Free Translator Free Translator
Translators Dictionaries Courses Other
Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Congenial   /kəndʒˈinjəl/   Listen
Congenial

adjective
1.
Suitable to your needs.  "Two congenial spirits united...by mutual confidence and reciprocal virtues"
2.
(used of plants) capable of cross-fertilization or of being grafted.



Related searches:



WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Congenial" Quotes from Famous Books



... retired from the Rendez-Vous pour Cochers upon the retirement of Monsieur Podvin from public life by the State, and had found this congenial city resort vacant by reason of death,—the proprietor having been stabbed by one of his friendly customers over the question of pay for a drink ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray

... Derrick proved a congenial companion. Louise made no pretence of rural inclinations, but had a great liking for tree-shadowed asphalte, for the results of elaborate horticulture, for the repose and the quiet ...
— The Paying Guest • George Gissing

... turned in a measure from this subject, by being introduced into the society of young women. This for the time being took my attention from running away, as waiting on the girls appeared to be perfectly congenial to my nature. I wanted to be well thought of by them, and would go to great lengths to gain their affection. I had been taught by the old superstitious slaves, to believe in conjuration, and it was hard for me ...
— Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, an American Slave, Written by Himself • Henry Bibb

... Arthur?" she said stiffly, giving him the tips of her fingers for a moment, and then transferring them to the more congenial contact of the lap-dog's silken coat. "I hope you are quite well and have made satisfactory ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich

... for Honor that she had found a congenial room-mate, as her first days at Chessington proved rather a time of trial. She was woefully and terribly home-sick. It seemed an absolute uprooting to have been torn away from Kerry, and she considered that nothing in her new surroundings could make amends for the change. Her pride upheld her sufficiently ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil

... with all that that means. Would any man have enjoyed home-life with all the rare home-joys, the sweetest of all natural joys, so much as He? And then the larger circle of congenial friends, the enjoyment of music, of exquisite art, the reverent study of the great questions of life, of the wonders of nature whose powers it was given man to study and cultivate and develop,[11]—it is surely no irreverence to think of Him both enjoying and gracing ...
— Quiet Talks on Following the Christ • S. D. Gordon

... lantern and the chairs, properties with which we had just been enacting our part of the distinguished visitor. It was one of those moments in which minds not altogether churlish recall the names and deplore the absence of congenial friends; and it was your name that first rose upon our lips. 'How Symonds would have enjoyed this evening!' said one, and then another. The word caught in my mind; I went to bed, and it was still there. The glittering, ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... spent, than in any other place that can be named. She never has large parties,—great general pay-days of social debts,—but small, well-chosen circles of people, selected so thoughtfully, with a view to the pleasure which congenial persons give each other, as to make the invitation an act of real personal kindness. She always manages to have something for the entertainment of her friends, so that they are not reduced to the simple alternatives of gaping at each other's dresses and eating lobster-salad ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various

... saving men from the curse of drink. It says to its inmates, this appetite for drink is not a disease that medicine can cure, or change, or eradicate. New sanitary conditions, removal from temptations, more favorable surroundings, congenial occupation, improved health, a higher self-respect, a sense of honor and responsibility, and the tenderness and strength of love for wife and children, may be powerful enough as motives to hold you always in the future above its enticements. But, trusting in these alone, you can never ...
— Grappling with the Monster • T. S. Arthur

... appointed, I made my appearance at Trianon, and had the honour to dine tete-a-tete with Her Majesty, which was much more congenial to my feelings than if there had been a party, as I was still very ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... note with amazement the vast distance it has imperceptibly traversed. If only we could realize at present how rapidly and irrevocably we are drifting away from our old-world moorings, we should feel in a more congenial mood for adjusting ourselves to the new and unpopular requirements of the era now dawning. Already we are becoming a militarist and a protective State, but we do not yet know it. We have broken with the traditions of our own peculiar and ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon

... readily acknowledged, than in respect to the idiomatic peculiarities of popular ballads. This holds good principally of merely lyric productions, the only kind of songs which are left to some of the Slavic tribes. They are grown into the very bone and marrow of the language itself; and a congenial spirit can at the utmost imitate, but never satisfactorily translate them. And yet they are the most essential features in the physiognomy of a people; or, as Goerres expresses it, they are like pulse and breath, the signs and the measure of the ...
— Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations • Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson

... sought work, and found it; and found more than work—I found your friend. When I first met him he was unhappy and friendless. You know why better than I do. I watched him, and saw his gallant struggle against poverty and discouragement and perhaps unkindness. I found in him the first congenial companion I had met since she died. I shared his studies, and—and the rest you know. But now," said he, as once more I was about to speak, "you will wonder what all this has to do with the questions ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed

... his fighting men did not turn up till long after the date specified in his contract. But now he was off on the great adventure; and, gloriously sure that all credit would be his, he was sincerely glad to have Max as a follower, humble yet congenial. ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson

... holiness, or their power to make holy. It is God Himself, the Holy One, who must make holy through the word. Every seed, in which the life of a tree is contained, has around it a husk or shell, which protects and hides the inner life. Only where the seed finds a place in congenial soil, and the husk is burst and removed, can the seed germinate and grow up. And it is only where there is a heart in harmony with God's Holiness, longing for it, yielding itself to it, that the word will really make holy. It is the heart that is not content with the word, but seeks the ...
— Holy in Christ - Thoughts on the Calling of God's Children to be Holy as He is Holy • Andrew Murray

