"Equable" Quotes from Famous Books
... Bob." Jimmy's tone was equable, but he shot Hanson a quick glance. "He was our faro dealer for a while, but he's interested in mines now. He's dead sure. Come to think of it, he's a lot of dead things," he mused; "but don't ever confuse him with a dead one." Delight at his own wit expressed ... — The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... submontane zone has the most equable and the pleasantest climate in the plains. It has a rainfall of from 30 to 40 inches, five-sevenths or more of which belongs to the monsoon period (June-September). The north-western area has a longer and colder winter and spring. In the end of December and in January ... — The Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, and Kashmir • Sir James McCrone Douie
... was no longer ravenous; the advantages she had enjoyed during the absence of her domestic Argus had made her cravings more equable, and she accepted the edible suggestions of the Sepoy with an approach to placid satisfaction that hinted at the ... — The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... or less temporary," she commenced in equable tones. "I may find it expedient to make some changes, and I may not. We have an unusual number of new girls this year; and instead of putting them together, it has seemed wisest to mix them with the old girls. You three ... — Just Patty • Jean Webster
... taken snuff very solemnly, and looked round him with a calm circumspection, fixing his dull eye upon me, and wagging his head, with an equable motion, slowly up and down, ... — Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... having "the mildest and most equable climate known to any large city in the world." January is the coldest month, and the mean temperature then is stated to be 50 deg.. September is the hottest month, and the mean temperature then is stated to be 58 deg.. Thus only 8 deg. difference between ... — A start in life • C. F. Dowsett
... breakwaters of the coral master-builders. On the strand grow the ever-present cocoa palms, as distinctive of the islands of the southern sea as the date palms are of the desert regions of the Old World. Here the weather is beautiful, a warm, equable, tropical sea climate with only three or four degrees difference between winter and summer. The south-east trade-wind blows all the year round, and storms are rare visitors. The rain is moderate, and fever ... — From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... life in an equable flow of happiness, if thou canst go by the right way, and think and act in the right way. These two things are common both to the soul of God and to the soul of man, and to the soul of every rational being: not ... — The Thoughts Of The Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius
... whole, an equable man, but more than once I trembled for the consequences when I saw her go up to him, lean over his shoulder and, snatching at some loose pages of his MS., playfully remark, 'What funny crabbed letters! And what is it all about—something you're inventing ... — Our Elizabeth - A Humour Novel • Florence A. Kilpatrick
... changes taking place in the organism; adjustment is just fitting ourselves to this fixity of external conditions. 2 Habit as habituation is indeed something relatively passive; we get used to our surroundings—to our clothing, our shoes, and gloves; to the atmosphere as long as it is fairly equable; to our daily associates, etc. Conformity to the environment, a change wrought in the organism without reference to ability to modify surroundings, is a marked trait of such habituations. Aside from the fact ... — Democracy and Education • John Dewey
... general idea of the two languages, and reduce the one to the terms of the other. His work should be rhythmical and varied, the right admixture of words and syllables, and even of letters, should be carefully attended to; above all, it should be equable in style. There must also be quantity, which is necessary in prose as well as in verse: clauses, sentences, paragraphs, must be in due proportion. Metre and even rhyme may be rarely admitted; though neither is a legitimate element of prose writing, they may help to lighten a cumbrous ... — Charmides • Plato
... greatest intellect, that is, which had expressed itself in poetry. Dryden himself was not always careful to distinguish between what material was fit and what unfit for verse; so that we can now enjoy his masterly prose with more equable pleasure than his verse. But he saw clearly enough the distinction in Donne between intellect and the poetical spirit; that fatal division of two forces, which, had they pulled together instead of apart, might have achieved a result wholly splendid. ... — Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... temperature; while, after it has flowed for some distance, it becomes of the temperature of the atmosphere, or, in summer, even warmer, owing to the action of the sun, both directly and reflected or radiated from its bottom. Besides this equable temperature in the water itself, spring or well water is usually covered; and, even if exposed, if the well is very deep, the water will not freeze, or at least very slightly; for frost does not act with its full power, except where there is a free ... — On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... life. We seem to discern in his last letter of importance, recently edited by Mr. Garnett, that he was now conscious of having reached a platform from which he could survey his past achievement, and whence he would probably have risen to a loftier altitude, by a calmer and more equable exercise of powers which had been ripening during the last three years of life in Italy. Meanwhile, "I am content," he writes, "if the heaven above me is calm for the passing moment." And this tranquillity was ... — Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... been almost overcome by an arrangement introduced by Mr Renton, which preserves the cylinder of lime from cracking. Gas has lately been introduced in the lighthouse at Hartlepool. Hopes were entertained that electric lights might be introduced, but the great difficulty is to maintain an equable force, as the battery gradually declines in power. There are also other difficulties to be mastered. The most successful experiments have been carried on in the South Foreland lighthouse, by an arrangement of powerful magnets. The current thus produced ... — A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston
... night on adamant, pierced by the needles of the frost; to awake shivering and famished, until the meaning of an inch of ice on the backwater comes to your mind,—these are not calculated to put a man into an equable mood to listen to oratory. Nevertheless there was a kind of oratory to fit the case. To picture the misery of these men is well-nigh impossible. They stood sluggishly in groups, dazed by suffering, and their faces were drawn and their eyes ringed, their beards ... — The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... theoretic positions, there was that in his very manner of speech, in his rank, unweeded eloquence, which seemed naturally to discourage any effort at selection, any sense of fine difference, of nuances or proportion, in things. The loose sympathies of his genius were allied to nature, nursing, with equable maternity of soul, good, bad, and indifferent, rather than to art, distinguishing, rejecting, refining. Commission and omission; sins of the former surely had the preference. And how would Paolo and Francesca have read the lesson? How would this Henry ... — Giordano Bruno • Walter Horatio Pater
... of the fluids in the animal economy, analogous to our own circulation—it being far too irregular and inconstant to depend on any such regulated movement. On removing the head of a Lucciola, this intermitting light immediately ceased; but the other—the permanent, steady, and equable light—remained unchanged, and was not extinguished for from sixty to seventy hours after the death of the insect, unless the body was immersed in oil or alcohol, which extinguished it presently. We found, that though oil ... — Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... younger mind that here was a life unlike his own, which dimly he foresaw was to find its legitimate expression in battle and in striving. Here, in the person of the Colonel, no soldier fore-ordained, but a serene and equable soul wrenched out of its proper sphere by a chance hurt to a woman, forsooth! an imagination so stirred that, if it slept at all, it dreamed and moaned in its sleep, as now; a conscience wounded and refusing to heal. Had he not said himself that ... — The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... think so," Frank Merrill answered. "I think we'll have an equable, semi-tropical climate all the year round—about ... — Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... end of the north-east Pigeon Island, bearing West by South half a mile from our anchorage, in latitude 32 degrees 27 minutes 21 seconds South and longitude 2 degrees 1 minute 10 seconds West of Swan River, variation 4 degrees 10 minutes westerly. The temperature of Houtman's Abrolhos is rendered equable by the fact that they lie at the limit of the land breezes; during the month we were there the thermometer ... — Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... farmers, in which great wealth, where it existed, attached rather to an office than to a person. In general, the multiple of 20 must be further multiplied by a coefficient which is not arithmetically determinable, but which we see I to be very large by a general comparison of the small, poor, and equable society of the early sixteenth century with the complex, huge, wealthy, and wholly iniquitous society ... — The Historic Thames • Hilaire Belloc
... a step forward, but the King motioned him back. Accordingly he resumed his former position, but his equable temperament was for once seriously disturbed. He saw that his Royal master was evidently bent on speaking his mind; and he knew well what a dangerous indulgence that is for all men who desire peace and quietness in ... — Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... During the more equable temperature of night the balloon's height is governed by the drag rope. Leaving a range of hills and floating out over a valley, the weight of the drag pulls the balloon down until the same length of rope is trailing through the valley that had been dragging on the ... — The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... is admitted on all hands to be a good-hearted man. He may put fifty people out of temper, but he keeps his own. He preserves a sickly solid smile upon his face, when other faces are ruffled by the perfection he has attained in his art, and has an equable voice which never travels out of one key or rises above one pitch. His manner is a manner of tranquil interest. None of his opinions are startling. Among his deepest-rooted convictions, it may be mentioned that he considers the air of England ... — Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... beast was, in truth, and in reality, his motive; but there was, at the same time, in his mind, a temporary inclination to deep and intense thought, which he could by no means shake off, and which naturally disposed him to a slow and equable pace. ... — The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... present a score of brazen individuals who had succeeded in NOT losing their presence of mind, even though they constituted a mere sprinkling. Of them the Postmaster formed one, since he was a man of equable temperament who could always say: "WE know you, Governor-Generals! We have seen three or four of you come and go, whereas WE have been sitting on the same stools these thirty years." Nevertheless a prominent feature of the gathering ... — Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... unequal, and oppressive,—if they would render the dealings of individuals mutual and just,—if they would preserve the property and labor of their subjects from the merciless caprices of the powerful, and keep society from reverting to a more or less barbarous state,—to supply a fixed and equable money-measure; and the majority of the governments have selected gold and silver as the best. As seemingly less changeable in quantity and value than anything else, as imperishable, as portable, as divisible, as both convenient and safe, the precious metals challenge superiority over ... — Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... down to the Marne and the Aube; Celts and Flemings from the north, and Norsemen from the west, all met and mingled with the native Gauls and eventually became Parisians. Environment acted its part, and so did the forces of Nature. The soil of the basin of Paris is fruitful, the climate equable, but neither encourage idlers; both demand a toll of strenuous labour, yet not so trying to man's strength as to leave him exhausted at the end of the day's work; he may recreate himself and bring his mind to bear on the ... — From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... sign; but I am wretchedly nervous. Anything like rudeness I am simply babyishly afraid of; and noises, and especially the sounds of certain voices, are the devil to me. A blind poet whom I found selling his immortal works in the streets of Sens, captivated me with the remarkable equable strength and sweetness of his voice; and I listened a long while and bought some of the poems; and now this voice, after I had thus got it thoroughly into my head, proved false metal and a really bad and horrible voice at bottom. It haunted me some time, but I ... — The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the Rhind," thought Morgan, "and I might have had a good bit of it. It's confounded annoying to think he's gone and couldn't have waited a few days longer." Hope, triumphant or deferred, ambition or disappointment, victory or patient ambush, Morgan bore all alike, with similar equable countenance. Until the proper day came, the Major's boots were varnished and his hair was curled, his early cup of tea was brought to his bedside, his oaths, rebukes, and senile satire borne, with silent, obsequious fidelity. Who would think, to see ... — The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... that she should feel agitated, and Valentine accosted her so seriously as to increase her emotion. She had been able to recover her usually equable spirits after the loss of her child, it was only on particular occasions that she now gave way to tears. She was by no means of their number who love to make a parade of grief; on the contrary, emotion was painful to her, and she thankfully ... — Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... cases of analogous variation have been observed by Naudin in the great gourd family, and by various authors in our cereals. Similar cases occurring with insects under natural conditions have lately been discussed with much ability by Mr. Walsh, who has grouped them under his law of equable variability. ... — On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... be maintained at a suitable temperature, and the markets are supplied from rough constructions that do duty for many purposes. But in hard weather, the steep lean-to, with bed along the front, and tank to give equable bottom heat, will prove the most serviceable, as it will neither allow snow to lodge on the glass, nor suffer any serious decline of temperature during the prevalence of sharp frost and keen winds. For late autumn supply any kind of house will suffice, but best of all an airy span. A brick pit will ... — The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons
... faces the Plaza Mayor, where there is a bronze statue of the patriot Hidalgo. We are here fully six thousand feet above the sea level, in a wholesome locality, which, it is claimed, possesses the most equable climate in Mexico, the temperature never reaching freezing-point, and rarely being uncomfortably warm. There are several fine old churches in San Luis Potosi, containing some admirable oil paintings by Vallejo, Tresguerras, and others of less fame. The city ... — Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... like have sometimes sought them in contrast first of all, and it has been frequently noticed that the poets who charm us most are those who know how to alternate pity and terror. There is something of the same sort in these variations of the equable procession of Hooker's syllogisms, these flower-gardens scattered, if not in the wilderness, yet in the humdrum arable ground of his collections from fathers and philosophers, his marshallings of facts and theories against the counter-theories ... — A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... probably have become upright, and no doubt would have continued circumnutating. The sole remarkable feature in the figure here given is the straightness of the course pursued. The stem, however, did not move upwards at an equable rate, and it sometimes stood almost or quite still. Such periods probably represent attempts to circumnutate in a direction opposite ... — The Power of Movement in Plants • Charles Darwin
... rather crossly. Both his father and sister felt surprised at his tone. He was generally very equable and good-tempered. But where any sort of art was concerned he naturally claimed to ... — The End of Her Honeymoon • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... the people on her estates grew accustomed to it, and with that marvellous subtlety of contrivance in steering round odd tempers, that is found in sons of the soil and dependants generally, they managed to get along under her government rather better than they would have done beneath a more equable rule. ... — The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... admire this family of Cox's at Hillingdon, and after casting my eyes in every direction, and thinking much and often of the theory of happiness, I am convinced that it is principally to be found in contented mediocrity, accompanied with an equable temperament and warm though not excitable feelings. When I read such books as Mackintosh's Life, and see what other men have done, how they have read and thought, a sort of despair comes over me, a deep and bitter sensation of regret 'for time misspent ... — The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... thing flatly, it is not a heroism to cling to mere existence. The basest of us can do that. But it is a heroism to maintain an equable and unbroken cheerfulness in the face of death. For my own part, I never bowed at the literary shrine Mr Henley and his friends were at so great pains to rear. I am not disposed to think more loftily ... — Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp
... shame, or underthought or afterthought, they stray about the flowery meads. Their hearts are by chance enkindled, each burns, fire seeks the embrace of fire; they touch, they mingle, they soar together. Wedded love, which neither soars nor leaps like a furnace, but glows steadily with equable and radiant heat—wedded love ensues this passionate commingling. But the pair remain what they were at first, simple, naked, unashamed, unshameful, with all things displayed, even to the very aspirations of the secret ... — The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... arrangement which has given us of the fortunate minority so much leisure, luxury, and abundance, advantages we have as a class put to so vulgar and unprofitable a use, is breaking down, and that we have to discover a new, more equable way of ... — An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... attempt to fascinate his public with the charm of a serene, joyful, and ordered house, is the restoration of marriage in the New Heloisa to a rank among high and honourable obligations, and its representation as the best support of an equable life of right conduct and fruitful harmonious emotion. Rousseau even invested it with the mysterious dignity as of some natural sacrament. "This chaste knot of nature is subject neither to the sovereign power nor to paternal authority," he cried, "but only ... — Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... Revolution—written in a German style. An Englishman writes of French Revolutions in a German style. People say the book is very deep: but it appears to me that the meaning seems deep from lying under mystical language. There is no repose, nor equable movement in it: all cut up into short sentences half reflective, half narrative; so that one labours through it as vessels do through what is called a short sea—small, contrary going waves caused by shallows, and ... — Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... was much like that of New York in early autumn. It was of equable temperature. There was no discomfort in walking, no difficulty in breathing. Jeter surmised that at least one of those buildings, perhaps the central one, housed some sort of oxygen renewer. Such a device at ... — Lords of the Stratosphere • Arthur J. Burks
... dandy. He taught me to read an author carefully, and gave me a copy of Epictetus. Apollonius showed me how to give my mind its due freedom, to disregard everything that was not true and reasonable, and to maintain an equable temper under the most trying circumstances. Sextus taught me good humour, to be obliging, and to bear with the ignorant and thoughtless. From Maximus I learned to command myself, and to put through business efficiently, without drudging or complaint. From my adoptive ... — The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... culture"—would seem, when the facts of the whole case are known, to be perfectly warranted so far as Brazil is concerned. Certainly, from a climatic point of view, this country is exceptionally well favoured, an equable and suitable temperature together with an adequate supply of earth and air, moisture and rich alluvial soils, a long dry season for picking extending over many weeks—all point to an ideal cotton-growing area. In fact, there is no reason why a crop of ... — The Story of the Cotton Plant • Frederick Wilkinson
... manner of queer peaks and pinnacles and projections, shingled, painted in divers colors, and broken by windows of oddly tinted glass. Next the carriage passed a modern church built of pinkish-brown stone; and immediately after, the equable roll of the wheels showed that they were on a smooth macadamized road. It was, in fact, though Candace did not know it, the famous Bellevue Avenue, which in summer is the favorite drive for all fashionable persons, and thronged ... — A Little Country Girl • Susan Coolidge
... been introduced to us as Lieutenant Chatterton, pursued his way up the main street in no very equable temper. A little, grey-eyed, snub-nosed civilian, to have insulted an officer and a gentleman! the disgrace was past all bearing, especially as it had been inflicted on him in the presence of a lady. Burning with the indignation ... — Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... generated in this room in normal conditions of natural ventilation through the walls, the volume generated could amount to 3 per cent. of the air-space of the room without explosion ensuing on ignition of the wool, provided time elapsed for equable diffusion, which, moreover, was rapidly attained. Further, it was found that when the whole of the acetylene which 2 kilogrammes or 4.4 lb. of carbide (the maximum permissible charge in many countries for a portable lamp ... — Acetylene, The Principles Of Its Generation And Use • F. H. Leeds and W. J. Atkinson Butterfield
... running fight with Death for many years, retreating from country to country as he pursued, declares to me that the winter climate of St. Augustine is to be preferred to that of any part of Europe, even that of Sicily, and that it is better than the climate of the West Indies. He finds it genial and equable, at the same time that it is not enfeebling. The summer heats are prevented from being intense by the sea-breeze, of which I have spoken. I have looked over the work of Dr. Forry on the climate of the United States, and ... — Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant
... perhaps, properly be said to be exercised upon animals; they are frequently extremely fond of animals, but they are not always equable in their fondness; they sometimes treat their favourites with that caprice which favourites are doomed to experience; this caprice degenerates into cruelty, if it is resented by the sufferer. We must not depend ... — Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... without having taken either medicines or globules. But have we done nothing? When the heart was striving to restore the balance of the circulation, by adopting the recumbent posture, we gave it less work to do. The equable warmth of bed was soothing to the nervous system, and solicited the afflux of blood to the surface. By abstinence, we avoided ministering to congestion of the viscera, and introducing food which, as it could not be properly digested, would ... — Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 428 - Volume 17, New Series, March 13, 1852 • Various
... come, the warm, sun-distilled rain; the far-traveling, vapor-born rain; the impartial, undiscriminating, unstinted rain; equable, bounteous, myriad-eyed, searching out every plant and every spear of grass, finding every hidden thing that needs water, falling upon the just and upon the unjust, sponging off every leaf of every tree in the forest and every growth in the fields; music to the ear, a perfume ... — Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... one who is well acquainted with Greek types and with the forms of modern athletes will observe that the Greek physical build is not identical with that of our days. The equable climate and the unstrained life of the young men produced something more rounded and fleshy than we see in the north. Our athletes are less harmoniously built, with more prominent sinews, more harsh and wiry in type. An American ... — The Legacy of Greece • Various
... nervous susceptibility. It is possible to drink without being an habitual drinker, as it is possible to take chloral or opium without forming the habit of taking these substances. In certain countries and climates where the nervous system is strong and the temperature more equable than with us, in what I sometimes call the temperate belt of the world, including Spain, Italy, Southern France, Syria and Persia, the habitual use of wine rarely leads to drunkenness, and never, or almost never, to inebriety; but in ... — Grappling with the Monster • T. S. Arthur
... followed her at once. The east wind blows in wild and irregular puffs upon the anchorages immediately under the lofty Rock, where the frigate lay. Farther up, where the Spaniards were, it crosses the low neck joining the peninsula to the mainland, and is there more equable and more constant. The "Minerve" was consequently at a disadvantage until she got fairly from under its lee, and the chase through the Straits became close enough to draw the idlers of the town ... — The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... OR MEAN SOLAR TIME. That shown by a clock or watch when compensated for the unequal progress of the sun in the ecliptic, and which thence forms an equable measure of time.—To take time is for an assistant to note the time by a chronometer at each instant that the observer calls "stop," on effecting his astronomical observation for altitude of a heavenly body, or ... — The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... praises old friends and laments his inability to make new ones. He commends Jane Austen, whose novels he has just finished reading. "Her flights," he remarks, "are not lofty, she does not soar on eagle's wings, but she is pleasing, interesting, equable, and yet amusing." He laments that he "can no longer debate and yet cannot apply his mind to anything else." One recalls Darwin's similar lament that his scientific work had deprived him ... — John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin
... well through its influence on the general health, as more directly on the lungs themselves. There can be no doubt that the lungs, like the muscles of the body, acquire power and health of function by exercise. Now during a ride this is obtained, and without much fatigue to the body. The free and equable expansion of the lungs by full inspiration, necessarily takes place; this maintains their healthy structure, by keeping all the air-passages open and pervious; it prevents congestion in the pulmonary circulation, and at the same time provides more completely for the necessary chemical ... — The Maternal Management of Children, in Health and Disease. • Thomas Bull, M.D.
... peculiarities of the many interesting plants, from Europe, Asia, Africa, America, Australia, New Zealand, and the various islands of the North and South Pacific and Indian Oceans. The climate of Teneriffe is so equable, that the island forms a true garden of acclimatisation for the vegetable productions of the various countries of the world; by the judicious expenditure of a little more money, this establishment might be made an important means of introducing to Europe many new and valuable plants. ... — A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... sombre expression of his face discouraged further efforts at reconciliation. The seconds, bowing from a distance, took their men off the field. In the afternoon Lieut. D'Hubert, very popular as a good comrade uniting great bravery with a frank and equable temper, had many visitors. It was remarked that Lieut. Feraud did not, as is customary, show himself much abroad to receive the felicitations of his friends. They would not have failed him, because he, too, was liked for the exuberance of his southern nature and the simplicity ... — A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... angels' visits,—extremely rare," it began. "I am afraid I have frightened you away, as I have frightened the parson. I thought you had more wit than he to discern between mannerism and downright ill-humor. This evening the temperature is equable,—not the sign of a brooding cloud: so put on your hat, like a good girl, and come over. Miss Mewlstone and I will be prepared ... — Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... break his head," he thought, "to have these delicate fingers plying about him, and this pure, noble face so close to his? What a queenly indifferent manner she has! What a calm brow! What honest eyes! What a firm nose! What equable cheeks! What a grand indignant mouth! Not a bit afraid of me! She feels that I am a gentleman and ... — Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... any predisposition toward spring madness. She had never given his heart a moment's doubt. Herself tremendously attractive to men, seeing much of them, receiving their admiration and even court, she had remained always her equable and serene ... — The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... noted character, the offer was accepted. Surrendering my own steed to the care of a ragged boy, who promised to lead it with equal judgment and zeal, I entered the little car, and, keeping a firm hand and constant eye on the reins, brought the offending quadruped into a very equable ... — Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... in the bosoms of them all, as they met and shook hands; but far too much to enable either of them to begin his story and tell it in a proper equable style of narrative. Mr Harding was some minutes quite dumbfounded, and Mr Arabin could only talk in short, spasmodic sentences about his love and good fortune. He slipped in, as best he could, some sort of congratulation about the deanship, and then went on with his hopes and fears—hopes ... — Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... Talbot—the 21st of May, 1803. The Colonel was not, in the strict sense of the term, a politician, but he was a member of the Legislative Council, and naturally supported the official party; whereas Rolph, though a man of equable mind, and by no means constitutionally inclined towards Radicalism, had much better opportunities for mixing with the people than had Colonel Talbot, and his keen eye revealed to him many official abuses which did not commend themselves to his ... — The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... employment to another, according to the various and necessarily fluctuating wants of society. It will follow, that the growth of corn has, at all times, and in all countries, proceeded with a uniform unvarying pace, occasioned only by the equable increase of agricultural capital, and can never have been accelerated, or retarded, by variations of demand. It will follow, that if a country happened to be either overstocked or understocked with corn, no motive of interest could exist for withdrawing capital from agriculture, in the one case, ... — Observations on the Effects of the Corn Laws, and of a Rise or Fall in the Price of Corn on the Agriculture and General Wealth of the Country • Thomas Malthus
... makes us think. Not sceptical, but forever testing and inquiring, it is out of the cloud of his own doubt that the flash comes at last with sudden and vivid illumination. Flashes they indeed are, his finest intuitions, and of very different quality from the equable north-light of the artist. He felt it, and said it of himself, "Ever so many flashes of lightning do not make daylight." We speak now of those more rememberable passages where his highest individuality reveals itself ... — Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... influence of the morning seemed to have some effect, even upon his equable temper. His manner was unusually gay; his smile more placid and agreeable than usual; his voice more clear and pleasant. He laid down the newspaper he had been reading; leaned back upon his pillow with the air of one who resigned ... — Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... into his correspondence; but it is possible. At all events, our natural conclusion is, that he was too literary to be merely a bon vivant. No, he was a shrewd reader of human nature, a man of rare taste, of strong sense, and fond of an equable life. He had means, and often, if not always, the proper leisure to live well. And by living well we mean, not that he indulged in a greedy enjoyment of the good things of this life, nor yet in a profuse and ... — Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... With an effort he seemed to master the suggestions which crowded upon his memory, and continued his narrative in an equable tone. ... — The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... with others, or from his reading, and the authority acquired by those whom he reverences and admires, or from the different impressions produced on the mind, as it happens to be preoccupied and predisposed, or equable and tranquil, and the like; so that the spirit of man (according to its several dispositions), is variable, confused, and, as it were, actuated by chance; and Heraclitus said well that men search ... — Manhood of Humanity. • Alfred Korzybski
... short, sharp struggle followed, the competitors swimming with the sidelong movement and obstreperous puffing which likens the swimmer so closely to the traditional grampus. Eventually one of the group is seen heading the others, and breasting the water with calm and equable stroke in the old-fashioned style. He reaches the flag a full yard before his nearest antagonist. Numbers two and three, following, are about half a yard apart. The others come in pretty much in a group. All were picked men, and there were no laggards. The names of the ... — Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... a landing net, with a kidney-bean stick, a ring of wire, and his own best nightcap of strong cotton net. Then he got the farmer's leave, and lopped obnoxious bushes; and now the chiefest question was: what bait, and when to offer it? In spite of his sad rebuff, the spirit of John Pike had been equable. The genuine angling mind is steadfast, large, and self-supported, and to the vapid, ignominious chaff, tossed by swine upon the idle wind, it pays as much heed as a big trout does to a dance of midges. People put ... — Crocker's Hole - From "Slain By The Doones" By R. D. Blackmore • R. D. Blackmore
... was, on the whole, saddening, but not in the least depressing. It was a kind of poetic sadness that had nothing to do with low spirits. I have never been either merry or melancholy, but have kept an equable cheerfulness that maintains itself serenely enough even in solitude and amidst the desolate aspects of stony and barren lands. As life advances, it is wise, however, to seek the more cheering influences of the external world, ... — Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... if you wish," said Cellini, his usual equable humour and good spirits now quite restored. "You shall know everything; but not to-day. We have too little time. I have not yet commenced your picture. And I forgot—you were thirsty, and I was, as you said, inhospitable. You must permit me ... — A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... passed a singular compensation bill, benefiting two disbursing clerks and others already rich enough. I have written a note to Senator Johnson, of Missouri, hoping to head it off there, or to so amend it as to make it equable and just. All the paths of error lead to destruction; and every one seems inclined to ... — A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... (except perhaps in the sentimentalities of Steele) can one detect the traces of emotion; to read Swift is to be conscious of intense feeling on almost every page. The surface of his style may be smooth and equable but the central fires of passion are never far beneath, and through cracks and fissures come intermittent bursts of flame. Defoe's irony is so measured and studiously commonplace that perhaps those who imprisoned him because they believed him to ... — English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair
... this hypothesis gain credit, since it was the fixed opinion of philosophers, that the earth was the centre of the universe, around which the sun and moon and planets revolved. But the Pythagoreans were the first to teach that the motions of the sun, moon, and planets, are circular and equable. Their idea that they emitted a sound, and were combined into a harmonious symphony, was exceedingly crude, however beautiful. "The music of the spheres" belongs to poetry, as well as the speculations ... — The Old Roman World • John Lord
... to see the whole scheme of letter-writing; you sit down every day and pour out an equable stream ... — Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... nervous preparation for old age is only trouble thrown away. We fall on guard, and after all it is a friend who comes to meet us. After the sun is down and the west faded, the heavens begin to fill with shining stars. So, as we grow old, a sort of equable jog-trot of feeling is substituted for the violent ups and downs of passion and disgust; the same influence that restrains our hopes quiets our apprehensions; if the pleasures are less intense, the troubles are milder and more tolerable; and in a word, this period ... — The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... subject was dropped as if by common consent. Cicely, however, was not so easily silenced. Poor Bessy's uncertain fits of tenderness had produced more bewilderment than pleasure in her sober-minded child; but the little girl's feelings and perceptions had developed rapidly in the equable atmosphere of her step-mother's affection. Cicely had reached the age when children put their questions with as much ingenuity as persistence, and both Mr. Langhope and Amherst longed for Mrs. Ansell's aid in parrying her incessant interrogations ... — The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... glance at the account-books which were handed in, but pronounced an immediate verdict of acquittal.[996] But the merely negative virtue of unassailability by grossly corrupting influences could not have been the only source of the equable repute which Metellus enjoyed amongst the masses. It was but one of the signs of the self-sufficient directness, repose and courtesy, which marked the better type of the new nobility, of a life that held so much that it ... — A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... enable me to offer my services to you, Rita, when our poor friend died. I found myself handy and so I came. It so happened that I was the first. You remember, Rita? What made it possible for everybody to get on with our poor dear Allegre was his complete, equable, and impartial contempt for all mankind. There is nothing in that against the purest democratic principles; but that you, Rita, should elect to throw so much of your life away for the sake of a Royal adventurer, it really knocks me over. For you don't ... — The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... a good, great man obtain? Wealth, title, dignity, a golden chain, Or heap of corses which his sword hath slain? Goodness and greatness are not means, but ends. Hath he not always treasurer, always friends, The great, good man? Three treasures—love, and light, And calm thoughts, equable as infants' breath; And three fast friends, more sure than day or night— Himself, his ... — Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... days Stuart lay in an alternation of fever and stupor, tormented by dreams in which visions of the red land-crabs played a terrible part, but youth and clean living were on his side, and he passed the crisis. Thereafter, in the equable climate of Barbados—one of the most healthful of the West Indies Islands—his ... — Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... to the "Autobiography," the self-confession which we find is this: An old-maidish personage, inhabiting boarding-houses, equable and lukewarm in all his tastes and passions, having no desultory curiosity, showing little interest in either books or people. A petty fault-finder and stickler for trifles, devoid in youth of any wide designs on life, fond only of the more mechanical side of things, yet drifting as it were ... — Memories and Studies • William James
... country life her twenty-four years did not count more to her in wear and tear of feeling and the doubtful moulding of experience than if she had lived through one London season. She was a girl of acknowledged good sense, calm, equable, holding herself in the strictest leash of ladylike reserve, and governing all her emotions without trouble, patent or unconfessed. Hers was a character which would never floreate into irregular beauties to ... — Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... tones of the distant voices, listening impersonally and dreamily to each question and answer and suggestion that passed between that quietly talking group. One of the talkers, he soon found, was a Supreme Court judge on his vacation, equable and deliberative in his occasional query or view or criticism; another was apparently a secret agent from the office of the New York district-attorney, still another two were either Scotland Yard men or members of some continental detective bureau—this Durkin ... — Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... cold and reserved towards those of whom he knew little; but gentle, simple, equable, and familiar in the intercourse of friendship. It is there that, throwing off the grave exterior which he wore in public, he gave himself up to ... — Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... great is the sobriety of the people, that a drunken person is an object of contempt, and a sight which is but very seldom witnessed. This sobriety, therefore, can only be the consequence of a steady, equable supply, which induces moderate enjoyment, without holding out any temptation to excessive indulgence. And however strange or unaccountable this fact may at first appear, the reason of it may be traced to the nature of man, the same inconsistent creature ... — Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... of the forests on the national domain as essentially contribute to the equable flow of important water courses is of the ... — A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 8: Chester A. Arthur • James D. Richardson
... hour, and ropes, and a number of Rupert Gunning's haymakers, to get Fanny Fitz's speculation on to its legs again, and Mr. Gunning's comments during the process successfully sapped Fanny Fitz's control of her usually equable temper, "He's a beast!" she said wrathfully to Freddy, as the party moved soberly homewards in the burning June afternoon, with the horseflies clustering round them, and the smell of new-mown grass wafting ... — All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... of the original population, as well as the numerical proportions of its members, indicates a warmer and, on the whole, somewhat tropical climate, which remained tolerably equable throughout the year. The subsequent distribution of living beings in zones is the result of a gradual lowering of the general temperature, which first began to be felt at ... — Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... pleasant. But no man may be socially finished all at once. In the course of the seven years between The Old Bachelor and The Way of the World, Congreve must have found his wit becoming readier, his tact surer, his appreciation of natural comedy finer and (as personal keenness decreased) more equable, his popularity greater, and—in fine—the world more pleasant and the attractions of the study waning and waning in comparison. He was a finished artist, he was born, one might almost say, with a style; but his inclination ... — The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... writing this article, gorging on abalones and mussels, digging clams, and catching record-breaking sea- trout and rock-cod in the intervals in which we are not sailing, motor- boating, and swimming in the most temperately equable ... — The Human Drift • Jack London
... difficulties. You may, if you will, look on at the life of a brother, or of a father, without either suffering or joy; but you will find neither mockery nor indifference, nor have any doubt as to his intentions. The warmth of the atmosphere in which you live will be always equable and genial, without tempests, without a possible squall. If, later, when you feel secure that you are as much at home as in your own little house, you desire to try some other elements of happiness, pleasures, or amusements, you can expand their circle at ... — Honorine • Honore de Balzac
... the study of Peter Ruff's life, so far as possible, to maintain under all circumstances an equable temperament, to refuse to recognize the meaning of the word "nerves," and to be guided in all his actions by that profound common sense which was one of his natural gifts. Yet there were times when, like any other ordinary person, he suffered ... — Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... frequent repetition of this process, the mind becomes habituated to it, and there arises an equable flow of perceiving consciousness. ... — The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali • Charles Johnston
... this had passed into the speech of the inhabitants, and they saluted each other when they met with 'Breezy, breezy,' instead of the customary 'Fine day' of farther south. These continual winds were not like the harvest breeze, that just keeps an equable pressure against your face as you walk, and serves to set all the trees talking over your head, or bring round you the smell of the wet surface of the country after a shower. They were of the bitter, hard, persistent sort, that ... — Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the soft, insinuating tones of persuasion; the full, strong voice of command and decision; the harsh, irregular, and sometimes grating explosion of the sounds of passion; the plaintive notes of sorrow and pity; and the equable and unimpassioned flow of words in argumentative style. This difference consists in a variation in the quality of the voice by which it is adapted to the character of the thought or sentiment read or spoken. In our attempts to imitate nature, however, it is important that all affectation ... — McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... the question. "But there's the old adage about a bird on toast being worth more than a bird on the telegraph wire." He chuckled deeply. "And, of course, no owner ever thinks of paying the full value of salvaged property. Nor does the court expect him to. Something like an equable division is ... — The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour
... equable climate in the world Honolulu claims the most perfect bathing-resort on earth, Waikiki Beach. The water is certainly all that could be desired, but the not infrequent sharp masses of coral that project up through the white ... — Wanderings in the Orient • Albert M. Reese
... the meaner departments of domestic life, and Miss Shepperson did all the work that required care or common-sense, the duties of nursemaid alone taking a great deal of her time. On the whole, this employment seemed to suit her; she had a look of improved health, enjoyed more equable spirits, and in her manner showed more self-confidence. Once a month she succeeded in getting a few hours' holiday, and paid a visit to one or the other of her sisters; but to neither of them did she tell the truth regarding her position ... — The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... Already, in less than an hour, I had died a thousand deaths. And yet this neighbour, balanced and equable, calm-voiced and almost beneficent despite the harshness of his first remarks, had been in the ... — The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... farmhouse, peep out of embowering verdure, whilst our road is shaded in many places by the overhanging boughs of blossoming almond and loquat trees. The whole region is in truth a veritable garden of the Hesperides, where in the mild equable climate fruit and flowers ripen and bloom without a break throughout ... — The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... Corombona," but we are strongly inclined to call "The Devil's Law-Case" his best play. The two former are in a great measure answerable for the "spasmodic" school of poets, since the extravagances of a man of genius are as sure of imitation as the equable self-possession of his higher moments is incapable of it. Webster had, no doubt, the primal requisite of a poet, imagination, but in him it was truly untamed, and Aristotle's admirable distinction between the Horrible and the Terrible in tragedy was never better illustrated and confirmed than ... — The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... Andes, there lies that mysterious mountain valley, cut off from the world of men, the Country of the Blind. Long years ago that valley lay so far open to the world that men might come at last through frightful gorges and over an icy pass into its equable meadows; and thither indeed men came, a family or so of Peruvian half-breeds fleeing from the lust and tyranny of an evil Spanish ruler. Then came the stupendous outbreak of Mindobamba, when it was night in Quito for seventeen ... — The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... greatest flexibility, but the most complete activity. Does any intelligent physiologist doubt that the latter will have done most for the promotion of his health? that he will have secured the most equable and complete circulation of the fluids, which is essentially what we mean by health, and have added most to the beauty and effectiveness ... — The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... mean insignificant thing, as if he whom it had power to torture and strangle were greater than it. The face of one wholly in protest, and life-long unsurrendering battle, against the world. Affection all converted into indignation: an implacable indignation; slow, equable, silent, like that of a god! The eye too, it looks-out as in a kind of surprise, a kind of inquiry, Why the world was of such a sort? This is Dante: so he looks, this 'voice of ten silent centuries,' and sings us ... — Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... States, with veins full of poetical stuff, most needs poets, and will doubtless have the greatest, and use them the greatest. Their Presidents shall not be their common referee so much as their poets shall. Of all mankind, the great poet is the equable man. Not in him, but off from him, things are grotesque or eccentric, or fail of their sanity. Nothing out of its place is good, and nothing in its place is bad. He bestows on every object or quality its fit proportions, neither more nor less. He is the arbiter of the diverse, ... — Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman
... very well satisfied with the fact of his engagement, believing that he had taken the best possible means for securing his future happiness; an equable, quiet sort of happiness, of course—he was nearly thirty, and had outlived the possibility of anything more than that. It would have bored him to suppose that Geraldine expected more from him than this tranquil kind of worship. Perhaps the lady understood ... — The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... and while the latter saddle is traveling back, the catch is placed in the next notch, and so on, the cut for the forward travel always being put on as above while the saddle is traveling back. Thus is insured an exactly equable amount of cut on the whole three rests. When the lever, D, is not in use, the catch is removed from the wheel, B, and is allowed to rest against the pins, G or A, provided for that purpose. For piston rods, ... — Scientific American, Volume XXXVI., No. 8, February 24, 1877 • Various
... interrupted the journey. Under a pretext that was little remarked, M. de Wardes went forward in advance of the others. He took Manicamp with him, for his equable and dreamy disposition acted as a counterpoise to his own. It is a subject of remark, that quarrelsome and restless characters invariably seek the companionship of gentle, timorous dispositions, as if ... — Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... assistance you could have from me were I a father giving you a daughter in marriage. I do this because I will make the happiness of her life the chief object of mine. Now good night. Don't say anything about it at present. By-and-by we shall be able to talk about these things with more equable temper.' Having so spoken he hurried out of the room, leaving Paul Montague bewildered by the tidings which had been ... — The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... seems to have become a favourite prescription for lung complaints; and it is doubtless an honest one, as the doctor who gives it at the same time parts with his patient and his fees. But the advice is sound; as the long rest of the voyage, the comparatively equable temperature of the sea air, and probably the improved quality of the atmosphere inhaled, are all favourable to the healthy condition of the lungs as well ... — A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... done for Rome. The result was the most genial and generally delightful work of history that has been written since Herodotus. Villani, who lived till 1348, when the plague carried him off, seems to have been a man of an equable disposition and sober judgement. Like Dante and all the Florentines of that day, he belonged to the Guelf party; and, unlike his great fellow-citizen, he adhered to it throughout, though by no means approving all the actions of its leaders. After the fashion of the time, he begins his ... — Dante: His Times and His Work • Arthur John Butler
... excursions, incautiously laid down on the frozen side of a hill when heated with walking, had caught a severe inflammatory sore throat, which became daily worse whilst we remained in the tents, but began to mend soon after he was enabled to confine himself to the more equable warmth of the house. We took up our abode at first on the floor, but our working party, who had shown such skill as house carpenters, soon proved themselves to be, with the same tools, (the hatchet ... — Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 2 • John Franklin
... brother from among all her other acquaintances; called him "Morry"; scarcely ever coquetted with him; and let him freely into her secrets. It is easier to see why Maurice was attracted to her; for not only was Ephie pretty and charming; she was also adorably equable—she did not know what it was to be out of humour. And she was always glad to see him, always in the best possible spirits. When he was dull or tired, it acted like a tonic on him, to sit and let her merry chatter run over him. And soon, he found plenty of makeshifts to see her; amongst other ... — Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... said of the natives. 'Don't put them in a false light. Whatever claims they may have to equable treatment, they have no claim to be considered romantic. The ancient romance of this country is the romance of a nobler race the romance of the Tyrian trader, Tyrian or Sabaean. Allow me but a trifling emendation, ... — Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps
... fact of having nothing definite upon which to work was getting on Carroll's usually equable nerves. He had little to say to Leverage regarding the case, for the simple reason that there was very little which could be said. Leverage, on his part, watched the detective with keen interest, sympathizing ... — Midnight • Octavus Roy Cohen
... stuff most need poets and will doubtless have the greatest and use them the greatest. Their Presidents shall not be their common referee so much as their poets shall. Of all mankind the great poet is the equable man. Not in him but off from him things are grotesque or eccentric or fail of their sanity. Nothing out of its place is good and nothing in its place is bad. He bestows on every object or quality its fit proportions neither more nor less. He is the arbiter of the diverse and he ... — Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... one to whom all literature and art were absolutely subject; and to whom, with a reasonable allowance as to technical details, all science was, in a most extraordinary degree, familiar. Throughout a long-drawn summer's day would this man talk to you in low, equable, but clear and musical tones concerning things Iranian and divine; marshalling all history, harmonising all experiment, probing the depths of your consciousness, and revealing visions of glory and terror to the imagination; but pouring withal such floods of light upon the mind that you ... — English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill
... of an equable temper, and inclined to moderation in all things. The only amusement for which he cared much was hunting, especially falconry, and that he never carried to excess till his last years. [46] He was indefatigable in application to business. He had no ... — The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... memory; and that, in all appearances before his judges, he never forgot his part, either as a prince or as a man. Firm and intrepid, he maintained, in each reply, the utmost perspicuity and justness both of thought and expression; mild and equable, he rose into no passion at that unusual authority which was assumed over him. His soul, without effort or affectation, seemed only to remain in the situation familiar to it, and to look down with contempt on all the efforts of human malice ... — The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... it to you," proffered the once more equable Boniface. "I know all about these things, they oft-times visit us here. I know every bit of this play as well ... — Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... beautiful avenues of the park, and in this respect Hortense had the same taste as her mother. This whimsical fancy astonished Bonaparte, and he was sometimes vexed at it. My intercourse with Josephine was delightful; for I never saw a woman who so constantly entered society with such an equable disposition, or with so much of the spirit of kindness, which is the first principle of amiability. She was so obligingly attentive as to cause a pretty suite of apartments to be prepared at Malmaison for ... — Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... proved to have been for many years, did not seem to have damaged it in the least; and the fact of a chimney-flue passing through the wall at no great distance had no doubt conduced to maintain the air in the cupboard at an equable temperature. So far as he was able to judge, the wood was as sound as when it left the maker's hands; but the strings were of course broken, and curled up in little tangled knots. The body was of a light-red colour, with a varnish of peculiar lustre and softness. The neck seemed ... — The Lost Stradivarius • John Meade Falkner |