"Easiness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... conception of heaven. Their trading on board ships. The smell of India. The Indian "send-off." Use of the plural. Mistakes concerning it. Unappreciated English jocosity. Indian free-and-easiness. ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin
... up, displayed an uncommon degree of sensibility, which under her circumstances would have been a source of perpetual dissatisfaction, had it not been qualified with an extreme sweetness and easiness of temper. She was far from being entitled to the appellation of a beauty. Her person was petite and trivial; her complexion savoured of the brunette; and her face was marked with the small-pox, sufficiently ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... Dr. Johnson and these cudgellings would have been too severe a chastisement for the offences, which, after all, argued no heavier delinquency than a levity in examining his chance authorities, and a constitutional credulity. Dr. Johnson's easiness of faith for the supernatural, the grossness of his superstition in relation to such miserable impostures as the Cock Lane ghost, and its scratchings on the wall, flowed from the same source; and his conversation ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... was a mortal injury to her that Mrs Lookaloft should be successful in her hunt after such honours. She had abused and ridiculed Mrs Lookaloft to the extent of her little power. She had pushed against her going out of church, and had excused herself with all the easiness of equality. 'Ah, dame, I axes pardon; but you be grown so mortal stout these time.' She had inquired with apparent cordiality of Mr Lookaloft after 'the woman that owned him,' and had, as she thought, been on the ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... him, and the noble creature is his own sempster and weaver and spinner; nay his own bootmaker, jeweller, and man-milliner; he bounds free through the valleys, with a perennial rain-proof court-suit on his body; wherein warmth and easiness of fit have reached perfection; nay, the graces also have been considered, and frills and fringes, with gay variety of colour, featly appended, and ever in the right place, are not wanting. While I—good Heaven!—have thatched myself over with ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... almost as pointedly as his wife. Perhaps he was repenting his rash outpourings of the previous day; perhaps only trying, in his clumsy way, to conform to Selden's counsel to behave "as usual." Such instructions no more make for easiness of attitude than the photographer's behest to "look natural"; and in a creature as unconscious as poor Dorset of the appearance he habitually presented, the struggle to maintain a pose was sure to result ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... Morris to Scott in temper and mental endowment, his position in the romantic literature of the second half-century answers very closely to Scott's in the first. His work resembled Scott's in volume, and in its easiness for the general reader. For the second time he made the Middle Ages popular. There was nothing esoteric in his art, as in Rossetti's. It was English and came home to Englishmen. His poetry, like his decorative work, was meant for the people, and "understanded of the people." ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... he can't walk down the street without those gilded bars shining on every hand; and the friends he will make, gay, rich, thoughtless young men like himself—they will laugh at him if he refuses to do as they do; and with my boy's inherited tastes and temperament, his easiness to be led by those he loves, what will hinder him from going to ruin as his poor father did? What will keep him, ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... could not have arrived to the knowledge of it but by his own industry. But the Holy Spirit assisted him after an extraordinary manner, on those occasions, as we have formerly observed. And we may say, that the easiness wherewith he learnt so many tongues, was almost equivalent to the lasting ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... those who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few; and the implicit submission with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers. When we inquire by what means this wonder is effected, we shall find that as Force is always on the side of the governed, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... delightfully amusing way as the basis of a poem far Punch. Everybody knows the kind of verses that are contributed to Punch by Sir Owen Seaman and Mr. Charles Graves and men of that sort. And everybody has been struck, as I have, by the extraordinary easiness of the performance. All that one needs is to get some odd little incident, such as the revolt of the Sultan of Kowfat, make up an amusing title, and then string the verses together in such a way as to make rhymes with all the odd words that come into the narrative. In fact, ...
— My Discovery of England • Stephen Leacock
... inform you of mine. To humanise the multitude two things are necessary—two things of the simplest kind conceivable. In the first place, you must effect an entire change of economic conditions: a preliminary step of which every tyro will recognise the easiness; then you must bring to bear on the new order of things the constant influence of music. Does not the prescription recommend itself? It is jesting in earnest. For, work as you will, there is no chance of a new and better ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... money, a part of which she delightedly consecrated to the paying off the young gentleman's obligations. At this price, many a worthy youth and respected reader would hand over his correspondence to his parents; and perhaps there is no greater test of a man's regularity and easiness of conscience, than his readiness to face the postman. Blessed is he who is made happy by the sound of the rat-tat! The good are eager for it: but the naughty tremble at the sound thereof. So it was very kind of Mrs. Pendennis doubly to spare Pen the trouble of hearing or ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the year 1635, the Count de Linares resigned the government of India to Pedro de Silva, who was usually called Mole or the Soft, on account of the easiness of his disposition. He disliked the government so much, that he was often heard to exclaim, "God forgive those who appointed me viceroy, as I am not fit for the office." He held the government, however, nearly four years, and died ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... canoe. Without exception, those three young men were the most symmetrical in form I have ever seen. The unrestrained state of nature in which these Dyaks live, gives to them a natural grace and an easiness of posture, which is their chief characteristic. After the usual greetings and salutations had been passed through, we all sat down on mats and cushions which had been arranged for us; a short conversation with Mr. Brooke, who speaks the language ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat
... to oppose to the family and brothers of Bonaparte; and of this kind of support she had much need. Their jealous hatred was displayed on every occasion; and the amiable Josephine, whose only fault was being too much of the woman, was continually tormented by sad presentiments. Carried away by the easiness of her character, she did not perceive that the coquetry which enlisted for her so many defenders also supplied her implacable enemies with weapons ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... Two dangers, they tell us, have to be avoided. In compiling a Liturgy from Ancient Sources, one danger will be that of "too much stiffness in refusing" new matter—i.e. letting a love of permanence spoil progress: another, and opposite danger, will be "too much easiness in admitting" any variation—i.e. letting a love of progress spoil permanence. They will try to avoid both dangers. "It hath been the wisdom of the Church of England to keep the mean between the two extremes," when ...
— The Church: Her Books and Her Sacraments • E. E. Holmes
... to any person. Mr. William Budgell was a man of very good sense, extremely steady in his conduct, and an adept in all calculations and mathematical questions; and had besides great good-nature and easiness of temper. ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... and give her one more chance. She would just have suited him. And as for her,—would it not be a heaven on earth for her if she would only consent to forget that foolish, unmeaning little episode. Could Clary have forgotten the episode, and been content to care little or nothing for that easiness of feeling which made our Ralph what he was, she might, probably, have been happy as the mistress of the Priory. But she would not have forgotten, and would not have been content. She had made up her little heart stoutly ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... himself deprived of his office, in the deepest disgrace, and perished by a most dishonourable death. Justinian was speedy in the conduct of business of all kinds, not only owing to his continual sleeplessness (as has been mentioned before), but also by reason of his easiness of temper, and, above all, his affability. For he allowed people to approach him, although they were altogether obscure and unknown; and the interview was not limited to mere admission to the presence of the Emperor, but he permitted them to converse ...