... room immediately below the condemned ward, being that of Glossin, was, of course, empty; but the inmates of the second apartment beneath felt the shock of Glossin's heavy fall, and heard a noise as of struggling and of groans. But all sounds of horror were too congenial to this place to excite much ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... habits never finds congenial spirits to herd with. The marvel is not that Christ was crucified, but that he was allowed to live till he ...
— Oklahoma Sunshine • Freeman E. (Freeman Edwin) Miller

... unprepared for its reception, and there made to take root, it would be as great a miracle as if we were to take a mature plant and set it to grow on a stone pavement, or a great wooden stick, and plant it in a fertile soil, there to bear fruit. The plant and the soil must be of congenial natures; the constitution must fit the nation it is to govern. The people must be prepared by their previous experience, their habits, their second nature, their political nature, to receive such institutions. I know not that I can ever sufficiently express the affection ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones

... novels, largely advertised toward the end of 1727 and apparently very successful, that Mrs. Haywood was encouraged to desert her favorite field of exemplary novels showing the dangerous effects of passion for an excursion into pure romance. That she found the attempt neither congenial nor profitable may be inferred from the fact that it was ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher

... feature of the English character. Mr. Brown, perhaps, objects to using two means to attain his end when one is sufficient, and consequently looks upon all gesticulation during conversation as a wicked waste of physical labour, which that most sublime and congenial science of Pol. Econ. has shown him to be the source of all wealth. To indulge in pantomime is, therefore, in his eyes, the same as throwing so much money in the dirt—a crime which he regards as second in depravity only to that of having none to throw. Napoleon said, many ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 1, July 17, 1841 • Various

... a high-souled person, really publishes (by that act) his own evil nature even as a snake displays his hood (when interfered with by others). The man of sense who seeks to counteract such a back-biter ever engaged in an occupation congenial to himself, finds himself in the painful condition of a stupid ass sunk in a heap of ashes. A man who is ever engaged in speaking ill of others should be avoided like a furious wolf, or an infuriated elephant roaring in madness, or a fierce dog. Fie on that sinful ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... Then, too, it was a beginning, although he could imagine more congenial employments. It did not look much like hard times, to note the immense amount of stocks and bonds that passed through the hands ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas

... it was the question which absorbed him now. He got away from the noisy merriment of the house, out into the street again. The stars were more congenial company to him now; under their passionless serenity he could think better. He felt that he must come to an understanding with himself soon, but he put it off and turned his attention to his future, and more immediately to the plans which must be ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland

... be asking too much of my sweet sister Elsie; you and she have, perchance, formed other plans more congenial to your tastes and wishes. If so, let me not interfere with them; consider my request withdrawn. Yet, shall I not have at least a sight of your loved faces ere I go hence ...
— The Two Elsies - A Sequel to Elsie at Nantucket, Book 10 • Martha Finley

... of real life, replete with refined useful instruction, and sagacious observation, conveyed through the medium of natural elegant dialogue. His writings, though they did not draw the regards of the million with such irresistible and congenial attraction as those of Aristophanes, had the power in some measure to rescue comedy from the unbridled licentiousness and profligacy which, for fifty years before, had rendered it a public nuisance. The multitude, however, he could not, during his lifetime reclaim; ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various

... woman to dream that her lover abhors her, foretells that she will love a man who is in no sense congenial. ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller

... Hyde Parker Battle of Loano.—Defeat of the Austrians Nelson's condemnation of the British admirals Increase of his own reputation Forcible letter repudiating an attack on his integrity Generally congenial character of his service on the Riviera Correspondence with home Passing desire ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

... disappeared in the shrubbery. In a short time she returned with the good news that Kit was to spend the afternoon and evening with the girls. Mrs. Stacey was more than delighted that her young charge had found so congenial a group of friends. Not having children of her own, she hardly knew what to do with Kit. And when Bet promised to look after her, she was greatly relieved, for everyone in Lynnwood knew the bright little daughter of Colonel Baxter ...
— The Merriweather Girls and the Mystery of the Queen's Fan • Lizette M. Edholm

... mountaineer himself—but still it must be recorded that the only young ladies he systematically neglected were those in very short petticoats, with very sunburnt faces and nails in their boots, who ought to have been most congenial to him as sharing his own tastes. It is said, I don't know with what truth, that at Ouch, or Interlachen, or some other of the most mundane and banal resorts of the tourists, he came upon one girl who he thought might make him a suitable wife: and that, though with much ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant

... my mind,' said he chattily, 'in a Turkish Bath. It seems to take one out of the hurry and bustle of the everyday world. It is a quiet backwater in the rushing river of Life. I like to sit and think in a Turkish Bath. Except, of course, when I have a congenial companion to talk to. As now. ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse

... seasoned smokers, and Roger applied the flame to the bowl as he stood at the bottom of the stairs. He blew a great gush of strong blue reek that eddied behind him as he ran up the flight, his mind eagerly meditating the congenial task of arranging the little spare room for the coming employee. Then, at the top of the steps, he found that his pipe had already gone out. "What with filling my pipe and emptying it, lighting it and relighting it," he thought, "I don't seem to ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley

... congenial to the depressed spirits of the whole assemblage than the most showy bravuras; and, sung by those handsome creatures—for beauty adds a charm to everything—retained me spell-bound. But, on the performers, and their circle of hearers, the effect was indescribable. All the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various

... try to keep my temper. I have spoken of this matter to no one before, but, since you have come to speak to me, Sister Winifred, I, too, must speak. Ever since I've been here I've been longing for some congenial work—work which I could feel I was intended to do. It seems hard at times to feel one's life slipping away and the work one could do always withheld ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore

... while he had thus alienated the local priesthoods the military party despised him on account of his antiquarian tastes. He seems to have left the defence of his kingdom to others, occupying himself with the more congenial work of excavating the foundation records of the temples and determining the dates of their builders. The invasion of Babylonia by Cyrus was doubtless facilitated by the existence of a disaffected party in the state, as well as by the presence of foreign exiles ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various

... great interests—the slave power of the South, and banking power of the North—which are now uniting to rule this country. The cotton bale and the bank note have formed an alliance; the credit system with slave labor. These two congenial spirits have at last met and embraced each other, both looking to the same object—to live upon the unrequited labor of others—and have now erected for themselves a common platform, as was intimated during the last session, on which they can meet, ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... that zeal in his service, which we shew in behalf of our earthly friends, or of our political connections, should we seek our pleasure in that place which the debauchee, inflamed with wine, or bent on the gratification of other licentious appetites, finds most congenial to his state and temper of mind? In that place, from the neighbourhood of which, (how justly termed a school of morals might hence alone be inferred) decorum, and modesty, and regularity retire, while riot and lewdness are invited ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce

... the dissolving force of analysis: and if the feeling of duty, when associated with utility, would appear equally arbitrary; if there were no leading department of our nature, no powerful class of sentiments, with which that association would harmonize, which would make us feel it congenial, and incline us not only to foster it in others (for which we have abundant interested motives), but also to cherish it in ourselves; if there were not, in short, a natural basis of sentiment for utilitarian morality, it might well happen that this association also, even ...
— Utilitarianism • John Stuart Mill

... regret your not traveling through them; for, in spite of your popularity, which is very great in all parts of the country that I have visited, I do not think American tastes, manners, and modes of being would be, upon the whole, congenial ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble

... Trudy to take the cares of the family on her shoulders. He was now enjoying the fruits of her industry with a fair credit rating, very different from formerly, a bank account of which Trudy knew nothing, and the congenial work of pussyfooting about boudoirs and guzzling tea while perched on Beatrice's ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley

... different passions, refer to the 'lowing herd' as raising on the one hand a cheerful, and on the other a melancholy feeling. To our thought, the associations connected with the return of the herds from the fields at sunset are best fitted to awaken that quiet, reflective state of mind which is most congenial to the mood of the elegiac poet. To another, these associations may be of such a character as to produce a directly ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various

... Dickens, Chesterton informs us of his brief entry into the complex and exciting world that has its headquarters in Fleet Street. For a short period Dickens occupied the editorship of the Daily News, but the environment was not a very congenial one. Dickens was unsettled with that strange restlessness that seizes all literary men at some time or other. This was the time that saw the publication of 'Dombey and Son.' Chesterton thinks that the essential genius found ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke

... smiling again. Generous to a fault of course, temperamental, no economising or any idea of the sort, always snapping at the bone for the shadow. So similarly he had a very shrewd suspicion that Mr Johnny Lever got rid of some l s d. in the course of his perambulations round the docks in the congenial atmosphere of the Old Ireland tavern, come back to Erin and so on. Then as for the other he had heard not so long before the same identical lingo as he told Stephen how he simply but effectually silenced ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... rejoined Ellen. She looked curiously like her mother that night, and spoke like her. In her heart she echoed the sarcasm to the full. She despised those men for sitting hour after hour in a store, or in the house of some congenial spirit, or standing on a street corner, and talking—talking, she was sure, to no purpose. As for herself, she had done what she thought right; she had, as it were, cut short the thread of her happiness of life for the sake of something undefined and rather ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... his calls became more and more frequent, until his dropping in after supper came to be a regular occurrence. Young people of the better class are scarce in Orham during the fall and winter months, and Ralph found few congenial companions. He liked the captains and Mrs. Snow, and Elsie's society was a relief after a day with the operators at the station. Mr. Langley was entirely absorbed in his business, and spent his evenings in his room, ...
— Cap'n Eri • Joseph Crosby Lincoln

... aspirant to the honours of public singing who ignores the demand of this quasi-musical Turpin that she should sing his songs. For, having become in the meantime a musical critic, he will devote all his talents to the congenial task of abusing her voice in his organ—which is naturally the more powerful instrument of the two. Should she, however, submit to his extortionate requests, he will deem himself entitled to embitter the rest of her existence ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 12, 1890 • Various

... into English, and thus to hand it on to thousands who might not otherwise have enjoyed it, has been to me a very congenial and interesting task. It would be difficult, I imagine, to point to any work of its scope and character which is better calculated to give lasting delight to all classes of readers. For the skilled archaeologist, its pages contain not only new facts, ...
— Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt • Gaston Camille Charles Maspero

... him. Some time after, Yaḥya made an expedition in company with some of his relations, making congenial friends, and helping to strengthen the Bābī cause. He was now not far off the turning-point ...
— The Reconciliation of Races and Religions • Thomas Kelly Cheyne

... nor sun on fiery wheel was seen Riding sublime, nor stars adorned the pole, Nor heaven, nor earth, nor air, nor ocean lived, Nor aught of prospect mortal sight surveyed; But one vast chaos, boisterous and confused. Yet order hence began; congenial parts Parts joined congenial; and the rising world Gradual evolved: its mighty members each From each divided, and matured complete From seeds appropriate; whose wild discortderst, Reared by their strange diversities of form, With ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker

... protoplasmic destruction or decomposition begins, carrying along with them the vital principle, or what has been acting as such in the protoplasm. And as they are volatile, they must soon meet with other protoplasms congenial to their nature, and set up there the same kind of vital activity as they have done in their former habitat. They are, as the Esoteric Doctrine rightly teaches, indestructible, and when disconnected with one set of atoms, they immediately become attracted ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various

... more agreeably to my ears than that of Aime Bonpland, I cannot here dwell upon it, nor write his biography, however congenial the theme. Some one who reads this may find the task both pleasant and profitable; for though his bones slumber obscurely on the banks of the Parana, amidst the scenes so loved by him, his name will one day have a higher niche in Fame's temple than ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid

... each a trophy of some mighty deed 80 Reared up from out the waters, scarce less strangely Than those more massy and mysterious giants Of architecture, those Titanian fabrics, Which point in Egypt's plains to times that have No other record. All is gentle: nought Stirs rudely; but, congenial with the night, Whatever walks is gliding like a spirit. The tinklings of some vigilant guitars Of sleepless lovers to a wakeful mistress, And cautious opening of the casement, showing 90 That he is not unheard; while her young hand, Fair as the moonlight of which ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron

... relationship established between Mrs. Benjamin and Isabelle was so precious to the little girl that she abandoned her banner of revolt once for all, and gave herself up to the congenial atmosphere of Hill Top. It was the only home she had ever known, since home is a matter of love and people rather than ...
— The Cricket • Marjorie Cooke

... have a peculiar and touching affection for Hugh, and hoped that he would prove the beloved companion of his age. Hugh used to trot about with him, spudding up weeds from the lawn. He used, when at home, to take Hugh's Latin lessons, and threw himself into the congenial task of teaching with all his force and interest. Yet I have often heard Hugh say that these lessons were seldom free from a sense of strain. He never knew what he might not be expected to know or to ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson

... cause with you, dear, and I have told you my secret, that we may be in very truth, fellow conspirators. Make my adieus to the family, and be sure and come to me just as you used; if your ogre insists upon coming, trust me to freeze him into an earnest desire to be in a warmer and more congenial place. Courage, mon ami, somehow we ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch

... life with young men of congenial tastes were completely fulfilled. Most of them belonged to the nobility, but the beloved "blue, white, and blue" ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... to possess more of the characteristics of a stinging nettle, than of the flower whose name she bore, and she was glad when her week was out, and she could leave her charming society, for that which she fondly hoped might be more congenial. ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock

... sick man's vow and the recovered man's sins. The bitter moralist of the Old Testament was sure not to let such an instance of man's inconceivable levity pass unnoticed. His settled habit of dragging to light the seamy side of human nature was sure to fall on this illustration of it as congenial food. He has wrapped up here in these curt, bitter words a whole theory of man's condition, of God's providence, of its abuse, and of the end to which ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... Hood remained at Cumberland House engaged in congenial pursuits and studying the Cree Indians, with other natural history subjects. The notes they give concerning the manners and customs of the Indians are extremely interesting, but are by this time pretty well known. Their dexterity in hunting ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith

... editors, brought the industrious couple back to London in the spring of 1843. 'On our return to England,' writes Mary, 'I was full of energy and hope. Glowing with aspiration, and in enjoyment of great domestic happiness, I was anticipating a busy, perhaps overburdened, but, nevertheless, congenial life. It was to be one of darkness, perplexity, discouragement.' The Howitts had scarcely entered into possession of a new house that they had taken at Clapton, when news came from Heidelberg, where the elder children had been left at school, that ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston

... it would have been difficult to find four more congenial lads than the crew of the Fortuna. Widely different in their appearance they still gave one the impression that they all belonged to each other. There was the same fearless, honest look in their sparkling eyes, the same erectness of ...
— Boy Scouts in Southern Waters • G. Harvey Ralphson

... began to feel considerably embarrassed; though still he cherished hopes of ultimate relief from some auspicious circumstance that, sooner or later, would operate, he hoped, in his favour, through the magnetism of congenial talents. ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi

... of my own, to which I can feel privileged to invite such guests, such companions as I deem congenial, irrespective of the fiats of would-be social autocrats, and the social ostracism of ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... vacations were over, or to put him to work in some shop or store. Meanwhile, Oscar was idling away his time about the streets, and devoting all his energies to the pursuit of amusement. His favorite place of resort continued to be the hotel where Alfred Walton lived. Here he found congenial spirits in Alfred, and Andy the speller, and the several drivers and hostlers, with whom he was on intimate terms. Here, too, he often met with strangers ...
— Oscar - The Boy Who Had His Own Way • Walter Aimwell

... that I would sooner have you with me than him. You are not content with—thinking it, unless I tell you that it is so. You know that it is so. Though he is to be my husband,—I suppose he will be my husband,—his spirit is not congenial ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope

... vast sums in beneficiary beer in company with his comrades; Mr. WILLIAMSON is the Kindly Sergeant; Mr. RINGGOLD is the Genial Artist, whose velvet coat suggests that he has recently managed a Starr opera bouffe enterprise; and Mr. STODDART is happy in the congenial character of a Clumsy Trumpeter. If any speculative manager pretends that he has a better hypothetical cast in his eye than the present cast of the Lancers, let him be given to the surgical tormentors to be operated ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 9, May 28, 1870 • Various

... certainly appears more advantageous, in being attended with less trouble to the horticulturist, though infinitely with more expense, both in the building and consumption of dung: this, however, is a mistaken idea, for nothing certainly can be more congenial to the growth of either the cucumber or melon than a sweet steam heat: this essential requisite, which may always be obtained by the process hereafter described, can be but partially promoted in brick pits; for although water, in its necessary application, ...
— The art of promoting the growth of the cucumber and melon • Thomas Watkins

... It may prove that he has stirred the hearts and enlightened the minds of many. It may also prove, as Johnson says, "that his nonsense suits their nonsense." The real reward of Literature is in the sympathy of congenial minds, and is precious in proportion to the elevation of those minds, and the gravity with which such sympathy moves: the admiration of a mathematician for the MECANIQUE CELESTE, for example, is altogether higher in kind than the admiration of a novel reader for the last "delightful story." ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes

... supplemented these efforts by establishing a colored mission school which offered more advanced courses and lectures on scientific subjects twice a week. These students, however, soon found themselves far in advance of public opinion.[25] They were censured by the faculty and to find a more congenial center for their operations they had to go to Oberlin in the Western Reserve where a larger number of persons had become interested in the cause of the despised ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various

... become the cult of European society. The Countess Marie, possessing her royal mother's tastes and gifts, made of her court a social experiment station, where these Provencal ideals of a perfect society were planted afresh in congenial soil. It appears from contemporary testimony that the authority of this celebrated feudal dame was weighty, and widely felt. The old city of Troyes, where she held her court, must be set down large in any map of literary history. For it was there that Chretien was led to write four romances ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes

... ancestral estate. I should like you to write about all your affairs, and about the studies and training of your son Lentulus (whom I regard as mine also) as confidentially and as frequently as possible, and to believe that there never has been anyone either dearer or more congenial to another than you are to me, and that I will not only make you feel that to be the case, but will make all the world and posterity itself to the ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... Antwerp. Locke or Dugald Stewart, indeed, had they been cognizant of the tailor's triumph, might have illustrated the principle on which he succeeded—as to ourselves, we can only conjecture it. Our own opinion is, that they were both animated with a congenial spirit. Biddy was the very pink of pugnacity, and could throw in a body blow, or plant a facer, with singular energy and science. Her prowess hitherto had, we confess, been displayed only within the limited range of domestic life; but should she ever find ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton

... silence Mr. Britton continued, "You couldn't find a better man for the place or a better position for the man. The work is evidently right in the line of his profession, and therefore congenial; and even though you should pay him no more salary than Benson, that, with outside work in the way of assays for neighboring camps, will be better than any business interest you would give him short of twelve or eighteen months ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour

... themselves only with political questions, with Parliamentary debates, and with legislative measures. To paraphrase the words of the great Latin poet, whatever men and women were doing in arts and letters, in social progress, and in all that concerns humanity, supplied congenial subjects for the letters written by this most gifted, most observant, most intellectual woman to ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell

... Criminal Editor. There was a time when the claims of a Certain Contributor were wont to be considered. But the passion for worldly greed has, alas! perverted a too simple nature, and where the Muses once found a congenial resting place, the demon Mammon ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 24, September 10, 1870 • Various

... character of Prince Hal was peculiarly congenial to its creator, and in 'Henry V' Shakespeare, during 1598, brought his career to its close. The play was performed early in 1599, probably in the newly built Globe Theatre. Again Thomas Creede printed, in 1600, an imperfect draft, which was thrice ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee

... he had visited the French War Office after he had been wounded, and how an old colonel had made friends with him and had tried to find him a congenial job. ...
— General Bramble • Andre Maurois

... principal Protestant churches of Europe would, across the grave of the Redeemer, reach to each other the right hand of fellowship. Bunsen entered into this plan with all the energy of his mind and heart. It was a work thoroughly congenial to himself; and if it required diplomatic skill, certainly no one could have achieved it more expeditiously and successfully than Bunsen. He was then a persona grata with bishops and archbishops, and Lord Ashley—not yet Lord Shaftesbury—gave ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller

... not necessary for keeping up the stock is proved by the example of North America—a country less congenial to the constitution of the negro than the West Indies—where, notwithstanding the destruction and desertion of the slaves occasioned by the war, the number of negroes, though perhaps not of slaves, has greatly increased—because, since the war they have imported very few, and of late years ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey

... university; in much the same way that Mansfield and Manchester Colleges have joined us in recent years. For two or three months he was here, enjoying the society of the learned and attending Colet's lectures on the Epistles of St. Paul; invited to dine in college halls, as a congenial visitor is to-day, and spending the afternoons, not the evenings, in discussions arising out of the conversation over the dinner-table. His ready wit and natural vivacity, his wide reading and serious purpose, made themselves felt. Even Colet the austere was delighted with him and ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen

... happiness in Germany was partly owing to a sense of reaction against Geneva. There are signs that he had felt himself somewhat isolated at school and college, and that in the German world his special individuality, with its dreaminess and its melancholy, found congenial surroundings far more readily than had been the case in the drier and harsher atmosphere of the Protestant Rome. However this may be, it is certain that German thought took possession of him, that he became steeped not only in German methods of speculation, but in German modes of expression, ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... your note and its news. Accept my congratulations. You certainly deserved to gain the post; the work will be most congenial, and it will give you an opportunity for carrying on your studies, besides placing you in the independent position for which you have worked so long and hard. I wish my dear old friend and schoolfellow, your mother, had lived to see her boy's success. You must go on now with renewed confidence, ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn

... leaned more to the sports of the field, to hunting, shooting, and fishing, than to any thing else; and as these amusements were more congenial to my habits and my large farming concerns in the country, I never, while I was the first time in prison, sought much for political information, though I necessarily heard a great deal of politics from my friends Waddington and Clifford, as well as from numerous political characters with ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt

... time Bladud never permitted his mind to permanently desert his calling; he found family matters a congenial study, and he thought of his swine a good deal, off and on. One day while baiting them amongst the hills, he observed a cloud of steam ascending from the valley below. Having always believed steam a modern invention, this ancient was surprised, and when his measly charge ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)

... start, the South, favored by a mild climate, rich soil, and broad, low-lying valleys, developed an agricultural life. Slavery was introduced at an early date, and flourished, the warm climate being congenial to the negro, and the rude manual labor of the field suited to his meagre capabilities. The result of these influences was to develop in the South a system of large ill-worked manors or estates. The ...
— Government and Administration of the United States • Westel W. Willoughby and William F. Willoughby

... that many of the boys, who, from deficient early training or peculiar turn of mind, were unable to bring themselves to proficiency in the regular Latin and Greek course of the school, and consequently were idle and listless, found other and more congenial paths in which intelligence and application would still meet with ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney

... more famous Isaac Milner, and was afterwards, like his father, at Sidney Sussex College. Simeon was one of his intimate friends. In 1792 Venn became rector of Clapham; and there provided the spiritual food congenial to the Thorntons, the Shores, the Macaulays, the Wilberforces, and the Stephens. The value of his teaching may be estimated by any one who will read three volumes of sermons published posthumously in 1814. He died July 1, 1813; but his chief claim to remembrance is ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen

... for a long time he left his abode only when hunger compelled him to hunt for his necessary food. When he did resume his wanderings they were generally in the night. The singing of the birds had no charm for him, and the brightness of the summer days chased not away his gloom. More congenial to him were the "watches of the night," when the few sounds that fell upon his ears were weird and ghostly. Here, amid the gloomy shadows where the only sounds were the sighing of the winds among the trees, the melancholy hootings of ...
— Oowikapun - How the Gospel Reached the Nelson River Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young

... clattering race of females, when it can be done with safety. To force them to the tub, and to put them into the suds too suddenly, might, from their influence amongst the lower classes of citizens, be followed by consequences not very congenial to the repose ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr

... sense of the indomitableness of the spirit within me. I used to brood over the stories of Enoch and Elijah, and almost persuade myself that, whatever might become of others, I should be translated in something of the same way to heaven. With a feeling congenial to this, I was often unable to think of external things as having external existence, and I communed with all that I saw as something not apart from, but inherent in, my own immaterial nature. Many times ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin

... own surprise courted and fawned upon by those whose boots his abilities would have fitted him to black, and his disposition prompted him to lick. Noble sportsmen are proud to be seen in his company, aristocratic guinea-pigs are constantly in his pocket in the congenial society of the great man's purse, art willingly reproduces his features, journalism enthusiastically commemorates his adventures, and even Royalty does not thrust away a votary whose ministrations are as acceptable as they are readily performed. Without much effort on his own part ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, Sept. 27, 1890 • Various

... from Oxford just a year ago, and had determined to take things as they came, to foster acquaintanceships, to travel a little with a congenial friend, to stay about in other people's houses, and, in fact, to enjoy himself entirely before settling down to read law. He had done this most successfully, and had crowned all, as has been related, by falling in love on a July evening ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson

... that the subject of love rather glided into the conversation of Edwin and Imogen, than was regularly and designedly introduced. They were unknowing in the art of disguising their feelings. When the tale spoke of peril and bravery, the eyes of Edwin sparkled with congenial sentiments, and he was evermore ready to start from the grassy hilloc upon which they sat. When the little narrative told of the lovers pangs, and the tragic catastrophe of two gentle hearts whom nature seemed to have formed for mildness and tranquility, Imogen was melted into the ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin

... partridges about in May, Miss Luttrell,' said Mrs. Oswald, quietly smiling to herself at the fancy picture of Ernest seated in congenial converse with the Rector, Colonel Turnbull, and young Luttrell; 'but as to Mr. Le Breton, I DO happen to know where he's stopping, though it's not often that I know any Calcombe gossip, save and except what you're good enough to tell me when you drop in, ma'am; for Mr. Le Breton's stopping here, ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen

... good. If it is variable, intermittent, and otherwise ineffective, the discipline is bad. The life of the routine-ridden school is so irksome to the child, that if he is healthy and vigorous he will long to find a congenial outlet for his vital energies, which are as a rule either pent back (as when he sits still listening to a lecture), or forced into uninteresting and unprofitable channels. When this desire masters him during school hours, it goes by the name of "naughtiness," and is regarded as ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes

... room, lighted by small windows, sunk in the thick wall—in the softened light, and with its forge-like chimney; its little counter by the door, with bottles, jars, and glasses on it; its household implements are scraps of dress against the wall; and a sober looking woman (she must have a congenial life of it, with Goblin) knitting at the door— looked exactly like ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various

... young woman can have for a sphere of action more congenial to her present feelings, is the one she now occupies. She has, at least, duties to herself to perform. Let these, as they recur, be performed in the best possible manner; and let the utmost effort always be made to perform every thing a little better ...
— The Young Woman's Guide • William A. Alcott

... worthy countryman, the Rev. Father O'Leary, the well-known Roman Catholic priest; he was a man of infinite wit, of instructing and amusing conversation. I felt highly honored by the notice of this pillar of the Roman Church; our tastes were congenial, for his reverence was mighty fond of whisky-punch, and so was I; and many a jug of Saint Patrick's eye-water, night after night, did his Reverence and myself enjoy, chatting over the exhilarating and national beverage. He sometimes favored me with his company at dinner; when he did, ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous

... exceptional instance, early in life, realizing that she was not adapted for heterosexual relationships, she broke off the engagement she had formed. Much later in life, she formed a more permanent relationship with a man of congenial tastes. ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... outward life I have now arrived at the period at which my tranquil and retired existence as a writer of books was to be exchanged for the less congenial occupation of a member of the House of Commons. The proposal made to me, early in 1865, by some electors of Westminster, did not present the idea to me for the first time. It was not even the first offer I had received, for, more than ten years previous, ...
— Autobiography • John Stuart Mill

... watching me improve in my studies. His teaching and exercises soon filled me with the greatest disgust, as to my mind it all seemed so dry. For me music was a spirit, a noble and mystic monster, and any attempt to regulate it seemed to lower it in my eyes. I gathered much more congenial instruction about it from Hoffmann's Phantasiestucken than from my Leipzig orchestra player; and now came the time when I really lived and breathed in Hoffmann's artistic atmosphere of ghosts and spirits. With my head quite full of Kreissler, Krespel, and other musical spectres from my favourite ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... "Two congenial spirits are not 'society,'" she replies, "That word comprises people in a bulk. But here are the horses. Doesn't Braye du Valle look splendid? I hope if I died you would let him drag me ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham

... As long as these traditions and local privileges, giving them still a shadow of provincial independence, were respected, they submitted without too much difficulty to the imposition of centralized institutions and to foreign rule. They were even ready, when this rule proved at all congenial, to give solid proofs of their loyalty. They were very sensible of any mark of sympathy and showed an almost exaggerated gratitude to any prince who condescended to preside over their festivals and share in their pleasures. This had been the secret of Charles V's ...
— Belgium - From the Roman Invasion to the Present Day • Emile Cammaerts

... his voice to encourage Dick to talk about Lois Howe, so he wisely turned the conversation, but wished he had a more congenial companion. Mr. Dale walked with hands behind him and shoulders bent forward; his wide-brimmed felt hat was pulled down over his long soft locks of white hair, and hid the expression ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland

... Borghese Palace. But the highest honour ever conferred upon the Sibyls was that which Michael Angelo bestowed when he painted them on the spandrils of the wonderful roof of the Sistine Chapel. These mysterious beings formed most congenial subjects for the mystic pencil of the great Florentine, and therefore they are more characteristic of his genius than almost any other of his works. He has painted them along with the greater prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Jonah, in throne-like niches surrounding the different ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan

... from the agrarian question, there is the party of revolutionists in Ireland whose headquarters are in America. They have furnished the means for agitation, and will look for their reward. The Fenian party has less power in the United States than it used to have, but there will be congenial work to do in Ireland. A violent faction can be kept in order where there is a strong government, but in a Home Rule Ireland it would not be strong for any such purpose. Appeals to cupidity and envy would find hearers, and there could be no effective ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various

... it is most wonderful how Roos has been able to think and feel himself into the very soul of these creatures, so as to make the internal character peer with such force through the outward covering. Here you see what a great talent can do when it keeps steady to subjects which are congenial with ...
— Heads and Tales • Various

... "the brand set upon such a person by the righteous indignation of my friend Miss Piff. A malignant maniac. Know then, that that malignant maniac has sprung from the congenial soil of France, and that his malignant madness was in unchecked action on this same ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens

... poet in his world-view ordinarily sees other than darkness. The same innate spiritual enterprise that sustains religious faith leads the poet more often to find the universe positively congenial to his ideals, and to ideals in general. He interprets human experience in the light of the spirituality of all the world. It is to Wordsworth that we of the present age are chiefly indebted for such imagery, and it will profit us to consider ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry

... with a zest that many a professed good fellow might have envied. He visited the theatre, as we have seen; went to the opera when it pleased him, not for fashion's sake, but because he liked music and was a connoisseur of singing and acting; liked a stroll in the streets with a congenial companion (male or female); could smoke a good cigar with evident enjoyment; and sometimes, though rarely, sipped a glass of fine old wine, and indulged in the freer pleasures of the table; though he was scrupulously careful of his ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford

... judgment, so far as it concerns Jerusalem, is now over, and Ezekiel is free to turn to the more congenial task of consolation and promise. But a negative condition of the restoration of Israel is the removal of impediments to her welfare, and next to her own sins her enemies are the greatest obstacle to her restoration; it is with them, ...
— Introduction to the Old Testament • John Edgar McFadyen

... States respectively; that such persons, on such acceptance by the General Government, be at once deemed free, and that in any event steps be taken for colonizing both classes (or the one first mentioned if the other shall not be brought into existence) at some place or places in a climate congenial to them. It might be well to consider, too, whether the free colored people already in the United States could not, so far as individuals may desire, be included ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Lincoln - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 6: Abraham Lincoln • Compiled by James D. Richardson

... fled from England after the Restoration they could not have sought a more congenial refuge than such a land as this. One of them, as is known, died in Vevay by the shot of an assassin sent to murder him by Charles II.; with another he is interred in the old Church of St. Martin there; and ...
— A Little Swiss Sojourn • W. D. Howells

... Francueil, who was receiver-general, offered him the post of cashier in that important department, and Rousseau attended for some weeks to receive the necessary instructions. His progress was tardy as usual, and the complexities of accounts were as little congenial to him as notarial complexities had been three and twenty years previously. It is, however, one of the characteristics of times of national break-up not to be peremptory in exacting competence, and ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley

... 1824 when the money was collected, it was felt that 1,200 pounds was a great deal for a poet to receive. Bernard Barton's daughter married a Suffolk gentleman, well-to-do in the world, but the lady and gentleman had not congenial minds, and parted almost as soon ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie

... than that to which his argument leads. He notes, first of all, that art is disinterested; that it is not a means, but an end in itself. And, secondly, we feel towards beautiful things as we feel towards persons; if they are congenial we may like or love them, though we can assign no ground for ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James

... are [but] types of ours."(328) Still were David's Psalms antiphonally recited, and the voices of "Moses and the Prophets" were heard in the sacred assemblies of God's people "every Sabbath day." Canticle succeeded to Canticle; while many a Versicle simply held its ground. The congenial utterances of the chosen race passed readily into the service of the family of the redeemed. Unconsciously perhaps, the very method of the one became adopted by the other: as, for example, the method of beginning ...
— The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark • John Burgon

... authorities; and, imbued with the strict necessity of judging for myself, I turned from the limpid pages of the modern historians to the notes and authorities at the bottom of the page. These, of course, sent me back to my monastic acquaintances, and I again found myself in such congenial company to a youthful and ardent mind as Florence of Worcester and Simeon of Durham, the Venerable Bede and Matthew Paris; and so on to Gregory and Fredegarius, down to the more modern and elegant pages of Froissart, Hollinshed, Hooker, and Stowe. Infant as I was, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... writings which have brought me very near to you, in virtue of some affinity in our ways of thought and moods of feeling. Although I cannot keep up correspondences with many of my readers who seem to be thoroughly congenial with myself, let them be assured that their letters have been read or heard with peculiar gratification, and ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... had left him, and he and Lancaster had become comrades. Lancaster was a good shot and that commanded his respect. Lancaster was a kind man and that commanded his affection. At the lodge in the pines where they lived were other men, hunters like Lancaster, and other dogs, bird dogs like himself, a congenial crowd, ...
— Frank of Freedom Hill • Samuel A. Derieux

... companion, "but my friend Coristine smokes a pipe, and, as smokers love congenial company, I had better get him to join you, and relieve him of his load." So saying, Wilkinson retired to the silent pair in the rear, took the old lady's bundle from the lawyer and sent him forward to smoke with the ancient schoolmaster. The latter waxed eloquent on the subject ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell

... age was with Iram and all his rose ere he landed in 1854, a lad of eighteen. With no especial equipment for battling with the world, he had to turn his hand to many things, and naturally tried mining. But finding the returns incommensurate with the labor, he soon gave it up and sought more congenial occupations, mainly in the towns of the valleys and the seacoast. Before he was twenty-three, he had been school-teacher, express-messenger, deputy tax-collector, and druggist's assistant; and had risen from "printer's devil" to assistant editor ...
— Tennessee's Partner • Bret Harte

... woman eight years his senior, who lived in the neighboring village of Shottery. The suggestion that the marriage proved positively unhappy is supported by no real evidence, but what little is known of Shakspere's later life implies that it was not exceptionally congenial. Two girls and a boy were born ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher

... the Old World. Yet the Eskimo failed to tame and herd the reindeer, though their precarious food-supply furnished a motive for the transition. Moreover, an abundance of grass and reindeer moss (Cladonia rangiferina), and congenial climatic conditions favored it especially for the Alaskan Eskimo, who had, besides, the nearby example of the Siberian Chukches as reindeer herders.[117] The buffalo, whose domesticability has been proved, was never utilized in this way by the Indians, ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple

... the bitter tide of war had ebbed, Battersleigh had found himself again without a home. He drifted with the disintegrating bodies of troops which scattered over the country, and in course of time found himself in the only portion of America which seemed to him congenial. Indeed, all the population was adrift, all the anchors of established things torn loose. In the distracted South whole families, detesting the new ways of life now thrust upon them, and seeing no way of retrieving their fortunes in the country which had borne them, broke ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough

... pleasures of love, never reached his aspiring nature. The general run of men he looked on with contempt, and treated with cruelty when they opposed him. Nor was the rigour of his mind to be softened but with the appearance of extraordinary fortitude in his enemies, which, by a sympathy congenial to his own virtues, always excited his admiration, and insured his mercy. So that there were often seen in this one man, at the same time, the extremes of a savage cruelty, and a generosity, that does honour to human nature. Religion, ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke

... is to have companions, not relationship alone; so that a man who is congenial in manners, though a stranger in blood, is a better friend for a man to have, than ten ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides

... stood by the library window, and idly scratched initials on the frosty pane. A table full of beautiful gifts stood near, and a great bunch of long-stemmed roses on the piano filled the room with fragrance. But Lucy evidently found something more congenial in the dreary view outside. She was deep in thought when the door opened and Aunt Chloe came in with a ...
— Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch • Alice Caldwell Hegan

... ascribed this emotion to the natural melancholy of her daughter's character, and then she would gently chide her, and seek, by a variety of means, to divert her thoughts into some lively channel; but she had little success in the attempt to eradicate reflections already rooted in so congenial a soil. ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson

... back its impurities to the polluted strand. Still the clear fountain retained a portion of its charmed influence, but it reflected only the somber gloom that fell from the impending heavens. That humid and congenial atmosphere which commonly adorned the view, veiling its harshness, and softening its asperities, had disappeared, the northern air poured across the waste of water so harsh and unmingled, that nothing was left to be conjectured by the eye, ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper

... that these are average specimens of the pleasantries which flowed from him in congenial society. His talk was full of such, among friends and acquaintance, and he certainly enjoyed the applause which they excited. But in his graver and tenderer moods, in the country walks and lounges of which he was fond, his range was higher and deeper. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various

... dense gloom, presently pierced and irradiated by a vivid flash of lightning, followed by a crash of thunder that made the lofty crag tremble beneath their feet. To a martial soul like that of Hengist, this warring of the elements presented a more spirit-stirring and congenial spectacle, than all the tranquil beauties of the previous prospect, and he pointed out to the admiration of his comrades the fiercer features of the scene, shouting with delight as a huge mass of the next projecting cliff, undermined by the raving waters, fell thundering into ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 544, April 28, 1832 • Various



Words linked to "Congenial" :   sympathetic, friendly, uncongenial, compatible, sociable



Copyright © 2024 Free-Translator.com