"Phlegmatic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... cesarevich did not conceal his sympathies with the French. It reappeared in an intermittent fashion during the years 1875-1879, when the Eastern question produced so much excitement in all ranks of Russian society. At first the cesarevich was more Slavophil than the government, but his phlegmatic nature preserved him from many of the exaggerations indulged in by others, and any of the prevalent popular illusions he may have imbibed were soon dispelled by personal observation in Bulgaria, where he commanded ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... of faith. Lady Dorinda, having shut her curtain for the night, declined to take any part in this household festivity, though she contributed some unheard sighs and groans of annoyance during its progress. A phlegmatic woman, fond of her ease, could hardly keep her tranquillity, besieged by cannon in the daytime, and by chattering and laughter, the cracking of nuts and the thump of soldiers' ...
— The Lady of Fort St. John • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... for them both, and they went out, giving Swan a sidelong look of utter bafflement as they passed him. Talking by the thought route from Spirit Canyon to Boise City was evidently a bit too much for even their phlegmatic souls to contemplate ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... white visible, I have often observed both in the timid and phlegmatic, and in the ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various
... gathered upon our fair western plain nations of all the earth. The Italian is there and thinks of "Italia, fair Italia!" The Frenchman sings his "Marsellaise." The solid, phlegmatic German sings his "Die Wacht am Rhein." The Irish sing "Killarney" and "Wearin' the Green"; the Scotchman his "Blue Bells"; the Englishman, "God save the King!"; the American, the "Star-spangled Banner." God bless the patriot, but the ultimate end of all governments ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... who had visited him that afternoon with a note of introduction from an old friend, interested him from the very contrast of their dispositions. The lank black hair and deep grey eyes, the haggard expression and nervous manner, the fitful yet keen interest of his visitor were a novel change from the phlegmatic deliberations of the ordinary scientific worker with whom the Bacteriologist chiefly associated. It was perhaps natural, with a hearer evidently so impressionable to the lethal nature of his topic, to take the most effective aspect ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... visitors, the most capable of estimating the underlying significance of tone and inflection, was Lefty Werner. The other two, maintaining their usual expression of phlegmatic and stubborn sullenness, left the delivery of their message to him, the glibbest talker. And plainly he had taken a dislike to it. A wild and fleeting wish that civilisation were nearer, wherein ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... by this sudden outburst on the part of a man whom up to that time he had taken to be unusually cool-headed and phlegmatic, did not immediately answer. He was watching the Ellersdeane constable, who was running after Gabriel Chestermarke's rapidly retreating figure. He saw Gabriel stop, listen to an evident question, and then lift his hand and ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... "of course I want to! If this were only next Thursday night—But between now and Friday I'll do nothing but fret away my strength. Oh, I'm not saying I don't need the rehearsals! But I don't need them strung out through a week. That system's well enough for phlegmatic singers; it only drains me. Every single feature of operatic routine is detrimental to me. I usually go on like a horse that's been fixed to lose a race. I have to work hard to do my worst, let alone my best. I wish you could hear me sing well, once," she turned to Fred defiantly; "I have, a few ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... flushed, and his eyes sparkled with a lustre so bright and angry, that Junker von Warmond looked at his phlegmatic friend in ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... made no remark, but a look of surprise passed over his phlegmatic countenance. For years back so little had been heard of the old monastery that its very existence had been almost forgotten in Bedsworth. Now whole troops of Londoners were coming down in succession, demanding to be driven there. He pondered over the strange fact as he ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... is this in music, that it is suited to please all the varieties of the human mind. The illiterate and the learned, the thoughtless and the giddy, the phlegmatic and the sanguine, all confess themselves to be its votaries. It is a source of the purest mental enjoyment, and may be obtained by all. It is suited to all classes, and never ceases to ...
— Sketch of Handel and Beethoven • Thomas Hanly Ball
... add that, desperate as your case seems to be, I participate in your sanguine hopes? I do not deem them entirely romantic, but share in that which the phlegmatic would call the frenzy of your mind; and half-persuade myself that you ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... and violent passions into which he was apt to fall if thwarted or overlooked were purely Spanish; there seemed to be nothing of the patient, phlegmatic Netherlander about this side of him. Indeed it was this temper of his perhaps more than any other desire or tendency that made him so dangerous, for, whereas the impulses of his heart were often good enough, they were always liable to ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... the hitherto submissive, but now savage and vindictive natives. It was no slight cause probably which had induced them to revolt. The cruelty and tyranny, the exactions and treachery of the white man had at length raised their phlegmatic natures, and they were about to exact a bitter revenge for long years of oppression and wrong. As in many similar instances, the innocent were doomed to suffer with the guilty; and as far as we had been able to judge, our friend Senhor ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... could make. She began to praise Mr. Brandon—to whose character, however, she never did full justice, from not understanding many of its best points. She liked Mr. Phillips much better, who was graver. Her Scotch phlegmatic temperament could not appreciate the fine spirit and unvarying good humour of Brandon, and his random way of talking she thought flighty and frivolous. But yet she could, and did, praise him for his kindness of heart and his want of selfishness, which he had shown on many ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... these serious comments, and return to the more humorous side of our theory—the plumpness of the prince, overlooked as a mere accident, by critics and actors. It is a physiological propriety that he should be of a phlegmatic temperament—a temperament often united to an acute intellect, but also, to a sluggish and heavy person. A weak, wavering inactivity, fickleness of purpose, a keen sensibility, or sensitiveness, are also noticeable; while the subtlety of his theories is sharply ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... a phlegmatic man; a self-contained and a reticent man. If Captain Roy had told him to get ready to sail to the moon that afternoon, he would probably have said "Very well, sir," in the same tone and with the ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne
... all, as though his eye had power to pierce the dust-cloud, and now he, too, lost his phlegmatic calm. He threw up his arms as if in prayer and shouted, as though ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... not see me, my friends?" he asked, in a gentle but sad voice. "Do you not look down wonderingly where you saw a cheerful, smiling king, upon the now bent, shrunken old man, cold and phlegmatic, who seldom speaks, and then causes every one to yawn? Oh, where have you fled, beautiful spring-time of life—wherein once we used to enliven our conversations with the wit of the Athenians, and the jest fluttered upon our lips as we glided through life in the bold enjoyment ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... his wife in scornful pity. He wondered sometimes, in his phlegmatic reasoning, why women were created ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... Mr. Forbes, I look on you as a disturbing influence. A man who can talk as calmly as you about dropping two millions on a crazy project to introduce Western methods into China is not fitted for the phlegmatic and judicial atmosphere of Scotland Yard. If I want any money I'll come to you. If not, and all goes well at No. 11 Fortescue Square, the next time I'll trouble you will be when you are asked to identify Wong Li ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... are not worth anything," she replied nonchalantly. "As a nation, you might sometimes give us the impression of being phlegmatic and slow-witted. Both ideas may have some basis of fact, yet not be absolutely true. We are not all abnormally quick in America. Look at ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... scarcely finished speaking when we shot down in a long curve, like the swing of a pendulum, apparently making directly for the group of Martians. They were not seized by any quick panic; they were too phlegmatic for that. But just as the projectile threatened to smash into them, they seemed to realize the danger, and to grasp the idea that it was being operated and directed by some power and mind inside. Then they turned, scrambling clumsily over each other, and fled with ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass
... earth and had been married! The wisest were bewildered, but such was the fact, nevertheless; nobody could exactly comprehend, but who could deny it? It was a mystery, indeed, until one day, some time after, a usually phlegmatic matron was struck with an idea, and accordingly propounded to her friends ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... blocking the balls which were dangerous and could not be played; declining to give the faintest chance of a catch, and taking a run short rather than be run out, and so the score crept up with a two from Howieson, who had got into a habit of twos, and being a phlegmatic youth, kept to it, and a three and a four from Speug, and another two from Howieson, and ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... pushed just as long as the bondholders of Holland would put up the money. To keep things going, interest had been paid to the worthy Dutch out of the money they had supplied. Gradually, the phlegmatic ones grew wise, and the purse-strings of the Netherlanders were drawn tight. For hundreds of years Holland had sought a quick Northwest passage to India. Little did she know she was now warm on the trail. Little, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... Baital, the devil, ask you, what is a born philosopher, save a man of cold desires? And what is a bred philosopher but a man who has survived his desires? A young philosopher? - a cold-blooded youth! An elderly philosopher? —a leuco-phlegmatic old man! Much nonsense, of a verity, ye hear in praise of nothing from your Rajaship's Nine Gems of Science, and from sundry other such ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... however, did not return to his hiding-place in the hold, though he was rather an incubus on board. Phlegmatic, methodic, and by no means communicative, he carefully avoided the seamen, who had always some prank to play off on him, and he kept to his own provisions. He was thin enough in all conscience, and ...
— Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne
... on one consistent plan. Schemes so numerous present themselves, and none without its difficulties and objections, that to determine is no easy task. Circumstances in part must guide me. I must have patience. At present I can only prepare and keep in readiness such cumbrous engines as this phlegmatic foggy land of beef and pudding can afford. I must supply the fire, if I find it necessary to put the machines ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... matter the barest amount of attention, whilst he is filling his pipe or mixing a whisky and soda; but there is not in England that general attention given to the displays of nature and the philosophy of those displays, which certainly is a characteristic of the phlegmatic German. However, things are better than they used to be, and the forthcoming total eclipse of the Sun of May 28, 1900 (visible as it will be as a partial eclipse all over Great Britain and Ireland, and as a total eclipse in countries so near to Great Britain as Spain and Portugal, to say nothing ...
— The Story of Eclipses • George Chambers
... do? turn porter? I was strong; but there was something besides strength required to ply the trade of a porter—a mind of a particularly phlegmatic temperament, which I did not possess. What should I do? enlist as a soldier? I was tall enough; but something besides height is required to make a man play with credit the part of soldier, I mean a private one—a ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... When they cannot reach the teacher they will transfer the feeling to one another. Where this is allowed to pervade the atmosphere of a girls' school, those who escape floods of tears or other acute hysterical symptoms are the dull, phlegmatic temperaments. ...
— Power Through Repose • Annie Payson Call
... fisherman should have what makes Stewart White a great hunter—no emotions. If a lion charged me I would imagine a million things. Once when a Mexican tigre, a jaguar, charged me I—But that is not this story. Boschen has the temperament for a great fisherman. He is phlegmatic. All day—and day after day—he sits there, on trigger, so to speak, waiting for the strike that will come. He is so constituted that it does not matter to him how soon or how late the strike comes. To me the wait, the suspense, grew to be maddening. Yet I stuck it out, and in this I claim a ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... well known in Chapelizod that Sturk was poking after Lord Castlemallard's agency that Nutter felt the scene going on before his eyes between him and Dangerfield like a public affront. His ire was that of a phlegmatic man, dangerous when stirred, and there was no mistaking, in his rigid, swarthy countenance, the ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... enemy blow. Equally alive to German racial traits, the German Staff had organized in their mass offensive the elan which means fast marching and hard blows. So, we found the supposedly excitable French digging in to receive the onslaught of the supposedly phlegmatic German. When the time came for the charge—ah, you can always depend on a Frenchman ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... sword? No, my Lord; for it swept the Dutch marauders out of the fine old towns of Belgium—scourged them back to their own phlegmatic swamps—and knocked their flag and scepter, their laws and bayonets into the sluggish waters of ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... a sinner," exclaimed Asa, usually one of the most phlegmatic of the youths, "the girl is blown ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... be friendly, the chiefs, after the usual salutations have been exchanged, generally ride out and accompany the commander of the party some distance, holding a friendly talk, and, at the same time, indulging their curiosity by learning the news, etc. Phlegmatic and indifferent as they appear to be, they are very inquisitive and observing, and, at the same time, exceedingly circumspect and cautious ...
— The Prairie Traveler - A Hand-book for Overland Expeditions • Randolph Marcy
... his spurs heavily against the boards behind his feet. Latimer and O'Dwyer danced joyously; but Burroughs, apparently uneasy, as the evening wore on, kept a watchful eye on the outer door. Philip noticed, too, that Pine Coulee was less phlegmatic than usual, although she danced faithfully at the command of her lord ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... He was the deacon of my church. I used to think that nobody knew, or at least fairly appreciated, him as I did. Under that heavy brow, and phlegmatic aspect, [71] and reserved bearing, there was an amount of fire and passion and thought, and sometimes in conversation an eloquence, which showed me that, with proper advantages, he would have made a ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... comet appeared for several months before the plague, as there did the year after, another, a little before the fire; the old women, and the phlegmatic hypochondriac part of the other sex, whom I could almost call the old women too, remarked, especially afterward, tho not till both those judgments were over, that those two comets passed directly over the city, and that so very near the houses that it was plain they imported something peculiar to ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey
... the youthful Rosina, had he been ten times a Dutchman; and if he heard of her intended emigration to America, as he possibly might have done, it most likely excited no particular emotion in his phlegmatic bosom. He could not have imagined that the exportation of a little singing-girl to New York should interfere with a potential venture of his own in fair linen. The gods kindly hid the future from his eyes, so that he might enjoy the comic vexation her lively sallies caused to Doctor ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... kissed his wife, as he had also done before during the recital of the story. It was done in a way that was so real and genuine that it completely broke them down. They declared that morning that they would not quickly judge anyone again. They had thought him phlegmatic and unlovable, and now here had come out from the heart of this Indian, of such a rugged exterior, a story and an exhibition of love and devotion more genuine and beautiful than any that had ever been revealed to them in song ...
— Winter Adventures of Three Boys • Egerton R. Young
... I hope his evidence will clear you," replied the more phlegmatic Englishman. "And ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... concludes with the remark,—"It is impossible, therefore, for one-half at least, if not more, of mankind to become even fair rifle-shots, with any possible amount of practice; but to all men who have good eyes, iron nerves, sufficient physical strength, and phlegmatic tempers, it is a certainty beyond calculation that they can become first-rate rifle-shots with ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... a cry of joy, and with a rapid movement, of which so phlegmatic a man might have been thought incapable, he threw ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... The limits within which Alceste is in the right and beyond which he is in the wrong, it would be no easy matter to fix, and I am afraid the poet himself did not here see very clearly what he would be at. Philinte, however, with his illusory justification of the way of the world, and his phlegmatic resignation, he paints throughout as the intelligent and amiable man. As against the elegant Celimene, Alceste is most decidedly in the right, and only in the wrong in the inconceivable weakness of his conduct towards ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... appear as unlike that rogue Peter as it is possible. I would not for a hundred pounds carry the least mark about me that might give occasion to the neighbours of suspecting I was related to such a rascal." But Martin, who at this time happened to be extremely phlegmatic and sedate, begged his brother, of all love, not to damage his coat by any means, for he never would get such another; desired him to consider that it was not their business to form their actions by any reflection upon Peter's, but by observing the rules prescribed ...
— A Tale of a Tub • Jonathan Swift
... in all lives when calm reflection is powerless to influence the individual acts; when calmness, even in the most phlegmatic natures, is impossible; when a tide of impulse sweeps us on, giving us not even so much as a breathless, momentary pause in which to consider the result of our headlong career. We blunder on against every jagged obstacle, lacerated and bleeding, jolting cruelly ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... there was in the man's countenance one feature which always filled me with involuntary distrust. His under lip, which was thin and very restless, turned down at the corners instead of turning up, and this, as I thought, betrayed a streak of cruelty in a character which seemed so phlegmatic and indolent. ...
— Another Study of Woman • Honore de Balzac
... not so much suggestible as autosuggestible. The other type, which is significant from our present point of view, is thus described by Miss Stein: "In general the individuals, often blonde and pale, are distinctly phlegmatic. If emotional, decidedly of the weakest, sentimental order. They may be either large, healthy, rather heavy, and lacking in vigor or they may be what we call anaemic and phlegmatic. Their power of concentrated attention is very small. They describe themselves as never ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... Phlegmatic rather than emotional, and wholly secretive, he had accustomed himself to regard romantic ideality, and susceptibility to sentimentality as a species of intellectual anaemia; holding himself always thoroughly in hand, when subjected to the softening ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... the mixture of unusual emotions that assailed her. She was exceedingly sticky and uncomfortable from honey and tears, and she shivered with repugnance at the odor of Marthy's unbathed person. She was astonished at the outburst from phlegmatic Marthy Meilke, and her pity was now alloyed with her promise to wash all those dirty dishes. Billy Louise felt that she had been a trifle hasty in making promises. There was not a drop of water in the house nor a bit of ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... looked at the odd-looking instruments the medical man was taking from the case, but Thorndyke watched his movements with phlegmatic indifference. He stood erect; threw back his shoulders; expanded his massive chest and struck it with his clenched ...
— The Land of the Changing Sun • William N. Harben
... You may either go along it all the way to Buffalo on Lake Erie or by the stage; or sometimes on one and then in the other, just as you think fit. Grand indeed is the scenery by either route and capital the accommodations. Cold and phlegmatic must he be who is not warmed into admiration by the surrounding scenery, and charmed with the affability of the travellers ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... silence and obscurity; and though their cruelty is exceedingly great, it is never seen in a single exertion, and always escapes commiseration, being scarce known, except to those who view them in a general, which is always a cold and phlegmatic light. The first of these laws being made with so general a satisfaction, as the chief governors found that such things were extremely acceptable to the leading people in that country, they were willing enough to gratify them with the ruin ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... that was?" said the Englishman with an expression of curiosity, which a close observer would have been astonished at discovering in his phlegmatic countenance. ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... is life, so inexplicable are its contradictions, there were times when Oliver's ideal appeared almost to betray him, and the intellectual limitations of Virginia bored rather than delighted him. Habit, which is a sedative to a phlegmatic nature, acts not infrequently as a positive irritant upon the temperament of the artist; and since he had turned from his work in a passion of disgust at the dramatic obtuseness of his generation, he had felt ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... they took no immediate interest or even knew what it was about. During the course of the Revolution there were thirty thousand Hessians in the British armies in America, and, as their owners, the German princelings, received L5 apiece for them it was a profitable arrangement for those phlegmatic, corpulent, and braggart personages. The Americans complained that the Hessians were brutal and tricky fighters; but in reality they merely carried out the ideals of their German Fatherland which remained behind the ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... men cannot love the good; because to love good men proceedeth from an aversion to evil, and to hate evil men from a tenderness to the good.' From this delicacy of the Muse arose the little epic, (more lively and choleric than her elder sister, whose bulk and complexion incline her to the phlegmatic), and for this some notorious vehicle of vice and folly was sought out, to make thereof an example. An early instance of which (nor could it escape the accurate Scriblerus) the father of epic poem himself affordeth us. From him the ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... from the bank had ceased, and John, who still kept his head, being a rather phlegmatic specimen of the Anglo-Saxon race, knew that, for the moment at any rate, all danger from this source was ended. Jess lay perfectly still in his arms, her head upon his breast. A horrible idea struck him that she might be ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... he would talk of her to his brother, and together they would chum the matter over, and slowly, in the more phlegmatic Ralph, Nick kindled the flame with ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... halt at his whisper or proceed at his word. As the principal part of the work was performed at midsummer under the rays of a scorching sun, the cattle were, of course, irritable and restive to a degree that in colder weather would have seemed inconsistent with the phlegmatic characteristics of ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... these things his person was unpopular. His phlegmatic Dutch habits contrasted unfavorably with those of the graceful Stuarts, whose evil qualities were forgotten in the remembrance of their showy characteristics. Neither his Dutch followers nor his Dutch manners were ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... Sovrani smiled, "I thought Englishmen were phlegmatic, and here is one ablaze, and ready to burst like a bomb! No!—I did not say I knew!—but I say, if the crowd had known, they would have lynched him! Yes, they would have torn him to pieces! . . . and he would have deserved it! He will deserve it!—If ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... shouted, gesticulating and showing more excitement than he had ever displayed before, his disposition generally being phlegmatic in the extreme. "One big smokee go long. Me see three piecee bamboo walkee, ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... characteristic of it may be very little developed or entirely lacking in his special case. We may know that the inhabitants of a special country are rather alert, and yet the particular individual with whom we have to deal may be clumsy and phlegmatic. The interests of economy will, therefore, be served by such considerations of group psychology only if the employment, not of a single person, but of a large number, is in question, as it is most probable that the average character will show itself in a sufficient degree as ...
— Psychology and Industrial Efficiency • Hugo Muensterberg
... a phlegmatic hem; sad, very sad, truly! cried Mowbray; who sat himself down on one side of the bed, as I sat on the other: his eyes half closed, and his lips pouting out to his turned-up nose, his chin curdled [to use one of thy descriptions]; ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... rose again, his rare strength of will enabled him to assume his usual phlegmatic manner; and he continued in a ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... engaged in actual battle, was phlegmatic, and constitutionally lazy and happy. When enjoying his German pipe he felt impressibly serene, and did not care to be disturbed. He therefore paid no attention to the angry manner of Montague, who brushed past him repeatedly in his hasty perambulations, but continued to ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... toes before and two behind for clinging. Usually seen clinging erect on tree-trunks; rarely, if ever, head downward, like the nuthatches, titmice, etc. Woodpeckers feed as they creep around the trunks and branches. Habits rather phlegmatic. The flicker has better developed vocal powers than other birds of this class, whose rolling tattoo, beaten with their bills against the tree-trunks, must answer for their love-song. Nest in hollowed-out trees. Red-headed Woodpecker. Hairy ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... Le ffacase was as enthusiastic as his phlegmatic nature permitted. He called me into his office and half raised the snuffbox off the desk as though to offer me an unwelcome pinch. "Youre a made man now, Weener," he said, thinking better of his generosity ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... one of the reasons why he and the stocky, phlegmatic social scientist made such a good team, he thought. As far as he, himself, was concerned, people were just a mysterious, exasperatingly unpredictable order of things which were subject to ...
— The Return • H. Beam Piper and John J. McGuire
... slow, but for that reason surer when once aroused. The Emperor's enormous fame had preceded him; and the appearance among them of this genius, all fire and flame, who had come, as he said, to adopt them, warmed their phlegmatic nature. They were at once filled with admiration; his presence, his trust in them, his consoling and encouraging words, the good works at once begun by his active and able ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... phlegmatic husbands, those men whose love is long enduring, because they store up their emotions, whose genius gets the upper hand of these headaches and nervous attacks; but these sublime creatures are rare. Faithful disciples of the blessed St. Thomas, who wished to put his finger into the wound, they ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part III. • Honore de Balzac
... only necessary to break in upon them occasionally for the purpose of securing legal advice, or the equally unromantic desire to have a bit of typewriting done. We are not alone in this heartless and uncharitable obtrusion. Deppingham, phlegmatic soul, was forever disturbing Saunders with calls to duty, although Saunders was brutish enough, in his British way, to maintain (in confidence, of course) that he was in the employ of Lady Deppingham, or no one at all. Nevertheless, he always lived under ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... As his phlegmatic opponent persevered in his inaction, Caesar undertook to occupy the circle of heights which enclosed the plain on the shore held by Pompeius, with the view of being able at least to arrest the movements of the superior cavalry of the enemy and to ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... the Prince of Wales be empowered to exercise the Royal Authority; whereupon the Prince at the palace, having heard the Address, read a reply, sufficiently startling to the country, though well foreknown to those present: he laid stress upon the new conditions of the world—that phlegmatic eye, which had seen so much, lifting a moment in punctuation to dwell coldly upon his hearers, then coldly reading again; the difficulties, he said, which he was called upon to face on behalf of His Majesty were not lightly to be undertaken, and his fuller answer would be contained in a proposal ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... even in relations which usually arouse warmth in the most phlegmatic natures. He was a good son and brother, yet so undemonstrative that his manner passed at times for indifference. Though in beliefs and sentiments he had drifted far apart from his mother, he never let this fact interfere with his filial respect and duty; and her long and many letters ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... Dr. Leake, "of taking snuff, is that of sneezing, which, in sluggish phlegmatic habits, will give universal concussion to the body, and promote a more free circulation of the blood; but of this benefit snuff-takers are deprived, from being familiar with its use." When the stimulus of snuff ceases to be sufficient, ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... glowing embodiment of the vivid and intense spirit of the present age. Her naturally energetic and mercurial nature had been cradled among the excitements of the gayest and giddiest city on the continent. A phlegmatic uncle had remarked to her, in view of inherited and developed characteristics, "Lottie, what in ordinary girls is a soul, in you is a flame ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... he did replenish his finances somewhat, for his apparently phlegmatic landlord was as wary as a veteran mouser in looking after his small interests. He had just obtained an inkling as to Haldane's identity, and, while he was not at all chary concerning the social and moral standing ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... blond, dull and phlegmatic, introduced Anthony ponderously to the problems of attention, right face, about face, and at ease. His principal defect was his forgetfulness. He often kept the company straining and aching at attention for five minutes while he stood out in front and explained a new movement—as a result only ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... He displayed his wisdom by holding his peace at all times, except when very hard pressed by hunger or pain, and appeared to regard life in general in a grave, earnest, inquiring spirit. Nevertheless, we would not have it understood that Will was a slow, phlegmatic baby. By no means. His silence was deep, his gravity profound, and his earnestness intense, so that, as a rule, his existence was unobtrusive. But his energy was tremendous. What he undertook to do he usually did with all his might and main—whether it was the rending of his pinafore or the ...
— Sunk at Sea • R.M. Ballantyne
... telling point, while sly old stagers lay in ambush to spring out armed with "points of order." Emasculate conservatives were snubbed by followers of new prophets; belligerent Southrons glared fiercely at phlegmatic Yankees; one or two intoxicated Solons gabbled sillily upon every question, and sober clergymen gaped, as if sleepy and disgusted with political life. Banks, unequaled in his deportment, was as cool as a summer cucumber; Aiken, his ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... He needed no more explanation. "You have hit it," he said. "I see it at a glance. The old antithesis! All men and all animals fall, roughly speaking, into two great divisions of type: the impassioned and the unimpassioned; the vivid and the phlegmatic. I catch your drift now. Lethodyne is poison to phlegmatic patients, who have not active power enough to wake up from it unhurt; it is relatively harmless to the vivid and impassioned, who can be put asleep by it, indeed, for a few hours more or less, but are alive enough to live on through ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... of the thing had evidently struck even the usually taciturn and phlegmatic driver into his first ...
— In a Hollow of the Hills • Bret Harte
... in gloomy socket taught to roll, Proclaimed the sullen habit of his soul. Heavy and phlegmatic he trod the stage, Too proud for tenderness, too dull for rage. When Hector's lovely widow shines in tears, Or Rowe's gay rake dependent virtue jeers, With the same cast of features he is seen To chide the libertine and ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... of the steady forward gallantry shown by officers and men. Both leaders and led easily carry off the palm from the more phlegmatic opponents, who failed to sweep them away. The result was to save Ladysmith, or rather—what was most really important—to save the organized force that was there shut in. The brilliant antecedent campaign, ...
— Story of the War in South Africa - 1899-1900 • Alfred T. Mahan
... under the operation of the gift. Some might be found, as well, to discredit the notion that there would supervene, on the consigning to the limbo of inutile political systems of the disabling regime that now governs, an epoch, which would witness the shaking off, by the heavy, phlegmatic red man of the present, of his dull lethargy, with the casting behind him of former inaction and unproductiveness; and his being moved to assert a healthy, genuine, wholesome activity, to be directed to lofty or soulful purpose, or expressed in high and honourable endeavour. And it ...
— A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians • James Bovell Mackenzie
... so, on the other hand, a man fails to stand to that which is counselled, because he holds to it in weakly fashion by reason of the softness of his temperament, as we have stated with regard to woman (ad 1). This is also the case with phlegmatic temperaments, for the same reason as in women. And these results are due to the fact that the bodily temperament is an occasional but not a sufficient cause of incontinence, as ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... editor of the Active Inquirer, never before had that vigilant person's inquiries been more active than they were throughout the whole of that long night, and twenty times would he have aroused the party on false alarms, but for the cool indifference of the phlegmatic seamen, to whom the duty more properly belonged. These brave fellows knew too well the precious qualities of sleep to allow that of their shipmates to be causelessly disturbed by the nervous apprehensions of one who carried with him an everlasting ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... reports, they were to be traced principally to the imagination and fears of the people. He ascertained, however, enough from Bartley Sullivan to justify a belief that there was something certainly uncommon about the woman; and being of a cold, phlegmatic disposition, with some humor, he desired them to go home, if they were wise—he shook his head mysteriously as he spoke—"and do the woman no injury, if they didn't wish—" and with this abrupt hint he ...
— Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee • William Carleton
... men. Knowing this, William H. Vanderbilt made a studious policy of standing in with his father, truckling to his every caprice and demand, and proving that he could make an independent living. He is described as a phlegmatic man of dull and slow mental processes, domestic tastes and of kindly disposition to his children. His father (so the chronicles tell) did not think that he "would ever amount to anything," but by infinite plodding, exacting the severest labor from ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... refreshment, Dulberry proposed to Bertram that they should adjourn to the Town Hall. On entering the court-room, they were both surprized to observe the phlegmatic Dutchman addressing Sir Morgan in the character of petitioner. They caught enough of his closing words to understand that the gite of his petition was to obtain the baronet's sanction for the regular and Christian interment of some foreigner ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey
... City from the Civil Lines it is well to follow the road, which passing the Kudsia Gardens leads straight to the Kashmir Gate, one of two places in India (the Lucknow Residency is the other) which must stir with grateful pride the heart of the most phlegmatic of Englishmen. The road from the Gate to the Fort and the Jama Masjid is rich in memories of the Mutiny. It has on its left S. James' Church, with memorial tablets within and outside the shot-riddled globe which once surmounted ...
— The Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, and Kashmir • Sir James McCrone Douie
... an apartment twelve feet square, and lighted by a small, square skin window in the roof. The only noticeable furniture consists of two board beds, with skins for bed-clothes. The women sit on these beds, sewing upon seal-skin boots. They receive us with their characteristic fat and phlegmatic good-nature, a pleasant smile on their chubby cheeks and in their dark, dull eyes,—making room for us on the bedside. Presently others come in, mildly curious to see the strangers,—all with the same aspect of unthinking, good-tempered, insensitive, animal content. The head is low and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... an impatient stamp, or other movement of her foot that exposed fairy toe and instep. Contemplation of the one rested and refreshed the observer; of the other, amused and excited him. Mr. Dorrance's phlegmatic nature found supreme content in dwelling upon the incarnation of patrician tranquillity at his right hand, and he regarded the actions of his frisky would-be tormentor very much as a placid, well-gorged salmon would survey, from his bed of ease upon the bottom of a stream, the gyrations of ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... afflicted with anglomania, had brought out his own hunting establishment, which was exclusively Britannic, and placed it under orders of the Master of the Hunt. Now, one of his men, a little Englishman,—fair, pale, insolent, and phlegmatic, scarcely able to speak a word of French, and dressed with a neatness which distinguishes all Britons, even those of the lower classes,—had posted himself on one side of this open space. John ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... met her, was a buxom, phlegmatic spinster of sixty, equipped with an experience so tragic and unusual that though her tongue ran on for decades its output would still be of imperishable ...
— The Strength of the Strong • Jack London
... the affected side of the head; the cry of bowel-ache is also expressive,—the cry is not so piercing as from ear-ache, and is an interrupted, straining cry, accompanied with a drawing-up of the legs to the belly; the cry of bronchitis is a gruff and phlegmatic cry; the cry of inflammation of the lungs is more a moan than a cry; the cry of croup is hoarse, and rough, and ringing, and is so characteristic that it may truly be called "the croupy cry;" the cry of inflammation of the membranes of the brain is a piercing shriek—a danger signal—most ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse
... larger of the two and by six brawny inches more phlegmatic, bode his time in silence, so that neither of them spoke a word while they were hustled and cuffed along the street between the unbaked brick hovels. It was not until the reinforced iron door of Adra's ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy
... nervous and restless animals we know. An individual of sanguine temperament rarely is seen. Out of about forty specimens with which we have been well acquainted, I do not recall one that was as quiet and phlegmatic as the raccoon, the nearest relative of Nasua. With a disposition so restless and enterprising, and with such vigor of body and mind, I count it strange that the genus Nasua has not spread all over ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... his poetic temperament, his exquisite and almost morbid sensibility, so grievously tried by circumstances, it would be equally absurd and untrue to pretend that he was as impassible as a stoic, or phlegmatic as some good citizen who vegetates rather than lives. Did such qualities, or rather faults,—for they betoken a cold nature,—ever belong to Milton, Dante, Alfieri, and those master-spirits whose strength of passion, combined with force of intellect, ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... was to overthrow the old stability of Europe. It is known how Germany has ever since been a scene of continual wars, dynastic changes, and territorial confusion. What evils have not the wars of the present century brought upon her! Yet, owing to the phlegmatic disposition, one might call it the stolidity of the majority of Germans, the disturbances have been so far external, and the lower masses of society have scarcely been agitated, except by the first rude explosion of Protestantism, and the sudden ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... bought a cheap vessel, hired twenty-three phlegmatic and cold-blooded Japanese laborers, and organized a raid on Laysan. With the utmost secrecy he sailed from Honolulu, landed his bird-killers upon the sea-bird wonderland, and turned them loose ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... and too phlegmatic to harbor curiosity. So the bargain was straightway sealed under a pledge ...
— Uncle Noah's Christmas Inspiration • Leona Dalrymple
... soon knew that an attempt was to be made to arrest Donald. The young men gathered in the hotel round the constables, and told blood-curdling stories of his dare-devilism in the North-West. The constables were fat, phlegmatic, and anything but heroic. What they had been accustomed to was an unexciting and steady beat in the drowsy old city of Quebec, and small but unfailingly regular drinks of whiskey blanc. This duty was new. Worst of all, it was perilous. This Morrison—he might shoot ...
— The Hunted Outlaw - Donald Morrison, The Canadian Rob Roy • Anonymous
... return for your story of the phlegmatic musical animal who called forth such stormy devotion in a female breast, and who, himself cold and indifferent, was loved to the extent of a watery grave being sought by his inamorata as solace for his indifference, let me ask ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... body that had scarcely ever much life in it—sympathy seemed to have drawn them together—every feature and limb was round and fleshy, and, if a kind of brutal cunning had not marked the face, it might have been mistaken for an automaton, so unmixed was the phlegmatic fluid. The vital spark was buried deep in a soft mass of matter, resembling the pith in young elder, which, when found, is so equivocal, that it only appears a moister part of the ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... Church of England had never had a real affinity with Rome. The gorgeous and sensual ceremonies which, in the indolent airs of the Mediterranean, were imposing and attractive, palled upon the taste of the more phlegmatic Englishmen. Institutions organized at Rome did not flourish in that higher latitude, and abuses were currently discussed even before any plan was ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... patiently into every detail of the establishment, or they may become a party to a series of cruelties, that may break the spirit, and, perhaps, shorten the life of their children. Unfortunately, the most promising minds are those that soonest yield to the effect of harsh discipline. The phlegmatic, the dull, and the commonplace vegetate easily through this state of probation. The blight that will destroy the rose, passes ever harmlessly over the ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... Monarchy and privileged classes everywhere rejoiced at the disaster threatening the great republic, and now that it was safe to do so, did not hesitate to show their delight. Sensitive and proud of his country, Dick was cut to the quick, but Warner was more phlegmatic. ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler
... before, that the child, then but ten years old, had nearly managed to make a quarrel between Harry Esmond and his comrade, good-natured, phlegmatic Thomas Tusher, who never of his own seeking quarrelled with anybody: by quoting to the latter some silly joke which Harry had made regarding him—(it was the merest, idlest jest, though it near drove two old friends to blows, and I think such a battle ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... had taken Lady Fermanagh's advice, and he was wooing Myra with all the fervour and passion of which his somewhat phlegmatic nature was capable, wooing her as if their betrothal was yet to be, instead of an accomplished fact. Hardly a day passed but he brought or sent some expensive trifle, together with flowers, chocolates, or cigarettes, with assurances of ...
— Bandit Love • Juanita Savage
... on the bushes, and the long-suffering corn looks as though afflicted with the yellow jaundice. I sup this same evening with a family of Germans, who have been settled here forty years, and scarcely know a word of English yet. A fat, phlegmatic-looking baby is peacefully reposing in a cradle, which is simply half a monster pumpkin scooped out and dried; it is the most intensely rustic cradle in the world. Surely, this youngster's head ought to be level on agricultural ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... "we must talk. I have come, of course you know, to talk about this miserable affair." She put her hand on Karen's; but already something in the girl's demeanour renewed her first displeasure. She looked heavy, she looked phlegmatic; there was no response, no softness ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... Eldest Son was affianced to the Princess Charlotte here, last visit they made. To Princess Charlotte, Wilhelmina's second junior,—mischievous, coquettish creature she, though very pretty and insinuating, who seems to think her Intended rather a phlegmatic young gentleman, as Wilhelmina gradually discovers. Then there is old Duke Eberhard Ludwig, of Wurtemberg, whom we saw at Ludwigsburg last year, in an intricate condition with his female world and otherwise, he too announces himself,—according to promise ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... rage was simmering within her. Even her vanity could not misinterpret the meaning of Hector's devotion to Mrs. Brown. He was deeply in love, of course, and she, Morella, was robbed of her hopes of being Lady Bracondale. Her usually phlegmatic nature was roused in all its narrow strength. She was like some silent, vengeful beast waiting ...
— Beyond The Rocks - A Love Story • Elinor Glyn
... proportioned and of so commanding an appearance that, if he had worn a uniform, he would have presented the most martial air and figure that it is possible to imagine. His hair and beard were blond in color, but in his countenance there was none of the phlegmatic imperturbability of the Saxon, but, on the contrary, so much animation that his eyes, although they were not black, seemed to be so. His figure would have served as a perfect and beautiful model for a statue, on the pedestal of which the ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... and tame. The Belgians had lost their original antipathy to Bonaparte, without having yet had time to acquire any warmth of interest for the Bourbons. Natively phlegmatic, they demand great causes or strong incitement to rouse them from that sort of passiveness that is the offspring of philosophy and timidity- philosophy, that teaches them to prize 'the blessings of safety ; and timidity, that points ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... mantle of St. Paul is the only portion quite finished. The assertion of the writing-master, Johann Neudoerffer, who in his youth had known Duerer, that the four figures are typical of the four temperaments, the sanguine, the choleric, the phlegmatic, and the melancholic,—into which categories an amateurish psychology arbitrarily divided human characters,—is as likely to be correct as it is certain that it adds nothing to the power and beauty of the presentation. Though Duerer in his work on human proportions ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... chances of the chase. He is consequently nomadic in his habits, and barbarous withal. His whole life is spent in the bare process of procuring a living. He consumes a large amount of oleaginous food, and breathes a damp heavy atmosphere, and is, consequently, of a dull phlegmatic temperament. Notwithstanding his uncertain supplies of food, he is recklessly improvident, and indifferent to all the lessons of experience. Intellectual pursuits are all precluded. There is no motive, no opportunity, ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... That's good". The next morning, he said, it might not seem good at all. This calls to mind the old advice to writers about its being "better to compose with fury and correct with phlegm than to compose with phlegm and correct with fury". The phlegmatic critical attitude interferes considerably with the enthusiastic inventive activity. Give invention free rein for the time being, and come around with ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... into an excessive use of this stimulation, is to relieve the depression which follows the first cup of coffee by taking another cup and so on, taking coffee at each meal and perhaps occasionally between meals. While some people of phlegmatic temperament can stand such a drug habit for years without being very seriously injured, it is certainly a habit to be strongly discouraged. A person who does not use coffee or tea regularly, but wishes on rare occasions to get a stimulation, can resort to it to produce that effect, ...
— The Biology, Physiology and Sociology of Reproduction - Also Sexual Hygiene with Special Reference to the Male • Winfield S. Hall
... gave me a kind of diploma certifying my abilities as a teacher, sealed with the seal of the Athenee Royal, of which he is professor. I was surprised also at the degree of regret expressed by my Belgian pupils, when they knew I was going to leave. I did not think it had been in their phlegmatic nature . . . I do not know whether you feel as I do, but there are times now when it appears to me as if all my ideas and feelings, except a few friendships and affections, are changed from what they used to be; something ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... made a slight gesture of uneasiness. The steady gaze was becoming a hard thing to meet. Had the man been less phlegmatic, she could almost have imagined him to be in a white heat of anger. He was so unnaturally quiet, his whole being concentrated, as it were, in a composure that she could not ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... Early was of too phlegmatic a temperament for such an undertaking. He was slow in every thing but name. And, as I have informed you before, so notoriously cautious and slow was he to act, even when a youth at West Point, that he gained the sobriquet of "The Late Early," by which ...
— Siege of Washington, D.C. • F. Colburn Adams
... govern the new province. He was theoretically under the control of Lord Dorchester at Quebec; but his relations with Dorchester were somewhat strained, and he succeeded in making himself virtually independent in his western jurisdiction. Though he seemed phlegmatic, he possessed a vigorous and enterprising disposition, and he planned great things for Upper Canada. He explored the country in search of the best site for a capital; and it is interesting to know that he had such faith in the future of Upper Canada that he actually contemplated placing ...
— The United Empire Loyalists - A Chronicle of the Great Migration - Volume 13 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • W. Stewart Wallace
... and dry in a high degree; of approv'd Vertue against all flatulency proceeding from cold and phlegmatic Constitutions, and generally all Crudities whatsoever; and therefore for being of universal use to correct and temper the cooler Herbs, and such as abound in moisture; It is a never to be omitted Ingredient of our Sallets; provided it be not too minutely beaten (as oft we find ...
— Acetaria: A Discourse of Sallets • John Evelyn |