— The Secret History of the Court of Justinian • Procopius
... fortitude, justice, wisdom, and the like. Never was any man amiable by force of these qualities. Those which engage our hearts, which impress us with a sense of loveliness, are the softer virtues; easiness of temper, compassion, kindness, and liberality; though certainly those latter are of less immediate and momentous concern to society, and of less dignity. But it is for that reason that they are so amiable. The great virtues ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... lend a hand of easiness to the next abstinence; the next more easy; for use almost can change the stamp of nature, and either curb the devil, or throw him ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... and told him. "I'm going to buy a rhinoceros." But for all the easiness of it her tongue nearly tripped. "And ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... of liberality to the husband, who had, it seems, failed in trade, he also presented to the lady herself a handsome set of diamonds; and there is an anecdote related in reference to this gift, which shows the exceeding easiness and forbearance of his disposition towards those who had acquired any hold on his heart. A casket, which was for sale, being one day offered to him, he was not a little surprised on discovering them to be the same jewels which he had, not long before, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... he found in raising from the peasantry the comparatively small sums he yearly transmitted to his master. But so it was: and although the Conde carried his confidence in his dependents, and his easiness of disposition, to such an extent as almost to become a fault, yet as he examined the accounts of some years' standing, a strong suspicion arose in his mind that somehow he had been most egregiously cheated, and that while he had so skilfully managed the finances of the country as almost ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... accomplished as much by the help of the continuous fire of objections from the other side as in spite of them. He was infinitely careful, asking never an ill-advised question for the other side to use to his hurt, and, though exhibiting only a pleasant easiness of manner, was ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... turned off the best servant he ever had, if he had known that he denied him to a man who would have been always more than welcome;' and, in confirmation of this, he insisted on Lord Chesterfield's general affability and easiness of access, especially to literary men. 'Sir, (said Johnson) that is not Lord Chesterfield; he is the proudest man this day existing[778].' 'No, (said Dr. Adams) there is one person, at least, as proud; I think, by your own account, you are the prouder man of the two.' 'But mine (replied ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... good kitchen, therefore, should be erected with a view to the following particulars. 1. Convenience of distribution in its parts, with largeness of dimension. 2. Excellence of light, height of ceiling, and good ventilation. 3. Easiness of access, without passing through the house. 4. Sufficiently remote from the principal apartments of the house, that the members, visitors, or guests of the family, may not perceive the odour incident to cooking, or hear the noise of culinary operations. 5. Plenty of fuel and water, ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... possible to overrate the hardness of the first close struggle with any natural passion," said my aunt earnestly; "but indeed the easiness of after-steps is often quite beyond one's expectations. The free gift of grace with which GOD perfects our efforts may come in many ways, but I am convinced that it is the common experience of Christians ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... heart all the time that I was but a leisurely wanderer; but now at last the destined road was clear; I was no longer astray; I was no longer inventing duties and acts for myself, but I had in very truth a note of the way. It was not the path I should have chosen in my blindness and easiness. But there could no longer be any doubt about it. How the false ambitions, the comfortable schemes, the trivial hopes melted away for me in that serene certainty! What I had pursued before was the phantom of delight; and though I still desired ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... humour is more than wit, easiness, more than knowledge; few desire to learn, or to think they need it; all desire to be pleased, or, if not, ...
— Book of Wise Sayings - Selected Largely from Eastern Sources • W. A. Clouston
... Lord Bellasses's propositions were read and discoursed of, about reducing the garrison to less charge; and indeed I am mad in love with my Lord Chancellor, for he do comprehend and speak out well, and with the greatest easiness and authority that ever I saw man in my life. I did never observe how much easier a man do speak when he knows all the company to be below him, than in him; for though he spoke indeed excellent well, yet his manner and freedom of doing it, as if he played with it, and was informing ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... People. To regain the Esteem of the Kofirans, whom his Indolence, and the weak and wicked Ministration of Jeflur had alienated, he caused it to be declared, that he was resolved to head his Army in Person: Surprising Turn, fortunate Instance of the Easiness and Loyalty of his Subjects. All the King's Deviations, though of such bad Consequences, were instantly forgotten. He had now been on the Throne near thirty Years, yet they made this generous Change the AEra of his Inauguration. ...
— The Amours of Zeokinizul, King of the Kofirans - Translated from the Arabic of the famous Traveller Krinelbol • Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crbillon
... does it matter?" said Nesta, with aggravating easiness. "We can't bother to be always holding meetings. We wanted to set to work at once and rehearse, and there weren't enough parts to include day-girls. Can't you act audience for once? You seem very anxious ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... Yielding to the easiness of my disposition, I went to bed for a week, after receiving this letter. During the whole of such time, London was bereft of the usual fruits of my labour. When I resumed it, I found that Henrietta was married ...
— Somebody's Luggage • Charles Dickens
... the tone. When I had to provide a curate for my new church at Littlemore, I engaged a friend, by no fault of his, who, before he entered into his charge, preached a sermon, either in depreciation of baptismal regeneration, or of Dr. Pusey's view of it. I showed a similar easiness as to the editors who helped me in the separate volumes of Fleury's Church History; they were able, learned, and excellent men, but their after history has shown, how little my choice of them was influenced by any notion I could have had of any intimate agreement of opinion between ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... one of those bits of over-easiness to pressure with which you reproach me—but the resultant of a composition of pressures, one of which was the conviction that the "Institute" might be made into something very useful and greatly wanted—if only the projectors could be made to believe ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... yet speaking, it so happened that Duncan McKay junior himself entered the room, with that over-done free-and-easiness which sometimes characterises a man who is ill ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... we may do it readily and without more adoe. Then fully, so as others may thoroughly conceiue us. And last of all, handsomely, that those to whom we speak may take pleasure in hearing us: So that whateuer Tongue will gain the Race of Perfection must run upon these four wheeles, SIGNIFICANCIE, EASINESS, COPIOUSNESS, and SWEETNESS; of which the two former import a Necessitie, the two latter a Delight. Now if I can proove, That our English Language for all or the most part is comparable if not preferable to any other in use at this day, I hope the assent ...
— The Survey of Cornwall • Richard Carew
... selection was most satisfactory; if return of the number of criminals was the index assumed. Until a method attracted unfavourable attention by some scandal, only results were regarded by the Bakufu. But his household could not regard with any easiness a devotion of his lordship to the wine cup, which turned his court into a wine feast. Up to this time Aoyama Shu[u]zen in all official duty had shown himself hard, unbending, callous, conscientious. Now the element of cruelty appeared, to develop rapidly with exercise ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... was an absolute satisfaction, for her antipathy, and shook the implicit trust in Mrs. Prendergast's recommendation that had hitherto overridden her private sentiments; yet still, habitual awe of her sister-in-law, and her own easiness and dread of change, left things in the same state until a crisis caused by a grand disturbance among the children. In the nice matter of meting out blame, mamma's partiality and the children's ungenerosity left an undue share ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... mile! The plain slipped away beneath the even beat of the steadily cantering hoofs. The creek, forded slowly, sank into the distance behind them; before, the line of timber grew darker and more definite. Jim's pony was not far inferior to Bobs in pace and easiness, and his swinging canter required no effort to sit, but a great weariness began to steal over his rider. Dick Stephenson, glancing at her frequently, saw the pallor creeping upon ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... them; which may most appear in this my latest work, which you, most learned Arbitresses, have seen, judged, and to my crown, approved; wherein I have laboured for their instruction and amendment, to reduce not only the ancient forms, but manners of the scene, the easiness, the propriety, the innocence, and last, the doctrine, which is the principal end of poesie, to inform men in the best reason of living. And though my catastrophe may, in the strict rigour of comic law, meet with censure, as turning back to my promise; I desire the learned and charitable ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson
... bring some such to afford a Glimmering Light, so with some clear and excellent Diamonds, we could do the like. But none of those many that we try'd of all Kinds, were equal to the Diamond on which the Observations were made, not only considering the degree of Light it afforded, but the easiness wherewith it was excited, and the Comparatively ...
— Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664) • Robert Boyle
... when he could go to her. There is almost as much charm for a young man in a first flirtation as there is in first love. The certainty of success is a source of happiness to which men do not confess, and all the charm of certain women lies in this. The desire of conquest springs no less from the easiness than from the difficulty of triumph, and every passion is excited or sustained by one or the other of these two motives which divide the empire of love. Perhaps this division is one result of the great question of temperaments; which, after all, dominates ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... Greek and Roman classics. He has the invention, copiousness, and perspicuity of Cicero; and all the elegance and accuracy of composition which is admired in Isocrates, with much greater variety and freedom. According as his subject requires, he has the easiness and sweetness of Xenophon, and the pathetic force and rapid simplicity of Demosthenes. His judgment is exquisite, his images noble, his morality sensible and beautiful. No man understands human nature to greater perfection, ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... of CANTERBURY, after renouncing Sir ALFRED MOND and all his works, declared that, so far as religious edifices were concerned, the proposed Committee was a superfluity of naughtiness with which he personally would have nothing to do. Lord LYTTON, with that delightful free-and-easiness which characterises the attitude of our present Ministers towards their colleagues, observed that he could have sympathised with the objectors if it were really intended to place cathedrals under Sir ALFRED'S care; ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 3, 1920 • Various
... Deen's friends were constant guests at his table, and never failed to take advantage of the easiness of his temper. They praised and flattered him, extolling his most indifferent actions; but, above all, they took particular care to commend whatever belonged to him; and in this they found their account. "Sir," ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... bad; And 'tis much safer to leave out than add. Abstruse and mystic thought you must express With painful care, but seeming easiness; For truth shines brightest through the plainest dress. The Aenean Muse, when she appears in state, Makes all Jove's thunder on her verses wait; Yet writes sometimes as soft and moving things As Venus speaks, or Philomela sings. Your author always will the ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... either on board or when on shore, by the natives following them as at first. Into every house they wished to enter, they always experienced a kind reception. The Otaheitans, we are told, have the most perfect easiness of manner, equally free from forwardness and formality; and that 'there is a candour and sincerity about them that is quite delightful.' When they offer refreshments, for instance, if they are not accepted, they do not think of offering them a second time; for they have not the least idea ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... of a powerful stimulus will suffice to account for this event. But it is only temporary, and is succeeded by an equable capability for exertion, far surpassing his former various and fluctuating strength. Above all, he will acquire an easiness of breathing, by which such exertion is performed, with a remarkable exemption from that painful and difficult panting now felt by almost every one after hastily climbing an ordinary mountain. He will be equally capable of bodily ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... on his too great openness and easiness to fall into Mrs. Jewkes's snares: told him my apprehensions of foul play; and gave briefly the reasons which moved me: begged to know what he had said; and intimated, that I thought there was the highest reason to resume our prospect of the escape ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... I really thought Billy was about to pass through the ordeal with success. He glided down the first twenty yards of the hill in a manner which recalled the impression of 'easiness' which Tom's skill had aroused. Then something happened which inclined our poor William to direct his right snowshoe towards his left one. Instantly the left one, like an angry dog, resented the liberty, and turned upon its companion. ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... The easiness of his victory appeared to prove of itself that the hearts of the people were with him; and the parliament that he hastened to summon confirmed by law the revolution achieved by a bloodless ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... will do him good rather than harm. He was a kindly, good-tempered, easy-going young fellow, a little deficient, perhaps, in strength of will, but very generally liked, and with the making of a fine man about him; and yet he was likely, from sheer easiness of temper and disinclination to settle down to anything, to drift with the stream till he ruined his life. That is how I read his character from what I have heard of him, and that being so, I think this complete ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... noticed, as one of enduring interest on the Deistical controversy. Bishop Berkeley's 'Alciphron, or the Minute Philosopher,' is one of the few exceptions to the general dreariness and unreadableness of controversial writings in the dialogistic form. The elegance and easiness of his style, and the freshness and beauty of his descriptions of natural scenery by which the tedium of the controversy is relieved, render this not only a readable, but a fascinating book, even to the modern reader who ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... cheerfully resigned all his affairs into the hands of his wife, formerly the Lady Michal M'Intosh, a penniless beauty, with the pride of a Scotchwoman and the temper of a Hervey. Her enemies said that my lady had tripped in the merry days of George the Second, and now made up for past easiness by present hardness. Her friends—but it must be confessed her ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... whose modesty would endeavour to conceal them; of which our author was a signal instance, as several others have been, who are now living. In fine the integrity of his life, the acuteness of his wit, and easiness of his conversation, had rendered him most acceptable to all men; yet he prudently avoided a multiplicity of acquaintance, and wisely chose such only whom his discerning judgment could distinguish ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... death, arranged and docketed—the thought of the unexpected tenderness which had prompted this care filled his eyes with sudden tears—but how unreal they seemed! There was nothing of himself in them, though they were written with a calculated easiness of expression which ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... which kindly disposed people often run with regard to servants, which may be mentioned here. They make pets of them. They give extravagant wages and indiscreet indulgences, and, through indolence and easiness of temper, tolerate neglect of duty. Many of the complaints of the ingratitude of servants come from those who have spoiled them in this way; while many of the longest and most harmonious domestic unions have sprung from a simple, quiet course ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... whether a family by degrees grew up into a common-wealth, and the fatherly authority being continued on to the elder son, every one in his turn growing up under it, tacitly submitted to it, and the easiness and equality of it not offending any one, every one acquiesced, till time seemed to have confirmed it, and settled a right of succession by prescription: or whether several families, or the descendants of several families, whom chance, neighbourhood, or business brought together, uniting into society, ...
— Two Treatises of Government • John Locke
... here last night; and rather than he should drink all the grog and not find his way home, I drank some myself—he'd been in a bad way if I had not, poor fellow!—and now, you see, I'm suffering all from good nature. Easiness of disposition has been my ruin, and has rounded me into this ball, by wearing away ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... of ascent up the smooth black side, which, low as it was, was slippery and unsympathetic. Davies, in a loose canvas shirt, with the sleeves tucked up, and flannels rolled up to the knee, hung over me with a rope's end, and chatted unconcernedly about the easiness of the job when you know how, adjuring me to mind the paint, and talking about an accommodation ladder he had once had, but had thrown overboard because it was so horribly in the way. When I arrived, my knees ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... the hazard and difficulty, can claim no interest in the honour and pleasure that are the consequents of hazardous actions. 'Tis pity a man should be so potent that all things must give way to him; fortune therein sets you too remote from society, and places you in too great a solitude. This easiness and mean facility of making all things bow under you, is an enemy to all sorts of pleasure: 'tis to slide, not to go; 'tis to sleep, and not to live. Conceive man accompanied with omnipotence: you overwhelm ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... her small and over-furnished living-room in a state of open-eyed amazement. Only five minutes before she had left the room to look for a pair of shoes whose easiness was their sole reason for survival, and as a last hope had looked under Cecilia's bed, and discovered the parcels. Three parcels all done up in brown paper and ready for the post, ...
— Salthaven • W. W. Jacobs
... of the easiness of secrecy, they seem to have considered it as opposed, not to treachery, but loquacity, and to have conceived the man, whom they thus censured, not frighted by menaces to reveal, or bribed by promises to betray, but incited by the mere pleasure of talking, or ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... But I must remind you, at the same time, that it will be to a very little purpose for you to frequent good company, if you do not conform to, and learn their manners; if you are not attentive to please, and well bred, with the easiness of a man of fashion. As you must attend to your manners, so you must not neglect your person; but take care to be very clean, well dressed, and genteel; to have no disagreeable attitudes, nor awkward tricks; which many people use ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... derived from "Cigar." All else about her we invested, if not with ceremony with a full amount of poetry. And certainly there was a subtle quality in Carry, well worthy of appreciation, a faculty of charming and being charmed, of giving and taking, of free and easiness, coupled with ladylike reserve. She seemed to be born with the intuitive knowledge that there was only one life worth living, that of the Bohemian, and to be at the same time well protected by a pretty reluctance to admit as much. In fact, to give a correct ...
— In Bohemia with Du Maurier - The First Of A Series Of Reminiscences • Felix Moscheles
... monster, custom, who all sense doth eat Of habit's devil, is angel yet in this: That to the use of actions fair and good He likewise gives a frock, or livery, That aptly is put on: Refrain to-night: And that shall lend a kind of easiness To the next abstinence: the next more easy: For use almost can change the stamp of nature, And either curb the devil, or throw him out ...
— Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare • E. Nesbit
... it melted into the light that sparkled from her complexion—the snowy forehead, the flashing eye, in which sat the very soul of love—the lips, blushing of sweets—her whole person breathing the warmth of youth, and feeling, and so characteristic in the easiness of its motions of that gracile flexibility that has never been known to exist separate from the power of receiving varied and profound emotions—all this told the spectator, too truly, that the lovely being before him was not of another sphere, but one of the most delightful that ...
— Jane Sinclair; Or, The Fawn Of Springvale - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... Earl preserv'd that Governor from the violent, but perhaps too just Resentments of the Miquelets; and, as I said before, convey'd him by Sea to Alicant. And, indeed, I could little doubt the Effect, or be any thing surpriz'd at the Easiness of the Task, when I saw, that wherever he appear'd the popular Fury was in a Moment allay'd, and that every Dictate of that General was assented to with the utmost Chearfulness and Deference. Valasco, before his Embarkment, had given Orders, in Gratitude ...
— Military Memoirs of Capt. George Carleton • Daniel Defoe
... of time, Dennison sailed in; Dick leaped forward. Dennison was amused, more than half contemptuous over the easiness of the work that he thought had come to him. But he felt in honor bound to make the thing short. In the first place, he had to avenge Dodge. In the second place, it would reflect upon himself if Dennison allowed Prescott to string the ...
— Dick Prescott's Second Year at West Point - Finding the Glory of the Soldier's Life • H. Irving Hancock
... he pleased, he generously yielded it. And indeed he could not have bestowed it more properly; for Tommy had the best ear for music I ever knew; and in less than a twelvemonth could far outdo me, his instructor, in softness and easiness of finger; and was also master of every tune I knew, which were neither inconsiderable in number, nor ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... modern writers, nor with all that are old. I may best perhaps explain my meaning by taking something written long ago; something very valuable, in order that I may not damage my argument by comparing the easiness of Thackeray with the harshness of some author who has in other respects failed of obtaining approbation. If you take the play of Cymbeline you will, I think, find it to be anything but easy reading. Nor is Shakespeare always lucid. ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope
... French and French things—Italian writers, I say, have tried to turn the Fabre episode into something extremely disgraceful to Mme. d'Albany. Massimo d'Azeglio, partly out of hatred to the Countess, who was rather severe and acrimonious upon his youthful free-and-easiness, partly out of a desire to amuse his readers, has introduced into his autobiography an anecdote told him by Mme. de Prie (the niece of Alfieri's famous Turin mistress, and the lady who took it upon ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... only between all the great towns, but between all the considerable villages, and even to many farm-houses in the country, nearly in the same manner as the Rhine and the Maese do in Holland at present. The extent and easiness of this inland navigation was probably one of the principal causes of ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... sort is the wild indigo, which is indigenous here; this, as it is a native of the country, answers the purposes of the planter best of all, with regard to the hardiness of the plant, the easiness of the culture, and the quantity of the produce. Of the quality there is some dispute not yet settled amongst the planters themselves; nor can they distinctly tell when they are to attribute the faults of their ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... regarding etiquette and entertainments, just as if royalty were about to drop down in similar fashion on Bude or Tobermory. There were amusing attempts to bring about a practical reconciliation between the free- and-easiness of Republican notions and the respect due to a sovereign who reigns by "the will of the people" as well as by "the grace of God," but eventually the tact of the king made ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... mind to be a man of knowledge, but he does not care to spend much time among authors; for he is of opinion that few books deserve the labour of perusal, that they give the mind an unfashionable cast, and destroy that freedom of thought, and easiness of manners, indispensably requisite to acceptance in the world. Tom has, therefore, found another way to wisdom. When he rises he goes into a coffee-house, where he creeps so near to men whom he takes to be reasoners, as to hear their discourse, and endeavours to remember something which, when it ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... the comparative easiness and the absence of any difficulty in, having mastered this stroke, is imbued with such confidence that it becomes simply a matter of time and practise to acquire all other forms of swimming that he may wish ...
— Swimming Scientifically Taught - A Practical Manual for Young and Old • Frank Eugen Dalton and Louis C. Dalton
... The dangers that he ran were not from the foreign children with whom he played, fought, loved, and dreamed dreams; but from foreign customs, foreign ways of doing things, foreign comfort, foreign take-the-world-easiness, and all. For they do live well abroad; they do have amusing things to do. They eat well, drink well, smoke well, are better waited on than we are and have more time. So Fitzhugh was in danger of these things which have hurt the Americanism of more than one American to the death, ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... neither his Military Virtue, nor Science, nor his matchless Renown, nor his unparallell'd Victories, his unwearied Bounty to his Friends, nor his Godlike Clemency to his Foes, his Beneficence, his Munificence, his Easiness of Access to the meanest Roman, his indefatigable Labours, his incredible Celerity, the Plausibleness if not Justness of his Ambition, that knowing himself to be the greatest of Men, he only ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... XV. had taken a fresh step in the shameful irregularity of his life; on the 15th of April, 1764, Madame de Pompadour had died, at the age of forty-two, of heart disease. As frivolous as she was deeply depraved and baseminded in her calculating easiness of virtue, she had more ambition than comported with her mental calibre or her force of character; she had taken it into her head to govern, by turns promoting and overthrowing the ministers, herself proffering advice to the king, sometimes to good ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... My easiness to give credit to what I heard in the course of our tour was too great. Dr Johnson's peculiar accuracy of investigation detected much traditional fiction, and many gross mistakes. It is not to be wondered at, that he was provoked by people ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... Delvile, "I have no hope of her at all. I once took much pains with her; but I soon found that the easiness with which she hears of her faults, is only another effect of the levity with which she commits them. But if the young are never tired of erring in conduct, neither are the older in erring in judgment; the fallibility of mine I have ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... now take a summary View of the Inhabitants of Ireland, in their respective Ranks: And to begin with the Peers: Are they not such Personages, as, by their Munificence, Affability of Manners, Easiness of Comportment, Propriety of Appearance, and Generosity in dealing, reflect true Honour on Nobility; and, Reality, derive their superior Rank, as much from the Pre-eminence of their Virtues, as from the ...
— An Essay on the Antient and Modern State of Ireland • Henry Brooke
... make out of this tangle," he ordered. But Dane's shoulders went back as if some weight had been lifted from them. The old easiness was still lacking, but he was no longer exiled to the outer darkness of ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton
... consonant with reason, but scarcely less affecting when considered at large, was the execution of Samuel, a black man: he was transported for theft, from the Cape of Good Hope, and was remarkable for the quiet easiness of his disposition. For some violation of penal discipline he was ordered to be flogged: when approaching the triangle, he attacked one of the officers in attendance, who was slightly wounded; for this ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... wish to,' he answered, altogether willing. He was filled with an easiness that would comply with ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... good, hearty boy—it's to see a brisk play pushed home. I'd called 'em down so their spinal columns shortened, and gagging about my hair, and the style I put on in general, caught their eye. And their own laughing and easiness wasn't so durned abandoned, as Charley Halleck used to say. There was a streak of not liking the job, and everything a little "put on," ...
— Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips
... willing to admit the goods of fortune into their notion of felicity; but I do not remember, that any of the sects of old philosophers did ever leave a room for greatness. Neither am I formed to praise a court, who admire and covet nothing, but the easiness and quiet of retirement. I naturally withdraw my sight from a precipice; and, admit the prospect be never so large and goodly, can take no pleasure even in looking on the downfal, though I am secure ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... Phidippus in good time! I'll learn from him The cause of this.— (Going up to him.) Phidippus, though I own Myself indulgent to my family, Yet my complacency and easiness Runs not to that extreme, that my good-nature Corrupts their morals. Would you act like me, 'Twould be of service to both families. But you, I see, are ...
— The Comedies of Terence • Publius Terentius Afer
... guileless, that could see no evil in what appeared to her but as innocent indulgences, she was led into expenses and frivolous gratifications which were by no means essential for a mind like hers. Dishonest tradesmen took advantage of her inexperience and extreme easiness, and swelled their bills to an enormous amount; but her greatest, and far most congenial outlay, was in the relief of the distressed. She could not endure to deny the petition of any whom she believed to be suffering from want; and this tenderness of heart was often ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... insolence exceeds t'other; whoever has encouraged you to this assurance, presuming upon the easiness of my temper, has much deceived you, and so ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... marked the utterance of his happiest speeches, Sir Nicholas Bacon often recalled to his hearers the courteous easiness of More's repartees. Keeping his own pace in society, as well as in the Court of Chancery, neither satire nor importunity could ruffle or confuse him. When Elizabeth, looking disdainfully at his modest country mansion, told him that the place ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... he said, affecting easiness, "suffer me to kiss your hand, in token ye forgive my roughness, and I ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... change it as often as he thought proper" five circumstances would explain "a small pecuniary gain in some employments, and counter balance a great one in others." These in his words were: "First, the agreeableness or disagreeableness of the employments themselves; secondly, the easiness and cheapness, or the difficulty and expense of learning them; thirdly, the constancy or inconstancy of employment in them; fourthly, the small or great trust which must be reposed in those who exercise them; and, fifthly, ...
— The Settlement of Wage Disputes • Herbert Feis
... one of the most dangerous permits ever allowed by a government, and which has been the cause of much of the ill-will and discontent fomented among the lower classes. Latterly, the cheapness of printing and easiness of circulation have rendered the profession of less consequence: twenty years ago the village ale-houses were not provided with newspapers; it was an expense never thought of; the men went to drink their beer and talk over the ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... and grave. Too proud of living among the great. Probably forward to make acquaintance. No literary man ever talked so much of his fortune. Grotto. Importance. Post-office, letters open. Cant of despising the world. Affectation of despising poetry. His easiness about the critics.. Something of foppery. His letters to the ladies—pretty. Abuse of Scripture—not all early. Thoughts in his letters that ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... as Mr. Pope tells us himself, cost much attention and labour; and, from the easiness that appears in it, one would be apt ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... volatile and warm; but he suspected, that HAMET would sink into inactivity for want of spirit: he feared alike ALMORAN'S love of enterprize, and HAMET'S fondness for retirement: he observed, in HAMET, a placid easiness of temper, which might suffer the reins of government to lie too loose; and, in ALMORAN, a quickness of resentment, and jealousy of command, which might hold them too tight: he hoped, therefore, that by leaving them a joint dominion, he should blend their dispositions, at least in their ...
— Almoran and Hamet • John Hawkesworth
... itself, and it is riot till long afterwards that these improvements extend to the inland parts. It was thus that the earliest civilised nations were grouped round the coasts of the Mediterranean Sea; and the extent and easiness of its inland navigation was probably the chief cause of the ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... portrait. You can count the embroidered sprigs in the jerkin of the squire. You hear the pilgrims laugh as they ride to Canterbury. The whole thing is admirably life-like and seems easy, and in the seeming easiness we are apt to forget the imaginative sympathy which bodies forth the characters, and the joy and sorrow from which that sympathy has drawn nurture. Unseen by us, the ore has been dug, and smelted in secret furnaces, ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... he makes himself at home, takes off his wig, wipes down his great face with a checked pocket handkerchief, helps himself hither and thither to whatever he wants, and asks for such things as he cannot lay his hands on, with all the comfortable easiness of childhood. ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... was now a distinction, an honor for which each almost envied the other. When at ten o'clock in the morning the gathering took place in the large room, the conversation was of the most cheerful and unaffected easiness; they joked, they laughed, they speculated on politics, though it was well known that in a few minutes yonder door was to open, and that on its threshold the jailer would appear, list in hand; that from this list he would call out with his loud, croaking voice, ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... into the gorge in which the travelers were resting, and for a few hours the heat was very oppressive. Whitson examined his revolver, removing the cartridges and replacing them by others. He then lay down to sleep, asking Langley to remain awake and keep a lookout. He had a vague feeling of un-easiness which he could not overcome. Langley promised to keep awake, but he was too tired to do so. He sat with his back against a rock, and after some futile efforts to keep his eyes open, fell fast asleep. By and ...
— Kafir Stories - Seven Short Stories • William Charles Scully
... the brilliancy of her performance makes it seem as if it were but the experiment of an afternoon, in the out-of-doors. Like all fine artists, she has brushed away from sight all aspects of labour, and presents you, with astounding ease, the apparent easiness of the thing. She is powerfully built, and her muscles are master of coordination, such as would be the envy of multitudes of men, and with all this power, she is as simple in her manner and appearance as is the young debutante at her coming out function. You are impressed with her sweetness ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... Athenian, after he had, in the account he gave to the state of his government, often interlaced this speech, and in this, Fortune had no part, never prospered in anything, he undertook afterwards. Certainly there be, whose fortunes are like Homer's verses, that have a slide and easiness more than the verses of other poets; as Plutarch saith of Timoleon's fortune, in respect of that of Agesilaus or Epaminondas. And that this shoulld be, no doubt it is much, ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... themselves. Even in her presence he found a certain pleasure in combining distant adoration with the confident expectation of proximity, and thus she was restored to the sanctity which she had risked by her former easiness. And so all was for the best in the best ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... of noblemen which lay in their way. The taste of Delia was delicate and refined. A continual succession of objects; gardens, architecture, pictures and statues soothed her spirits, and gradually restored her to that gaiety and easiness of temper, which had long rendered her the most lovely ...
— Damon and Delia - A Tale • William Godwin
... hands clean from the doing of it up to the last moment. He was quite resolved. There was no other escape. And yet—yet—yet, who would say what might not happen? Till the deed should have been done, there would yet be a path open to the sweet easiness of innocence. When it should have been done, there would be a final adieu to innocence. There would be no return to the white way, no possibility of repentance! How could a man repent while he was ...
— Cousin Henry • Anthony Trollope
... and failing, and inadequate, and useless lives in the fullest sense of the word. How can those who preach to the soul hope to be heard by those who do not even make the best of their bodies? but alas, the convenience and easiness, or pleasure, of the present moment is allowed to become the cause of an endless series of terrible effects, which go down into the distance of the future, multiplying themselves ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... Sir, what could 'see, (speak boldly, and speak truly, shame the Devil,) in my behaviour of such easiness that you durst ...
— Wit Without Money - The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher • Francis Beaumont
... taken was of comparatively easy ascent; and it was this, perhaps, that had tempted Wilder to take it. But like most things within the moral and physical world, its easiness proved a delusion. They had not gone twenty paces further up when the sloping chasm terminated. It debouched on a little platform, covered with large loose stones, and there rested after having fallen from the cliff above. But at a single glance they ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... and all the rest, absolute in their numbers as he conceived them, who as he was a happie imitator of Nature was a most gentle expresser of it. His mind and hand went together, and what he thought, he uttered with that easiness, that we have scarce received from him a blot in ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... sometimes easier words are changed into harder, as burial into sepulture or interment, drier into desiccative, dryness into siccity or aridity, fit into paroxysm; for the easiest word, whatever it be, can never be translated into one more easy. But easiness and difficulty are merely relative, and if the present prevalence of our language should invite foreigners to this dictionary, many will be assisted by those words which now seem only to increase or produce obscurity. For this reason I have endeavoured frequently to join a ...
— Preface to a Dictionary of the English Language • Samuel Johnson
... by reason of the agreeableness and purity of the Air: There also is the quaintness and delicacy of the Italian Tongue most likely to be learned, there being many publick Professors of it in that place; and indeed the very Vulgar of Siena do express themselves with an easiness and sweetness surprizing, and even grateful to their Ears ...
— Incognita - or, Love & Duty Reconcil'd. A Novel • William Congreve
... his actions are ever otherwise, it is the fault of others. His only faults are that he is too kind, not sufficiently reserved, and apt to believe people who have less sense than himself; he is, therefore, often deceived, for the knaves who know his easiness of temper will run all risks with him. All the misfortunes and inconveniences which befall him spring from that cause. His other fault is one not common to Frenchmen, the easiness with which women can persuade him, and this often brings him into domestic quarrels. ...
— The Memoirs of the Louis XIV. and The Regency, Complete • Elizabeth-Charlotte, Duchesse d'Orleans
... continuously for the amusement of the company, giving descriptions of persons and scenes in a racy Western twang, without the slightest scruple as to what she said. In a few years Tahoe will be inundated in summer with similar vulgarity, owing to its easiness of access. I sustained the reputation which our country-women bear in America by looking a "perfect guy"; and feeling that I was a salient point for the speaker's next sally, I was relieved when the landlady, a ladylike Englishwoman, asked me to join herself and her family in the bar-room, ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... if they arrive, the reflection on past happiness enjoy'd ought to help his bearing them with more resignation. To Temperance he ascribes his long-continued health, and what is still left to him of a good constitution; to Industry and Frugality, the early easiness of his circumstances and acquisition of his fortune, with all that knowledge that enabled him to be a useful citizen, and obtained for him some degree of reputation among the learned; to Sincerity and ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... air of courtly politeness, by alleging a business appointment. Very elegantly dressed, tightly buttoned up in clothes of an English cut, he had the carriage of a man about town, relieved by the retention of a touch of artistic free-and-easiness. Immediately on sitting down he grasped his neighbour's ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... profess not to understand them. But a living writer is yet / sub judice; and if we cannot follow his conceptions or enter into his / feelings, it is more consoling to our pride to consider him as lost beneath, / than as soaring above, us. If any man expect from my poems the same / easiness of style which he admires in a drinking-song, for him I have not / written. Intelligibilia, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... lively, gay colours which would have shone out naturally with the advantages of a fine, bright genius, an amiable gracefulness, a very honest disposition, a perfect disinterestedness, and an incredible easiness ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... his intent is to do thus and thus," and take his sufficiency of the sheep; and he stinted not to do thus with him, till he had wasted the most part of his flock. "This, O King," added the favourite, "I tell thee only that thou suffer not the Grandees of thy realm to be deluded by thy mildness and easiness of temper and presume on thee; and, in right rede, their death were better than that they deal thus with thee." Quoth the King, "I accept this thy counsel and will not hearken to their admonition neither will I go out unto them." On the morrow the Wazirs and Officers ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... influences that governed them, with a fulness of knowledge and an independence of judgment unknown in the past, and it has led its votaries to regard in these matters a sceptical and hesitating spirit as a virtue, and credulity and easiness of belief ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... ever, because the power of enjoying them is lost. Do not be offended if I say that this is the fate I fear for you. At the present moment, the two paths of life are open before you; youth, excitement, the example of your companions, the easiness and the pleasure of the worldling's career, make it full of attractions for you. Besides, your conscience does not perhaps speak with sufficient plainness as to its being the career of the worldling; you can find admirers enough, and give up to them all the young, fresh interests of your active ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... the other. "One lives not fifteen years in these parts to carry away but a handful of marvels." Relieved by the easiness of his examination and the courtesy of his captor, he even smiled and ventured upon a small pleasantry. "You cannot take from me, redoubtable senor, that which my eyes have seen ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... illustrates the advantages of industry, and demonstrates that people feel cheerful and happy whilst they are employed; while "Tarleton" represents "the danger and the folly of that weakness of mind, and that easiness to be led, which too often pass for good nature"; "The False Key" points out some of the evils to which a well-educated boy, on first going to service, is exposed from the profligacy of his fellow-servants; ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson
... studies advanced—they laid more and more stress on Middle-English and Old English writings than on what our nations of England and Scotland have written since they learned to write. I dare to think also that we may attribute to this dread of 'easiness' their practice of cumbering simple texts with philological notes; on which, rather than on the text, we unhappy students were carefully examined. For an example supplied to Dr Corson—I take those three lines of Cowper's "Task" ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... Arthur's easiness and selfishness made him slow to take alarm, but when once awakened there was no limit to his anxiety. He knew now what it would be to lose his first-born. He thought of the moment when the babe had been laid on his hand, and of the sad hours when that feeble cry had been ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... except his basal ideas, he was pliable to a degree. He could be talked into almost any concession of interest. He once told Herndon he thanked God that he had not been born a woman because he found it so hard to refuse any request made of him. His outer easiness, his lack of self-assertion,—as most people understand self-assertion,—persist in an amusing group of anecdotes of the circuit. Though he was a favorite with the company at every tavern, those little demagogues, the tavern-keepers, ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... the Fawners strain and relax the Muscles of their Faces in making Distinction between a Spinster in a coloured Scarf and an Handmaid in a Straw-Hat, the Worriers use the same Roughness to both, and prevail upon the Easiness of the Passengers, to the Impoverishment of ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... at the week's end a computation was made, the gross sum was divided, and a varying share set down to every lodger's name under the rubric: estrats. Upon the more long-suffering the larger tax was levied; and your bill lengthened in a direct proportion to the easiness of your disposition. At any hour of the morning, again, you could get your coffee or cold milk, and set forth into the forest. The doves had perhaps wakened you, fluttering into your chamber; and on the threshold of the inn you were met by the aroma of the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... he knew it. Oh, he was ignorant, a savage, I guess, like I was. But he did rightly love me. He was not trying to break my spirit nor to tame me, nor to amuse himself with me, nor to give me a longing for beauty and easiness and then leave me to fight through my own rough life without any of those things. Did you really think, Prosper Gael, that I would stay in your house and live on your money till you should be caring to come back to me—if ever you would care? Did you honestly think that you ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... which others throw away. By this means his writings are, like a tailor's cushion of mosaic work, made up of several scraps sewed together. He calls a slovenly, nasty description great Nature, and dull flatness strange easiness. He writes down all that comes in his head, and makes no choice, because he has nothing to do it with that is judgment. He is always repealing the old laws of comedy, and, like the Long Parliament, making ordinances in their stead, although they are perpetually thrown out of coffee-houses ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... What desperate easiness have you seen in me, or what mistaken merit in your self, should make you so ridiculously vain, to think I'd give myself to such a Wretch, one fal'n even to the last degree of Poverty, whilst all the World ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... example, coming out from their burrows and squatting on the turf of the sloping glade in a semicircle opposite the children; while, the more poor Puck tried to express his indignation at their free-and- easiness, the more nonchalantly they regarded him, sitting up comfortably and combing away, enjoying themselves as thoroughly as if there was no such thing as a dog in existence, Puck's faint coughing bark being utterly thrown ...
— Teddy - The Story of a Little Pickle • J. C. Hutcheson
... ye have; and the Lord straitened them because of their iniquity. He sent fiery flying serpents among them; and after they were bitten he prepared a way that they might be healed; and the labor which they had to perform was to look; and because of the simpleness of the way, or the easiness of it, there ...
— The Book Of Mormon - An Account Written By The Hand Of Mormon Upon Plates Taken - From The Plates Of Nephi • Anonymous
... amusement at the singularity of the notions, or the dexterity with which he defended them. The poison of his doctrines was the more insidious, because, mingled with a certain dash of good nature, and a reckless, careless easiness of disposition, always attractive to very young men. His reputation for courage, of which he had given signal proofs, elevated him in my esteem; and, ere long, all my misgivings about him, in regard of certain blemishes, gave ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... to which Chu Chu belonged. It was he who, leaning over the edge of the stall where she was complacently and, as usual, obliviously munching, absolutely dared to toy with a pet lock of hair which she wore over the pretty star on her forehead. "Ye see, captain," he said with jaunty easiness, "hosses is like wimmen; ye don't want ter use any standoffishness or shyness with them; a stiddy but keerless sort o' familiarity, a kind o' free but firm handlin', jess like this, to let her ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... a mountain land, but its characteristic features, as distinguished from Judea, are the easiness of approach through open gateways among the hills, and the fertility of the broad vales and level plains which lie between them. The Kingdom of Israel, in its brief season of prosperity, was richer, more luxurious, and weaker than the Kingdom of Judah. ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke
... leisure to entertain a herd of fools: things who visit you from their excessive idleness, bestowing on your easiness that time which is the incumbrance of their lives. How can you find delight in such society? It is impossible they should admire you; they are not capable; or, if they were, it should be to you as a mortification: for, sure, to please a fool is ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve
... the necessities of the merchant in extravagant discounts and premiums for advance of money, when either large customs or foreign remittances call for disbursements beyond his common ability; for by the easiness of terms on which the merchant may have money, he is encouraged to venture further in trade than otherwise he would do. Not but that there are other great advantages a Royal Bank might procure in this kingdom, as has been seen in part by this; as advancing money to the Exchequer upon Parliamentary ...
— An Essay Upon Projects • Daniel Defoe
... him to Lord Orrery, proceeds to say: "In the poetical works there is not much upon which the critic can exercise his powers. They are often humorous, almost always light, and have the qualities which recommend such compositions, easiness and gaiety. They are, for the most part, what their author intended. The diction is correct, the numbers are smooth, and the rhymes exact. There seldom occurs a hard laboured expression or a redundant epithet; all his verses ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... Washington. The Capitol, White House, and several public buildings were burned by them; the navy yard and vessels by the American authorities. Ross, accustomed to European warfare, did not feel Drummond's easiness concerning his position, which technically was most insecure as regarded his communications. On the evening of June 25 he withdrew rapidly, and on that of the 26th regained touch with the fleet in the Patuxent, after a separation of only four days. Cockburn ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... traces of former gilding, or a piece of tortoise-shell with gleams of gold here and there. A great cushion covered with a piece of a dalmatic of faded colouring—of that peculiar shade which the Florentine silk merchants used to call 'rosa di gruogo,' saffron red, contributed to its inviting easiness. ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... customs, Bacon administered the Chancery. Suitors did there what people did everywhere else; they acknowledged by a present the trouble they gave, or the benefit they gained. It may be that Bacon's known difficulties about money, his expensive ways and love of pomp, his easiness of nature, his lax discipline over his servants, encouraged this profuseness of giving. And Bacon let it be. He asked no questions; he knew that he worked hard and well; he knew that it could go on without affecting his purpose to do justice "from the greatest ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... affected, that he could make no reply; and Mr. Glover perfectly understanding the cause of his silence, squeezed him by the hand, and took his leave; but he completely accomplished all his designs in favour of John, who at length returned, and enjoyed an easiness of circumstances beyond any thing he ...
— The Looking-Glass for the Mind - or Intellectual Mirror • M. Berquin
... great difference between the easiness of the conquest of Guiana, and the defence of it being conquered, and the West or East Indies. Guiana hath but one entrance by the sea, if it hath that, for any vessels of burden. So as whosoever shall ...
— The Discovery of Guiana • Sir Walter Raleigh
... number of those amiable imperfections which we see in mistresses, and which we pass over without a strict examination, when they are accompanied with greater graces. And such in Almanzor are a frank and noble openness of nature, an easiness to forgive his conquered enemies, and to protect them in distress; and, above all, an ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... sun. Trying to seem grave and sedate he pursed up his face and puffed out his cheeks, and he smelt of spirits. Probably he had visited the refreshment bar at every station. And again there was a free-and-easiness about the man—something superfluous and out of place. Then Anisim had lunch and drank tea with the old man, and Varvara turned the new coins over in her hand and inquired about villagers who had gone to ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... fabric of British liberties was tottering visibly to its base—but he wisely concluded to himself that the editor had to see articles written about every possible subject every evening—from a European convulsion to a fire at a theatre,—and that use must have made it in him a property of easiness. When a man's obliged to work himself up perpetually into a state of artificial excitement about every railway accident, explosion, shipwreck, earthquake, or volcanic eruption, in Europe, Asia, Africa, America, and ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... will not eat, nor sleep, nor pray for any thing but swift and sure Revenge, till I have found Marcella, that false deceiving Beauty, or her Lover, my hated Rival Fillamour; who, wanton in the Arms of the fair Fugitive, laughs at my shameful easiness, and cries, these Joys were never ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn |
