"Urbane" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Epernay, and asked how things were going in Paris. He was, says Barnet, a round-faced man, dressed very neatly in black—so neatly that it was amazing to discover he was living close at hand in a tent made of carpets—and he had 'an urbane but insistent manner,' a carefully trimmed moustache and beard, expressive eyebrows, ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... Relief Committee, a stanch old Roman Catholic gentleman nearly eighty years of age, with a hoary head and white beard, and a Milesian name that had come down to him through centuries of Catholic ancestors;—a man urbane in his manner, of the old school, an Irishman such as one does meet still here and there through the country, but now not often—one who, above all things, was true to ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... Christian ministers are never called on by God's word to insult the convictions, or even the prejudices, of their brethren; and that religion is at any rate not less susceptible to urbane and courteous conduct among men, than any other study which men take up. I am sorry to say that I cannot defend Mr Slope's sermon in the cathedral. But come, my dear, put on your bonnet, and let us walk ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... exclusiveness!—lying there, with none so poor to do him reverence! He was a type—and, by reason of his happy temperament, an exceedingly favourable type—of the 'gentleman,' shifting for himself under normal conditions of back-country life. Urbane address, faultless syntax, even that good part which shall not be taken away, namely, the calm consciousness of inherent superiority, are of little use here. And yet your Australian novelist finds no inconsistency in placing the bookish student, or the city dandy, many ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... temperament, the inner spirit of each man, had cast the transforming flame and shadow over the outward form. And now they were alike only in their long, graceful figures, in their thin Roman features, in their general air of urbane distinction. ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... the truth, unless Grassette himself disclosed the situation. He looked at Grassette with a look of poignant pity and interest combined. In his own placid life he had never had any tragic happening, his blood had run coolly, his days had been blessed by an urbane fate; such scenes as this were but a spectacle to him; there was no answering chord of human suffering in his own breast, to make him realise what Grassette was undergoing now; but he had read widely, he had been an acute observer of the world and its happenings, and he had a natural human sympathy ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Distorted to base use, if the near goal Of insubstantial gain Tempt from the proper race-course of the soul That crowns their patient breath Whose feet, song-sandalled, are too fleet for Death, Yet may she claim one privilege urbane And haply first upon the civic roll, That none can breathe her ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... Amherstburgh was so desiccating, that I was glad to leave even my urbane host, serjeant-major as he had been of a royal regiment, and his crowded though clean and comfortable inn, for the spacious deck of the splendid Canadian steamer Thames, Captain Van Allan, on board of which was to be enjoyed the absolute luxury of a spacious state-room ...
— Canada and the Canadians, Vol. 2 • Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... and urbane gentleman of Castilian courtesy and debonnaire manners, came to Coralio with the task before him of striking upon the cold trail of the lost money. There he conferred with the military authorities, ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... and the ruins? Why, he knew everything! He chattered to them, with astonishing knowledge and shrewdness, for half an hour. Complete composure, complete good-humour, complete good manners—he possessed them all. Easy to see that he was the son of an old race, moulded by long centuries of urbane and civilised living! ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... street, that quarter, had been bound up in his life. He had not, forty years ago, been the famous painter, honoured, decorated, taken by the arm by monarchs; he had been a student, wild and raw as any, with that tranquil and urbane philosophy that had made his success still in abeyance within him. As his eyes had rested on the doorknocker next to the restaurant a smile had crossed his face. How had that door-knocker come to be left by the old crowd that had wrenched off so many others? By what accident had that ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... at the chief with an admiring smile. He had never ceased to wonder at the multifarious qualities which enabled the man to remain indispensable to native and cottager alike. Courteous, handsome, urbane, diplomatic, debonair, when a matron of the very highest caste sent for him to enlist his efforts in the regaining of some jewel, tiara, or piece of vertu, missing after a weekend, he never for a moment ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... life, and come under the term "literature." Their language lends itself to the expression of subjective ideas with lucidity, brilliance, charm. The French quality of mind allows that expression to be at once dignified and happily urbane. Sometimes these sayings take the form of the cynical epigrams of a La Rochefoucauld; are expanded into sententious aphorisms by a La Bruyere; or reveal more earnest and athletic souls, who pierce below the social surface froth to do battle ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... see what became of Trevor, but Lawrence was dragged past me by several Affghans, whom I saw wrest his weapons from him. Up to this moment I was so engrossed in observing what was taking place, that I actually was not aware that my own right arm was mastered, that my urbane friend held a pistol to my temple, and that I was surrounded by a circle of Ghazees, with drawn swords and cocked juzails. Resistance was in vain, so, listening to the exhortations of Gholam Moyun-ood-deen, which were enforced by the whistling ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... excessively urbane to Urquhart when they met, and himself opened the topic of the Norwegian jaunt. Urquhart took up the ball. "I think you might come. Your wife and boy will love it, and you'll kindle at their joy. 'They for life only, you for life in them,' to flout the bard. ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... Malate. There lived the chief Tagals after they were deprived of their houses in Manila, among whom were the families of Raja Matanda and Raja Soliman. San Augustin says that even in his day many of the ancient nobility dwelt there, and that they where very urbane and cultured. "The Men hold various positions in Manila, and certain occupations in some of the local public functions. The women make excellent lace, in which they are so skilfull that the Dutch women cannot surpass them." This is still true of ...
— History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2 • Antonio de Morga
... particularly well set up, and in his wig and gown he carried himself with a dignity which fully made up for the lack of inches. His voice was mellow, and his utterance slightly pompous, so that the lightest word which fell from his lips conveyed a sense of urbane majesty. He looked what he was, and what the traditions of the House required—a country gentleman of the highest type. One of the most noticeable traits was his complexion, fresh and rosy as a boy's. ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... vawse o water to look at. [The grasshopper chirps: Keegan turns his head and addresses it in the vernacular]. Be aisy, me son: she won't spoil the swing-swong in your little three. [To Nora, resuming his urbane style] You see I'm quite cracked; but never mind: I'm ...
— John Bull's Other Island • George Bernard Shaw
... God? How does he regard human life? Is he hopeful or pessimistic? Is he a writer of prose, poetry, or both? To what school of writing does he belong? What is the mood or spirit,—humorous, buoyant, serious, sad, ironical, angry, genial, urbane? What is its ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter
... his labours. When the foundation-stone is laid, the architect appears with his plans, and struts for an hour before the public eye. So with the writer in his preface: he may have never a word to say, but he must show himself for a moment in the portico, hat in hand, and with an urbane demeanour. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and spent the next day crossing Nebraska, fertile, rich and interesting. On the afternoon of the second day he left the train and took a branch line toward the mountains and Norada, and from that time on he became an urbane, interested ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... hard for a considerable time at his friends, shrugged his shoulders slightly. This affair had hopelessly and unreasonably complicated his existence for him. One absurdity more or less in the development did not matter—all absurdity was distasteful to him; but, urbane as ever, he produced a faintly ironical smile, and said in his calm voice, "It certainly will do away to some extent with the monotony of ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... but fair question, and Gervase found himself curiously perplexed by it. He offered no reply, neither did Denzil, and they all three slowly entered the Mena House Hotel, there to be met with deferential salutations by the urbane and affable landlord, and to be assured that they would find their rooms comfortable, and also that "Madame la Princesse Ziska" expected them to dine with her that evening. At this message, Denzil Murray made a sign to Gervase ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... if you will, for his "deism" meant no more to him than a distant blue sky giving the world space and perspective and free air; but a materialism that renders men kind and courteous, urbane and sweet-tempered, honest and clear-headed, is better than a spirituality that leads to ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... in no ways disconcerted, "I have a note of hand of one Mr. Serjeant Davy, and I hope he will have the honesty soon to settle it." The serjeant looked abashed, and Lord Mansfield observed, in his usual urbane tone, "Well, brother Davy, I think we ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... French Armies. It was Chesterfield, wasn't it, who spoke of "Suaviter in modo, fortiter in re"? That is General Huguet. A tall man, dark, keen and of most soldierly bearing; beside the genial downrightness of the British officers he was urbane, suave, but full of decision. His post requires diplomacy but ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... engravings as that of "Washington Irving and his Friends." Perhaps it is for this reason that we excel in small pieces with three or four figures, or in studies of rustic communities, where there is propinquity if not society. Our grasp of more urbane life is feeble; most attempts to assemble it in our pictures are failures, possibly because it is too transitory, too intangible in its nature with us, to be truthfully represented ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... consult together as to any action that might be necessary. I found him both polite and considerate and most anxious to meet the wishes of the several parts of his command; in fact, he was a gentleman whom it was a pleasure to meet and work with. His battalion-commander, Major Malley, was equally urbane, and together I think we made a ...
— With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia • John Ward
... "Urbane" on the lips of Jacob had mysteriously all the shapeliness of a character which Bonamy thought daily more sublime, devastating, terrific than ever, though he was still, and perhaps would be for ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... absolutely paralysed with amazement and concern, then saying hurriedly, "Forgive me, Lady Chaloner, I must go and see what has happened," he quickly followed. Lord Stamfordham drew up his chair to the table and sat down. His urbane, genial manner had returned, and he spoke as though nothing had happened; the rest instantly ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell
... this excellent piece of fun was followed by another explosion of laughter. The Frenchman who sat opposite to me—a man, as I have said, of grave but urbane deportment, became curious to know what it was that our neighbours had been conversing about, and which had occasioned so much hilarity. He very politely expressed this wish to me. If it was not an indiscretion, he should like to partake, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... carriage. It was clean and comfortable; but the Cantankerous Old Lady made the porter mop the floor, and fidgeted and worried till we slid out of the station. Fortunately, the only other occupant of the compartment was a most urbane and obliging Continental gentleman—I say Continental, because I couldn't quite make out whether he was French, German, or Austrian—who was anxious in every way to meet Lady Georgina's wishes. Did madame desire to have the window open? Oh, certainly, with pleasure; the day was so sultry. ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... to the other. She strolled alone with one of them on each side of her; Mr. Giovanelli, who spoke English very cleverly—Winterbourne afterward learned that he had practiced the idiom upon a great many American heiresses—addressed her a great deal of very polite nonsense; he was extremely urbane, and the young American, who said nothing, reflected upon that profundity of Italian cleverness which enables people to appear more gracious in proportion as they are more acutely disappointed. Giovanelli, of course, had counted upon something ...
— Daisy Miller • Henry James
... He was civil and urbane in the entertainment of his guests, and requested them to consider themselves as his children. It was on this occasion he told Lord Byron, that he discovered his noble blood by the smallness of his hands and ears: a remark which has become ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... second partner, was the youngest in the firm. He was a good-looking, urbane, well-mannered man, who, if not always loved by those under him, was much liked and respected in the social circle in which he moved, he being also one of the magnates of Liverpool. For my own part, I had reason ...
— The Two Supercargoes - Adventures in Savage Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... so much of the world, he held such strong opinions, and expressed them with such placid freedom, that he never failed to command attention, or to deserve it. Contemptuous enough, perhaps too contemptuous, of human frailties, he at least knew how to make them entertaining, and his urbane ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... before a State Convention was a new experience for him. He walked behind the Duke, who made his slow, urbane way here and there, drawling good-humored replies to salutations. He had quip ready for jest, handclasp for his intimates, tactful word for the newer men who were dragged forward to meet him. Even the Governor of the State, a ponderous ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... jump his bond. In place of the blustering Kaffenburgh was sent another member of the famous law firm of Howe and Hummel, David May, an entirely different type of man. May was as mild as a day in June—as urbane as Kaffenburgh had been insolent. He fluttered into Houston like a white dove of peace with the proverbial olive branch in his mouth. From now on the tactics employed by the representatives of Hummel were conciliatory in the extreme. Mr. May, however, did not long remain in Houston, as ...
— True Stories of Crime From the District Attorney's Office • Arthur Train
... temporary separation; when about pistol—shot asunder, both would begin to tug and rug at the right—hand glove, but it is frequently a mighty serious affair in that hissing hot climate to get the gauntlet off; they approach,—one, a smart urbane little man, who would not disgrace St James's Street, being more kiln—dried and less moist in his corporeals than his country friend, has contrived to extract his paw, and holds it out in act ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... occasion Fields got no farther than the wharf, where the last object visible was his comely and smiling countenance as he waved his adieux. Conspicuous among the group on the after-deck, as we glided out of the smooth harbor of Boston, was an urbane and dignified gentleman of perhaps sixty years of age, with a clean-shaven mouth and chin, finely moulded, and with what Tennyson would call an educated whisker, short and gray, defining the region in front of and below his ears. He spoke deliberately, and in language carefully and yet easily ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... some of the American crew of treachery; the Americans, in turn, accuse the British of revolting brutality. Of course in such a fight things are not managed with urbane courtesy, and, moreover, writers are prejudiced. Those who would like to hear one side are referred to James; if they wish to hear the other, to the various letters from officers published in "Niles' Register," especially vol. v, ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... everybody that had seen him appear (and he had been all over the town appearing to 'em, and endearin' himself to 'em, cleer out beyond Jonesville as far as Spoon Settlement and Loontown), why, they jest thought their eyes of him, he wus so thoughtful and urbane and helpful. Why, there hain't no tellin' how much helpfuler he wuz ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... the table, calling for his furred paletot, and gave orders that his sleigh and horses should be brought round. The well-bred waiters, whose duty it was to be surprised at nothing, were evidently astonished at these signs of agitation in the most urbane and reposeful visitor at the club-rooms. With a hurried step he descended to the street, stepped into his sleigh, buried himself to the chin in furs, and the driver dashed off with a ringing of bells and a ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... see no difference in the Greek, since he talked on in his usual urbane way, and made no allusion of any sort the whole evening, either to the floral tribute he had sent, to his letter to Sir James, or to the ...
— The Twelfth Hour • Ada Leverson
... Perkins and the heads of the great World Steel Corporation knew that the urbane and polished proprietor of the cafe was a criminal of the blackest kind, whose liberty and life itself were dependent upon the will of the Corporation; or that the restaurant was especially planned and maintained ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby
... Crockett's Autobiography was published. It is one of the primary social documents of America. It is as much Davy Crockett, whether going ahead after bears in a Tennessee canebrake or going ahead after General Andrew Jackson in Congress, as the equally plain but also urbane Autobiography of Franklin is Benjamin Franklin. It is undiluted regionalism. It is provincial not only in subject but in point ...
— Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest • J. Frank Dobie
... himself so completely as this son of Massachusetts in the pages of his diary. There are no half tones in the pictures which he has drawn of himself, no winsome graces of mind or heart, only the rigid outlines of a soul buffeted by Destiny. Gallatin—the urbane, cosmopolitan Gallatin—must have derived much quiet amusement from his association with this robust New Englander who took himself so seriously. Two natures could not have been more unlike, yet the superior flexibility of Gallatin's ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... resonance, exactly in the middle of the note. She looked into King's eyes with challenging familiarity that made him smile, and then eyed me wonderingly. She glanced from me to a picture on the wall in blue of the Elephant-god—enormous, opulent, urbane, and then back again at ...
— Caves of Terror • Talbot Mundy
... bear their poverty with cheerfulness and even dignity. While they partake of the ardour and strong temper which characterize the inhabitants of the South of France, they are probably, on the whole, more grave and staid than Frenchmen generally, and are thought to be more urbane and intelligent; and though they are unmanageable by force, they are remarkably accessible ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles
... rows of beer bottles, dishes of bananas, and plates of raw liver, were men,—soft-eyed Syrians with white teeth gleaming and black hair plastered close and celluloid collars,—gentle-voiced, urbane-mannered Orientals, who came up gravely one by one and shook hands with us; who pressed on us beer and peanuts ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... memory, as we all do, for there are signs, if I'm not mistaken, that we're all recalling something, furtively seeking something. Why fidget? Why so anxious about the sit of cloaks; and gloves—whether to button or unbutton? Then watch that elderly face against the dark canvas, a moment ago urbane and flushed; now taciturn and sad, as if in shadow. Was it the sound of the second violin tuning in the ante-room? Here they come; four black figures, carrying instruments, and seat themselves facing the white squares under the downpour of light; rest the tips of their ...
— Monday or Tuesday • Virginia Woolf
... scribbles verse in amplest store— Methinks he fathers thousands ten or more Indited not as wont on palimpsest, 5 But paper-royal, brand-new boards, and best Fresh bosses, crimson ribbands, sheets with lead Ruled, and with pumice-powder all well polished. These as thou readest, seem that fine, urbane Suffenus, goat-herd mere, or ditcher-swain 10 Once more, such horrid change is there, so vile. What must we wot thereof? a Droll erst while, Or (if aught) cleverer, he with converse meets, He now in dullness, dullest villain beats Forthright on handling ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... and Osborn got up when his agent and another man came in. Hayes was tall, urbane, and dressed with rather fastidious neatness; Bell was round-shouldered and shabby. He had a weather-beaten skin, gray hair, and small, cunning eyes. Osborn indicated chairs and sat down at the top of the big table. He disliked business and knew the others meant to persuade him to do something ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss
... face, emphasized by its smooth-shaven mobile mouth, below which his almost white chin beard hung pendent, expressed a curious interplay of emotional sanctity, urbane shrewdness, and solemn self-importance. ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... Ghost. Jesus is refined and softened almost out of recognition: the stern peremptory disciple of John the Baptist, who never addresses a Pharisee or a Scribe without an insulting epithet, becomes a considerate, gentle, sociable, almost urbane person; and the Chauvinist Jew becomes a pro-Gentile who is thrown out of the synagogue in his own town for reminding the congregation that the prophets had sometimes preferred Gentiles to Jews. In fact they try to throw him down ...
— Preface to Androcles and the Lion - On the Prospects of Christianity • George Bernard Shaw
... more, and standing close by the lovely young person to whom he owed his liberty? Did he place his heels together, and let his arms hang gracefully, and so bow with respect and a manner at once dignified and urbane, and say, "Miss Elaine, permit me to thank you for being so kind as to let me out of prison?" That is what he ought to have done, of course, if he had known how to conduct himself like a well-brought-up young man. But I am sorry to have to tell you that Geoffrey ...
— The Dragon of Wantley - His Tale • Owen Wister
... that Christian ministers are never called on by God's word to insult the convictions, or even the prejudices of their brethren, and that religion is at any rate not less susceptible of urbane and courteous conduct among men than any other study which men may take up. I am sorry to say that I cannot defend Mr. Slope's sermon in the cathedral. But come, my dear, put on your bonnet and let us walk round the dear old gardens at the hospital. I have never ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... Israelites easier; but the heart of Pharaoh was hardened, and God Himself must intervene before he would let the people go. Nor does it help that the slaves themselves are grateful for hard-won privileges, and that we read urbane descriptions of smiling and rosy felons working on state roads in "Don't Worry" camps. Is it ground for congratulation that the very victims of the specious pretense of the eternal right and necessity of prisons should have succumbed to that delusion? ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... and some of the best epigrams in English are his. "The cynic knows the price of everything and the value of nothing" is better than the best of La Rochefoucauld, as good as the best of Vauvenargues or Joubert. He was as wittily urbane as Congreve. But all the witty things that one man can say may be numbered on one's fingers. It was through his humour that Wilde reigned supreme. It was his humour that lent his talk its singular attraction. He was the only man I have ever met or heard of who could keep one smiling ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... disfeaturing him; and the mysterious visitor to the palatial mansion in Holywell Street indicates possibilities in the Oriental imagination of the eminent statesman who stooped to conquer fact through fiction. Thackeray's attitude in his great novels is that of the composedly urbane lecturer, on a level with a select audience, assured of interesting, above requirements to excite. The slow movement of the narrative has a grace of style to charm like the dance of the Minuet de la Cour: ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... brigade headquarters. The major had been in garrison at Peking when the war began. If my shipmate on a long battleship cruise, Lt.-Col. Dion Williams, U.S.M.C, reads this out in Peking let it tell him that the major is just as urbane in the cellar of a second-rate farmhouse on the outskirts of Neuve Chapelle as he would be in a corner ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... faced her, smiling and urbane, she noted woman-fashion the superfine quality of his linen, the perfection of every detail of his appearance, the grace with which he wore his clothes. His manner was gracious, even courtly. Yet there was about him something ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... my eye. "It is a handsome machine, a full dress concern with all its plating and brown leather, and in use it is as willing and quiet as any tricycle could be, a most urbane and gentlemanly affair—if you will pardon the adjective. I am glad these things have not come too late for me. Frankly, the bicycle is altogether too flippant for a man of my age, and the tricycle hitherto, with its two larger wheels behind and ...
— Select Conversations with an Uncle • H. G. Wells
... urbane hotel clerk. "Why, usually they leave their keys and get their mail from the floor clerk. But Mr. Griebler seems to prefer the ...
— Personality Plus - Some Experiences of Emma McChesney and Her Son, Jock • Edna Ferber
... the shadow of that unalterable law which he had disavowed and which had brought him low. Lastly, when his bodily evils had quite disabled him, he lay a great while dying, still without complaint, still finding interests; to his last step gentle, urbane and with ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... brother of Pope Urbane And Valmond, Emperor of Allemaine, Appareled in magnificent attire With retinue of many a knight and squire, On St. John's eve, at vespers, proudly sat And heard the priests chant the Magnificat. And as he listened, o'er and ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... to meet VIDA. Hastily.] It seems to me that horses are like the fourth gospel. Any conversation about them becomes animated almost beyond the limits of the urbane! [VIDA, disgusted by such plainness of speech, rises and goes to PHILIP who waves her ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: The New York Idea • Langdon Mitchell
... had the gift of a style—what Johnson calls "The Middle Style"—very exactly suited to the kind of work on which he was habitually engaged, "always equable, always easy, without glowing words or pointed sentences" but polished, lucid, and urbane. ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair
... had come the day of Sir Marmaduke's martyrdom. He was first requested, with most urbane politeness, to explain the exact nature of the government which he exercised in the Mandarins. Now it certainly was the case that the manner in which the legislative and executive authorities were intermingled in the affairs of these islands, ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... hypocrisy and avarice, but against inordinate affection for lap-dogs (Melampe), pietistic objections to masked balls {Masquerades}, and superstitious belief in legerdemain (Witchcraft). Holberg voices the urbane humanistic spirit that characterized the eighteenth century ...
— Comedies • Ludvig Holberg
... for alarm," explained the secretary in his urbane manner. "He has ventured as far as Lower Claybury station. The visit was unavoidable. He particularly requested that we should commence luncheon, but hoped to be back before we should ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer
... apparent embarrassment to meet the gentleman who entered, though I knew she could not help but feel keenly the niggardly appearance of the board she left with such grace. The stranger—he was certainly a stranger; this I could see by the formality of her manner—was a gentleman of urbane bearing and a ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... votaries, in most countries at the present day. These votaries have their various kinds. There is the critic who simply uses his subject as a sort of springboard or platform, on and from which to display his natural grace and agility, his urbane learning, his faculty of pleasant wit. This is perhaps the most popular of all critics, and no age has ever had better examples of him than this age. There is a more serious kind who founds on his subject (if indeed founding ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... charm of the book. They have an unction which never, as it so often does in the case of Mr Arnold's dangerous master and model Renan, degenerates into unctuosity; they are nobly serious, but without being in the least dull; they contain some exceedingly just and at the same time perfectly urbane criticism of the ordinary reviewing kind, and though they are not without instances of the author's by-blows of slightly unproved opinion, yet these are by no means eminent in them, and are not of a provocative nature. And I do not think ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... their dreams regard as a possible Paradise for their old years. Of course he thought that all these good things had been the results of his own peculiar merits. Of course he felt that he was different from other parsons,—more fitted by nature for intimacy with great persons, more urbane, more polished, and more richly endowed with modern clerical well-to-do aptitudes. He was grateful to Lady Lufton for what she had done for him; but perhaps not so grateful as he should ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... gone. Michael did not depart with him, but took his leave a few moments later. Michael's departure from Rome the following day on urgent affairs was generally known. The duke had watched him bid Fay a mechanical farewell, and had then expressed an urbane regret at his departure. The thin, pinched face of the young man appealed to the elder one. The duke had ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... right man made ready to your hand; and when you have found him you will soon see that he slips into the onerous duties of the secretariat as if to the manner born, by pure instinct. The perfect secretary is an urbane old gentleman of mature years and portly bearing, a dignified representative of British archaeology, with plenty of money and plenty of leisure, possessing a heaven-born genius for organisation, and utterly unhampered ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... The urbane storeman saved the situation by inquiring of the cook: "What will you have for lunch?" Then followed a heated colloquy, the former, like a Cingalese vendor, having previously made up his mind. The argument finally crystallized down to lambs' tongues and beetroot, through herrings ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... Rupert's a good fellow, but he seems to me a little—what shall I say?—too elaborate. Too urbane; too ornate. He expresses himself so dreadfully well! I don't believe he ever uses a ...
— Bird of Paradise • Ada Leverson
... not the effect of muscular action, but of nature in repose. And in his whole appearance, features, attitude and look, there was a conscious pride and superiority over his opponents, which, though unpresuming and urbane, seemed to speak louder than words—"I am the ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... he does, and yet it is done. Let us hope that some sense of this tardy appreciation may soothe his spirit beyond the grave. On the present occasion there was nothing to soothe his spirit. The Speaker sat, urbane and courteous, with his eyes turned towards the unfortunate orator; but no other ears in the House seemed to listen to him. The corps of reporters had dwindled down to two, and they used their pens very listlessly, taking down here a sentence ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... 'Entertainment' as he prefers to call his stories; and readers of the preceding three may find some old acquaintances. The scene is again laid principally in London, and again an odd company of types converse and have urbane adventures. ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... activity of vast multitudes of industrials combining to assist each one in his fellow in the struggle for existence and fullness of life. The forces revealed are full of danger, the temper is ugly, the manners are always urbane, the judgment not always well informed, the range of knowledge often limited; but there is wondrous power, vigor, and the chaotic promise of a better and larger morality than anything the churches yet have taught, or the mere book students have ever dreamed. Miss Jane ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood
... went a moderation won from humour, whether in matters of religion, of politics, or society, a literary courtesy and reserve, a well-bred temperance and modesty of tone and phrase. It was in the hands of the town-bred essayist that our literature first became urbane. ...
— History of the English People, Volume VII (of 8) - The Revolution, 1683-1760; Modern England, 1760-1767 • John Richard Green
... yawn and cultivated women are earnest and playful; of a world in which people must pretend courageously that life is very important for fear of discovering that it hardly signifies. It is a strange world, faded, friendly, urbane, and, we are happy to think, already ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... and awoke with a lighter heart every Sunday, because she knew that she would be met and accompanied by him in her evening walk with her sisters. She had another admirer, one of the head-waiters at the inn at Salt Hill. He also was not without pretensions to urbane superiority, such as he learnt from gentlemen's servants and waiting-maids, who initiating him in all the slang of high life below stairs, rendered his arrogant temper ten times more intrusive. Lucy did not disclaim him—she was incapable of that feeling; but she was sorry ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... Mr. Carteret which made him feel quite guilty; there was such an implication of neglected duty in the way the old man said, "You won't do them justice—you won't do them justice." He talked for ten minutes, in his rich, simple, urbane way, about the fatal consequences of getting behind. It was his favourite doctrine that one should always be a little before, and his own eminently regular respiration seemed to illustrate the idea. A man was certainly before who had so much in ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... called—that he had ended by accepting from herself; they had burdened her memory as little as her conscience. "Oh yes, I see what you mean—you've been very nice about that; but why drag it in so often?" She had been perfectly urbane with him ever since the rough scene of explanation in his room the morning he made her accept his "terms"—the necessity of his making his case known to Morgan. She had felt no resentment after seeing there was ...
— The Pupil • Henry James
... For all his urbane, good-tempered, debonair ways, there was an ugly cynical streak in his nature, manifested now in the manner in which he dealt with this situation. Himself he led his boldly handsome favourite by the hand into his wife's presence, ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... heart, when he heard Katharine upon the stairs. A moment later it was plain that he had been mistaken, it was not Katharine; but he could not settle himself to his letter. His temper had changed from one of urbane contentment—indeed of delicious expansion—to one of uneasiness and expectation. The dinner was brought in, and had to be set by the fire to keep hot. It was now a quarter of an hour beyond the specified ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... find it harder to forgive them that they ruled out moreover a great part of the literature of the preceding century as offensive to urbane taste, or as they would say, 'disgusting.' They disliked it mainly, one suspects, as one age revolts from the fashion of another—as some of you, for example, revolt from the broad plenty of Dickens (Heaven forgive you) or the ornament of Tennyson. ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... insisted. "I was only philosophising upon these scenes of inexpensive patriotism which fill even the most urbane and peaceful among us full of truculence. . . . I recently saw my tailor wearing a sword, attired in the made-to-measure panoply ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... diversion. She was standing with her mother, in one of the paths, looking about with no great complacency, as I imagined, at the homely characteristics of the place, and old M. Pigeonneau was hovering near, hesitating apparently between the desire to be urbane and the absence of a pretext. "Mrs. Ruck—Miss Sophy Ruck," said my ...
— The Pension Beaurepas • Henry James
... sir," said the doctor, who had changed as in a moment from the sturdy naturalist into the urbane medical man. "I quite see your necessity for guarding against ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... more; he took the keys of his house out of his bureau, gave them to me—and, thanking him cordially for his frankness, and his urbane concession to my wish, I ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... Next to his bottle he was fond of his Horace; and, in the intervals of business at the police-office, would enjoy both in his arm-chair. Between the vulgar calls of this kind of magistracy, and the perusal of the urbane Horace, there must have been a gusto of contradiction, which the bottle, perhaps, was required to render quite palatable. Fielding did not love his bottle the less for being obliged to lecture the drunken. Nor did his son, who succeeded ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... Washington copy was run off, and blink rapidly. At the same moment Mr. David Sterne gave utterance to an exclamation, partly of annoyance, partly of surprise. Mr. Harrington Surtaine, wearing an expression both businesslike and urbane stood in the doorway. ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... bloody countercharge, When many a samurai Fierce-panoplied fell at its pale, Suppressing groan or cry; Suppressing all but silent hates That swept from eye to eye, While lips smiled decorously on, Or mocked urbane goodbye. ...
— Nirvana Days • Cale Young Rice
... was no master, no pontiff in the arts. Palizzi bore rule at Grez—urbane, superior rule—his memory rich in anecdotes of the great men of yore, his mind fertile in theories; sceptical, composed, and venerable to the eye; and yet beneath these outworks, all twittering with Italian superstition, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... with the Dean, she got very near the subject. In fact, she ventured to say a word expressive of her belief that British troops were to be sent to France. But he snubbed her with a sharpness very unlike his urbane self. "Nonsense!" he cried. "There isn't the slightest thought of such a thing. Any small force we could send to the Continent would be useless—in fact, only in ...
— Good Old Anna • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... island, if he so desired. This change would give him a large measure of personal freedom, he would no longer be under close surveillance, and he would be able to enjoy social life. He had formed a friendship with an urbane and cultivated French gentleman, Thomas Pitot, whom he consulted, and who found for him a residence in the house of ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... uncle, sir," the young man replied, with urbane good humour. "Yes, the Drummonds have done very well for the profession of arms. Still, with my beliefs ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... to the establishment of this sporting tailor in the side street off Regent Street; and there, without much difficulty, I formed the acquaintance of a salesman of suave and urbane manners. With his assistance I picked out a distinctive, not to say striking, pattern in an effect of plaids. The goods, he said, were made of the wool of a Scotch sheep in the natural colors. They must have some ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... never wedded her Romeo and taken a dose of hellebore, but lived on to find that County Paris had in him the makings of a lovable mate. Quite possible, you know! It was striking her that if a trothplight were nothing but a sort of civil contract—civil in the sense of courteous, polite, urbane, accommodating—an exchange of letters through a callous Post Office—a woman might be engaged a dozen times and meet the males implicated in after-life, without turning a hair. But even a hand-clasp, left to enjoy itself by its parents—not nipped in ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... years in the legislature of the State. Campbell, of the well-known Cherry Valley family, built for his residence in 1807 the house which still stands on Lake Street facing the length of Chestnut Street. He was a man of stout build, with a full face, slightly retiring forehead, a trifle bald, urbane and unassuming in deportment. As a pleader at the bar he was only moderately eloquent, but he was popularly designated far and near as "the honest lawyer," and his advice was not only much sought but implicitly relied upon. In a period not much devoted to the amenities of legal procedure one ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... which he had before, if at all, scantily possessed. He studied the Koran, abandoned the use of strong liquors, became scrupulously abstemious, plain in his attire, assiduous in his attention to business, urbane and courteous to all.' In 1833, Shah Soojah, issuing from the British territory, made an abortive attempt to recover his kingdom; but Runjeet Singh, the ruler of the Sikhs, was more successful in wresting from him Peshawur, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 425 - Volume 17, New Series, February 21, 1852 • Various
... Ridicule and bluster may please those who already agree with the speaker, but with these people he should be little concerned; a debater worthy of the name seeks to change the opinions of those who disagree with him. For this reason he is diplomatic, courteous, and urbane. ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... Barney of the Sixth was one of Vermont's best men. A kind yet faithful commander in camp, gallant and fearless on the field. He was the highest type of a man; a christian gentleman. Colonel Stone had been killed instantly on the 5th. His urbane manners were remembered by all who frequented our division head-quarters, and his bravery had endeared him to his men. Colonel Tyler, too, of the Second was among the mortally wounded, and all ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... interchangeable. But fortune was kinder to Lodge than to his friend and collaborator. Nor does he seem to have had any occasion to "tread the burning marl" in company with conny-catchers and their associates. Lodge began with critical and polemical work—an academic if not very urbane reply to Stephen Gosson's School of Abuse; but in the Alarum against Usurers, which resembles and even preceded Greene's similar work, he took to the satirical-story-form. Indeed, the connection between Lodge and Greene was so close, and the difficulty of ascertaining ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... should find a way to be at unity in this?" The bearing of an Englishman seldom awakens expectation of courtesy or entertainment; yet, if vouchsafed, how to be relied on is the friendship! how generous the hospitality! The urbane salutation with which a Frenchman greets the female passenger, as she enters a public conveyance, is not followed by the offer of his seat or a slice of his reeking pate,—while the roughest backwoodsman in America, who never touched his hat ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... January, the usual routine had been preserved. The last of the callers, carrying off Mrs. Marshall-Smith with her, had taken an urbane, fair-spoken departure. Sylvia turned back from the door of the salon, feeling a fine glow of conscious amenity, and found that Austin Page's mood differed notably from her own. He had lingered for a tete-a-tete, as was so frequently ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... was far behind that of some Borrovians who did not know Lavengro in the flesh, such as Saintsbury and Mr. Birrell. Borrow was shy, angular, eccentric, rustic in accent and in locution, but with a charm for me, at least, that was irresistible. Hake was polished, easy and urbane in everything, and, although not without prejudice and bias, ready to shine generally ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... held the living longer than he had expected, and to the best of his ability had done his duty to his parishioners. He was a genial, warm-hearted man, of good presence; his manners urbane and courteous; fond of a joke, hospitable and kind, being consequently a favourite with all classes. The more wealthy liked him for his pleasant conversation and readiness to enter into all their ...
— Clara Maynard - The True and the False - A Tale of the Times • W.H.G. Kingston
... again to the Choir, with Ghirlandaio's urbane Florentine pageant in the guise of sacred history, and pass on to the next chapel, the Cappella Gondi, where that crucifix in wood is to be seen which Brunelleschi carved as a lesson to Donatello, who received it like the gentleman he was. ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... Julian's godfather, a curious blend of the fashionable and the devout, the anchorite and the man of the people; Lord and Lady Shervinton, elderly connections of the nondescript variety; Mr. Hannaway Wells, reserved yet, urbane, a wonderful type of the supreme success of mediocrity; a couple of young soldiers, light-hearted and out for a good time, of whom Julian took charge; an Oxford don, who had once been Lord Maltenby's tutor; and last of all the ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... in an urbane voice in which I alone detected the anxiety—"am I not right in believing that one of the young ladies is ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... a tact and politeness which spoke of a time when he mixed freely with the world, and old Flood was so astonished by the ease and good-breeding of his visitor that his own manner became at once courteous and urbane. ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... great tradition which enriched and upheld him. Mr. Beagle senior used to stand on the little balcony at the rear of the main floor, transfixed with the pleasure of seeing Gissing move among the crowded passages. Alert, watchful, urbane, with just the ideal blend of courtesy and condescension, he raised floorwalking to a social art. Female customers asked him the way to departments they knew perfectly well, for the pleasure of hearing him direct ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... tall man in glasses looked too human for a lawyer, too intelligent for a schoolmaster, and too well-dressed for an ordinary medical man. Colwyn, versed in judging men swiftly from externals, noting the urbane, somewhat pompous face, the authoritative, professional pose, the well-shaped, plump white hands, and the general air of well-being and prosperity which exuded from the whole man, placed him as a successful practitioner in the more lucrative path ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees
... whether it was his delicacy or his obesity which prevented Davidson from clambering upon the wharf. He stood up in the boat, and, above him, Heyst stooped low with urbane smiles, thanking him and apologizing for the liberty, exactly in his usual manner. Davidson had expected some change in the man, but there was none. Nothing in him betrayed the momentous fact that within that jungle there was a girl, a performer in a ladies' orchestra, whom he had carried straight ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... when the prisoner pleaded clearly through her veil, in the first breathless minutes of all; it was not a little later, when the urbane counsel for the prosecution, wagging his pince-nez at the jury, thrilled every other hearer with a mellifluous forecast of the new evidence to be laid before them. The missing watch and chain had ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... did not clear. He was a wiry, tall man, of beautiful manners and a singularly urbane demeanour, but he could not hide the annoyance which this letter caused him. He finished it, turned abruptly to the beginning, and read it through again; then looked at Captain Salt with a shade of severity on his face. "Sir," he said, in a carefully regulated voice, ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... wig serves its turn, inspiring what without it would be intolerable. I am sure my friend had no trouble in accounting for Addison in full dress and his learned sock. Nor need he have had with Addison the urbane, Addison of the Spectator condescending to Sir Roger de Coverley and Will Honeycomb. There is in that, the very best gentlemanly humour our literature possesses, nothing inconsistent with the full-bottomed wig and an elbow-chair. But when the right ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... once or twice pausing to look round on this strange preacher and congregation. The comfortable-looking lady propped in an arm-chair, and with an urbane smile discoursing on these tremendous topics, our little congregation of five, myself writing away for dear life, the young hostess nursing a weird-looking black cat; the other young lady continually harking back to "conjugal" subjects, which seemed to interest ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... to great subjects, than for his skill in designing or for beauty in his colouring. His drawing is rarely good, his colouring frequently wretched. He was extremely impulsive and unequal; sometimes morose, sometimes sociable and urbane; jealous of his contemporaries, and yet capable of pronouncing a splendid eulogy ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... the first time this subject had come up between them, but hitherto he had denied with urbane mendacity the ill results of his favourite indulgences. Now his ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... after Collins had half-depopulated the car by leading the more jovial spirits back in search of liquid refreshments that an urbane clergyman, now of Boston but formerly of Pekin, Illinois, professedly much interested in the sheriff's touch-and-go manner as presumably quite characteristic of the West, dropped into the vacant ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... E. E. was in perfect order; the little girls sat upon a bench with their copies before them, Mrs. Rawlins in the whitest of caps presided over them, and Mr. Mauleverer was very urbane, conducting the visitors over the house himself, and expatiating on his views of cleanliness, ventilation, refinement, and equality of cultivation, while Mrs. Rawlins remained to entertain Mrs. Morris. Nothing ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... passengers themselves must pay. And there is all the difference in the world between paying and being paid. The act of paying is perhaps the most uncomfortable infliction that the two orchard thieves entailed upon us. But BEING PAID,—what will compare with it? The urbane activity with which a man receives money is really marvellous, considering that we so earnestly believe money to be the root of all earthly ills, and that on no account can a monied man enter heaven. Ah! how cheerfully we ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... to the indelicacy of Rochester, Dryden, and their circles, but most of their contemporaries were probably more content to read George Herbert, Queries, Baxter, and Bunyan. Though the fashionable and urbane remained dominant in letters through the age of Dryden, the forces of morality were rallying, and after 1688 the court (with which Blackmore was connected) threw its weight on the side of virtue. Jeremy Collier was but the most important voice of a great movement, destined to ...
— Essay upon Wit • Sir Richard Blackmore
... occur in this town; we have been using a repressed and obsolete style which is painful to those who enter into the joyous spirit of such occasions, and last night's wedding in the family of the patrician Skinners we assigned to our gentlemanly and urbane Mr. J. Mortimer Montague, late of the publicity department of the world-famed Robinson Circus and Menagerie. The following graceful account from Mr. Montague's facile pen is the most accurate and satisfactory report of a nuptial event we have ever ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... not let him look at the things he wished, and attempted to force his admiration for all she admired. She was desperately in earnest with her study of art, and when Philip, passing in the Long Gallery a window that looked out on the Tuileries, gay, sunny, and urbane, like a picture by ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... through the office, with the urbane affectation of never having seen the place before. One or two of the clerks recognized him, and a hurried word, passed from desk to desk, effected an immediate establishment of his identity throughout the room. Those who had never seen him had at least heard about him. Some of them ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... up a quantity of their hair before the image of St. Urbane, trusting that by so doing their hair would grow long ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... is to reconcile both science and theology with sincerity and good breeding, to make our experts understand that they are nothing if they are not single-minded and urbane. Get them to understand this, and there will be no difficulty ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... which looks like a soutane; and he wears his hair long, and is attired in a long soutane which looks like a water-proof. As regards their clothes, the only noticeable difference was that her gown was buttoned down the front and his was not. Both have the same broad and urbane smile. ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... never uttered a falsehood, might have been added. "He was a great favourite with George the Third, and the Saint Fiorenzo had consequently been appointed to attend on His Majesty during his summer sojourn at Weymouth. The King won the affection of both officers and men by his urbane and kind manners whenever he came on board. He used to call us up, and talk to us, lieutenants, midshipmen, and seamen alike, in the most familiar manner, taking an interest in our private histories, and all we had to say for ourselves. ...
— The Ferryman of Brill - and other stories • William H. G. Kingston
... at an end, Ocock mentioned, in his frigidly urbane way, that he had recently been informed there was an excellent opening for a firm of solicitors in Ballarat: could Mr. Mahony, as a resident, confirm the report? Mahony regretted his ignorance, but spoke in praise of the Golden City and its assured future.—"This ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... established. The success of this sombre classical tragedy, which shows Cherubini's genius in its full power, is an honour to the Paris public. If Cherubini had known how to combine his high ideals with an urbane tolerance of the opinions of persons of inferior taste, the severity of his music would not have prevented his attaining the height of prosperity. But Napoleon Bonaparte irritated him by an enthusiasm for the kind of Italian music against which his whole career, from the time he became ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... sometimes tolerated by those who aspire to urbane and liberal judgments because they think it can be defended on humanistic grounds. But, as a matter of fact, it is as offensive to the thoroughgoing humanist as it is to the sincere religionist. They have a common quarrel with it. Take, for example, ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch
... flowers, was perched upon the sandy bluff above us. The captain, in a nautical way, claimed us as salvage, and we were soon enjoying his generous hospitality. In this isolated town, once a busy cotton-shipping port, there was a population of about one thousand souls, among whom, conspicuous for his urbane manners and scientific ability, lived Dr. A. W. Chapman, the author of the "Flora of the Southern ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop |
