day when the foolish Pius IX presumed to proclaim and define, to the great joy of free-thinkers and the enemies of Catholicism, the ridiculous dogma of the Immaculate Conception in the presence of two hundred dumb complaisant prelates, on that day he experienced profound grief. According to his ideas this was the severest blow which had been inflicted on the foundations of ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France
... lowly. Chief among them was the old sieve-maker of the Via Sacra. To his shop she made Utta lead her. Utta interposed no objection. Utta never objected to anything. But in this case she was especially complaisant, since opposite the sieve-maker's was a fascinating embroidery shop, the keeper of which was entirely willing, when he had no customers, to let Utta lounge on one of his sofas and inspect embroideries to her heart's content. So lounging, rapt in the contemplation ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... and her little head, defined by its dark hair, trembled as she slowly turned it from side to side, after she removed the airy scarf which had covered it. Her father, in evening dress, looked the Third Emperor complaisant to a civil occasion, and took a chair in the front of the box without resistance; and the ladies disputed which should yield the best place to the other, till Miss Triscoe forced Mrs. March fondly into it for the ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells |
