"Amiability" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sat upon the English Bench? Lord Widdrington, however, in temper was stern, arbitrary, and overbearing, and his manners were disfigured not a little by coarseness; while his companion was a man of exemplary amiability, affability, and forbearance. Lord Widdrington presided at the Civil Court, (in which, of course, would come on the important cause in which we are interested,) and Mr. Justice Grayley ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... spin long yarns, El Toro, the big brindled bull of Los Guilucos Ranch, Sonoma County, California, is certainly nearest my heart. He was my friend, and sometimes my companion; he had a noble character for fighting, and in spite of his pugnacity he was amiability itself to most human beings. His final end, too, fills me with a sense of pathos, and enrages me against those who owned him. They were obviously incapable of understanding ...
— A Tramp's Notebook • Morley Roberts
... of being an Englishman. A Frenchman once said to him, with what he thought was refined politeness and amiability: ...
— The English at the North Pole - Part I of the Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... The portrait which he draws of Lord Macaulay is so irresistibly attractive in many ways, that a critic may be glad to have delivered his soul before his judgment was subject to a dangerous bias, by the picture of Macaulay's personal character—its domestic amiability, its benevolence to unlucky followers of letters, its manliness, its high public spirit and generous patriotism. On reading my criticism over again, I am well pleased to find that not an epithet needs to be altered,—so independent is opinion as to ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Volume I (of 3) - Essay 4: Macaulay • John Morley
... the protection thus afforded by the bishop, did the unalterable humility and amiability of Father Vianney bring these opponents to reason. In the course of a few years this noble character ceased to have any enemies among the clergy. Laymen likewise stopped their calumnies, even if they did ...
— The Life of Blessed John B. Marie Vianney, Cur of Ars • Anonymous
... that the cow was a wild cow. The man who sold her to me had not put it precisely that way. He had represented her to me as a cow of mild manners, thoroughly domesticated, of the sweetest possible temper, used to the women folks, playful with children,—in short, a creature of such amiability that she actually longed to be petted. But I had already discovered that her manners were somewhat abrupt, and that either the man did not understand the nature of the cow or I did not understand the man. I was convinced that, if she had ever been domesticated, it had ...
— The Busted Ex-Texan and Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... that Themire is quite bewitched with the amiability of the maid who has been intrusted to her care. If this be true, then matters are in a bad way. If this is not another of Themire's schemes, but actual sympathy, if this girl, whose remarkable loveliness of character (even Jocrisse is compelled to praise her) has won the piquant little Amelie's ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai
... but probably something vicious, and he had not a vice. He did not smoke, and he did not so much as drink tea or coffee; he had cocoa for breakfast, and at lunch a glass of milk, with water at dinner. He had a tint like the rose, and when he smiled or laughed, which was often, from a constitutional amiability and a perfect digestion, his teeth showed white and regular, and an innocent dimple punctured either cheek. His name was Godolphin, for he had instinctively felt that in choosing a name he might as well take a handsome one while he was about it, and that if he became Godolphin there was no reason ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... better-natured than the rest of the constantly increasing multitude. The boats thickened upon the water as if they had risen softly from the bottom to which any panic might have sent them; but the people in them took every chance with the amiability which seems to be finally the thing that holds England together. The English have got a bad name abroad which certainly they do not deserve at home; but perhaps they do not think foreigners worthy the consideration they show one another on any occasion that masses them. One lady, from her vantage ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... female dog is plain; but where competing duties rise, down they will sit and study them out like Jesuit confessors.[19] I knew another little Skye, somewhat plain in manner and appearance, but a creature compact of amiability and solid wisdom. His family going abroad for a winter, he was received for that period by an uncle in the same city. The winter over, his own family home again, and his own house (of which he was very proud) reopened, he found ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... considered as spiritual beings, to a kind of negative existence. All these things I did not perceive till long afterwards; but I even then felt, though without stating it clearly to myself, the contrast between the frank sociability and amiability of French personal intercourse, and the English mode of existence, in which everybody acts as if everybody else (with few, or no exceptions) was either an enemy or a bore. In France, it is true, the bad as well as the good points, both of individual and of national character, come more to the surface, ...
— Autobiography • John Stuart Mill
... treat,' remarked my brother, 'that it is hard to understand the discourtesy and want of amiability that have deprived us of it so long. Play something else, Elfie!' This was said quietly, but I was as powerless to resist as if it ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... the family of Senator Benton, where he is well taken care of, and conciliates good-will by his docility, intelligence, and amiability. General Almonte, the Mexican minister at Washington, to whom he was of course made known, kindly offered to take charge of him, and to carry him back to Mexico; but the boy preferred to remain where he was until he got an education, for which he ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont
... not see why they should thus describe him. He stood and nodded to us, and jerked big thumb towards the departing flock. "Funny how a boy will never think," said he, with amiability. "But they'll grow up to be about as good as the rest of us, I guess. Don't you let them monkey with you, ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... he must, therefore, submit and follow the lead of his majesty, and in lieu of alliances and state questions discuss philosophy and the arts. So soon as the duke came to this conclusion, he smoothed his brow, and, with all his amiability, animation, and intelligence, he replied to the questions of the king, and the conversation was carried on in an unbroken stream of ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... town called by the name of Mahapadma which was situate on the southern side of the river Ganga, there lived, O best of men, a Brahmana of concentrated soul. Born in the race of Atri, he was endued with amiability. All his doubts had been dispelled (by faith and contemplation) and he was well conversant with the path he was to follow. Ever observant of the religious duties, he had his anger under perfect control. Always ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... Amiability itself; they know nothing. [Rising and looking down upon FRAYNE.] You see, Chick, all that Miss Fullgarney has to do—if she hasn't already done it—is to tell a trifling taradiddle to Muriel concerning the events of last night. Well, in effect, she ...
— The Gay Lord Quex - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur W. Pinero
... wasn't he? I have known him Exhibit a celestial amiability:— He'd eat an enemy, and then would own him Of flavor excellent, despite hostility. The crudest captain of the Turkish navy He ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... don't know that you are going to find Pamela exactly all that she might be in the way of amiability and so on. I know these things are done on the other side, but here it's considered trying your friends pretty high to take a lady of Sonia's reputation where you are likely to meet your ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... another channel. She dreaded her husband in his black rages, but she feared him more now in his unusual amiability. Perhaps he would strike Tobey when he saw him. She strained ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... through the silence in which my soul luxuriated and cast an Eastern enchantment over me. I asked for leave to go to the bazaar on Saturday night. My aunt was surprised and hoped it was not some Freemason affair. I answered few questions in class. I watched my master's face pass from amiability to sternness; he hoped I was not beginning to idle. I could not call my wandering thoughts together. I had hardly any patience with the serious work of life which, now that it stood between me and my desire, seemed to me child's play, ugly ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... of food, or the amiability of their dispositions, the seeta bhaloo are to be met with constantly in small bodies of from five to ten, differing in this respect from their sable brethren, who are generally found alone, unless a matrimonial alliance has been formed, when the intrusion of a third ...
— Forest & Frontiers • G. A. Henty
... happiness and content prevailed; but they afterwards revolted, and many gave up their allegiance. The rebels were cast down from on high into the pit of darkness. Hereupon succeeded the transmigration of souls; every animal and every plant was animated by one of the fallen angels, and the remarkable amiability of the Hindoos towards animals is owing to this belief. They look upon them as their fellow-creatures, and will not put any of them ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... appointment as Chief Justice aroused criticism even among his party friends. Their doubt did not touch his intellectual attainments, but in their opinion his political moderation, his essential democracy, his personal amiability, all counted against him. "He is," wrote Sedgwick, "a man of very affectionate disposition, of great simplicity of manners, and honest and honorable in all his conduct. He is attached to pleasures, with convivial habits strongly fixed. He is indolent therefore. ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin
... literally as reported: even though the Czar hoped to postpone the rupture for some months, he may have given his complete confidence under four eyes. Who can measure the fascination under which the young enthusiast fell at first sight? In any case nothing apparently occurred to disturb the amiability of either monarch. It was doubtless agreed that they should form a dual alliance, absolute and exclusive.[9] "I have often slept two in a bed," the suave but inelegant Napoleon was heard to say at a subsequent ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... life has been marked by seriousness and deep religious feeling. She is a member of the First Presbyterian Church of Buffalo. She was deeply loved by her teachers, more for her solidity of character and amiability of disposition than for exceptionally brilliant intellectual traits, though her ...
— The Truth About America • Edward Money
... though of course he could not have expressed all this as the prince did, still clearly entered into it and was greatly conciliated, as was evident from the increased amiability of his expression. "If you are really very anxious for a smoke," he remarked, "I think it might possibly be managed, if you are very quick about it. You see they might come out and inquire for you, and you wouldn't be on the spot. You see ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... inquiring who the fourth lady was to be, and being told it was a Lady Caroline Dester, she said, "Is she a widow too?" And on their explaining that she was not, because she had not yet been married, observed with abstracted amiability, "All ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim
... immediately waited upon her, and found her overwhelmed with grief. She described to him in the blackest colors the barbarity of her husband, and ended by declaring that her whole hope depended upon his friendship and amiability. ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... man and wife continued, and the domestic sky at Fareham House was dark and depressing. Lady Fareham, who had hitherto been remarkable for a girlish amiability of speech which went well with her girlish beauty, became now the height of the mode for acidity and slander. The worst of the evil speakers on her ladyship's visiting-day flavoured the China tea with no bitterer allusions than ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... cheerless as the land on which they lived. They had none of the fiery energy, the eloquence, the mobility of the people of the south. Still less were they endowed with the apt intelligence, the ease, the social amiability, the openness, of their neighbours on the north. 'The dwellers in Upper Limousin,' said one who knew them, 'are coarse and heavy, jealous, distrustful, avaricious.' The dwellers in Lower Limousin had a less repulsive address, but they were at least as narrowly self-interested ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Turgot • John Morley
... Captain M—- to refuse, and fortunately had imbibed a strong regard for Willy, whose romantic history, early courage, and amiability of disposition, had made him a general favourite. Macallan, therefore, willingly undertook the tuition of a boy who combined energy or mind with docility of disposition and sweetness of temper. There could not have ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... paralleled by the love felt for him by his contemporaries; he had crowds of followers who loved him and who were proud to learn his words by heart. He seems indeed to have been a man of exceptional kindness and amiability, and the 'garden of Epicurus' became proverbial as {214} a place of temperate pleasures and wise delights. Personally we may take it that Epicurus was a man of simple tastes and moderate desires; and indeed throughout its ...
— A Short History of Greek Philosophy • John Marshall
... would wander round as if in quest of some object that was trying to elude his sight; at one moment listless, silent, and dejected, and again animated, almost gay, like one who, ashamed of an exhibition of moody temper, tries to atone by extraordinary efforts of amiability for the error. His intimate friends had some knowledge of these changes, and to Faith, above all, living with him in the same house, and in the tender relation of a daughter to a parent, each of whom idolized the other, they were painfully apparent, ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... The amiability of Sidney's character, his romantic history, the exquisite charm of his verse at its best, and last, not least, the fact of his enthusiastic appreciation and patronage of literature at a time when literary men never failed to give aristocratic patrons somewhat more than ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... was listening with an interest and animation she had not shown for many days. The Innocent was holding forth, apparently with equal effect, to Mr. Oakhurst and Mother Shipton, who was actually relaxing into amiability. "Is this yer a d——d picnic?" said Uncle Billy, with inward scorn, as he surveyed the sylvan group, the glancing firelight, and the tethered animals in the foreground. Suddenly an idea mingled with the alcoholic fumes that disturbed his brain. It was ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... dissolute Humanity again. He has talked of tigers, and head-lugged bears (and it was necessary to combine the proverbial sensitiveness of that animal to that particular mode of treatment, with the natural amiability of his disposition in general, in order to do justice to the Poet's conception here);—he has called upon 'the monsters of the deep,' and quoted the laws of their societies, in illustration of the state of things to which the unscientific human combination appears to him to be ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... part of the game, Verman's impediment cooperated with a native amiability to render him far less effective than in the actual combat. He ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... once kindly and ingenuous can hardly help in most assemblies coming continually to grief. He knows not what to do, to be at once frank and polite. The transverse beams of the cross on which he is crucified are made of the sincerity and amiability which in no company can he quite reconcile. Happy is he who has discovered beneath all pleasant humors the unity at bottom of candor with goodness, in an Apostle's clause, "speaking the truth in love"! No rare and beautiful monster could stir more surprise ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... showed no resentment at Francis' little outburst. He simply smiled with deprecating amiability—a tall, spare man, with lean, hard face, complexion almost unnaturally white; black hair, plentifully besprinkled with grey; a thin, cynical mouth, notwithstanding its distinctly humourous curve, and keen, almost brilliant ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... on one side, like a hare. This Princess was so exceedingly diffident that a person might be with her daily for years together without hearing her utter a single word. It was asserted, however, that she displayed talent, and even amiability, in the society of some favourite ladies. She taught herself a great deal, but she studied alone; the presence of a reader would have disconcerted her very much. There were, however, occasions on which the Princess, generally so intractable, became all at once affable and condescending, and manifested ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... to right and left. Her face was deadly white and her eyes swollen with weeping; even her usual colourless amiability seemed to have deserted her, for, after the generally inclusive salute to the entire company, she swept towards her gilded chair without a word of direct greeting to any individual. Eberhard Ludwig, on the contrary, ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... amiability itself. Certainly she would show monsieur and madame the goats. She was unaware that they had become so celebrated. Perhaps monsieur and madame ...
— A Queen's Error • Henry Curties
... he reached camp, and he found Doctor Worth waiting his arrival. Fortunately there was nothing but good news for the doctor. Luis had seen everything through the medium of his own happiness, and he described the midnight meal and the Senora's amiability with the utmost freedom from anything unpleasant. Rachela's interference he treated with scornful indifference; and yet it affected Worth's mind unpleasantly. For it went straight to the source of offence. "She must have had ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... had stormed at Westby; but he thought nevertheless that the treatment had been effective and therefore not entirely to be deplored. The boys had thought him soft; he had shown them that he was not; and he determined that from this time forth he would bear down upon them hard. If by showing them amiability and kindliness he had failed to win their respect, he would now compel it by ferocity. He would henceforth show no quarter ...
— The Jester of St. Timothy's • Arthur Stanwood Pier
... personal amiability, enthusiasm, and lucid intelligence, interested a number of disciples who have studied his language called the Alwato, and it may be hoped will not allow it to disappear with the life of its highly gifted and ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887 - Volume 1, Number 7 • Various
... one," said the skipper, in that hearty tone which had an irresistible tendency to put hearers in good humour, and sometimes even raised the growling spirit of Joe Stubley into something like amiability. ...
— The Lively Poll - A Tale of the North Sea • R.M. Ballantyne
... of an entertainment which combined two of his abiding interests, public debate and private theatricals. That was a setting in which he could completely exemplify his favourite recipe for the modern world, that it should be approached in a spirit of intellectual ferocity and personal amiability. But what marked his own contributions to these affairs was the intellectual "ferocity," in the weight and content of his criticism. Most of the eminent men who consented to take part came to play a game for the sake of the Hospitals, ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... instead of walking up and down the room, as he often does, he sat down by me like any other teacher, and heard me play the first movement. It was frightfully hard, but I had studied it so much that I managed to get through with it pretty successfully. Nothing could exceed Liszt's amiability, or the trouble he gave himself, and instead of frightening me, he inspired me. Never was there such a delightful teacher! and he is the most sympathetic one I've had. You feel so free with him, and he develops the very spirit of music in you. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... the Courts of the Church in what was known as the "Marrow Controversy," regarding the merits of an English work, The Marrow of Modern Divinity, which he defended against the attacks of the "Moderate" party in the Church. B., if unduly introspective, was a man of singular piety and amiability. His autobiography is an interesting record of Scottish life, full of sincerity and tenderness, and not devoid of humorous ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... that. In any event, you are the Duc de Puysange, and the weight of a great name stifles stupidity and cleverness without any partiality. With you, cleverness has taken the form of a tendency to intoxication, amours, and—amiability. I have acquiesced in this. But, for ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... of amiability, Mrs Rowland determined on giving the Greys the pleasure of a call from Mr Walcot. In the afternoon, when Fanny was saying her catechism to her mamma, and Mary was repeating a hymn to Sophia, Mrs Rowland's well-known knock was heard, and any religious feelings ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... yourself. I have every confidence in you. I do believe that you love your Saviour, and loving Him, I feel sure that you will not knowingly enter into any very intimate acquaintance with any one who has not the same hope; without which hope, my precious child, there may be much amiability and attractiveness, but can be no solid and ...
— Nearly Lost but Dearly Won • Theodore P. Wilson
... this amiability, the reader will be sorry for my sake to hear that I was quarrelling with M. Paul again before night; yet so it was, and ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... the particularly mild, sweet amiability of the yellow warbler is responsible for the persistent visitations of the cowbird, from which it is a conspicuous sufferer. In the exquisite, neat little matted cradle of glistening milk-weed flax, lined with down from the fronds of fern, the ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... the whole matter is, that, as all of man's and woman's peace and comfort, all their love, all their amiability, all their religion, have got to come to them, while they live in this world, through the medium of the brain,—and as black, uncleansed blood acts on the brain as a poison, and as no other than ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... but he thought a great deal for a few minutes about how much better it would have been if Sam Hardock had treated Dinass with a little more amiability. He quite forgot all about the matter for three days, and then he had fresh news, for Sam Hardock came ...
— Sappers and Miners - The Flood beneath the Sea • George Manville Fenn
... produced her small stock of vocal music. They tried one or two of Mendelssohn's, "I would that my love," and "Greeting," and discovered that they got on wonderfully well together. Vixen fell asleep that night wondering at her own amiability. ...
— Vixen, Volume II. • M. E. Braddon
... vehicle on which to go out to luncheon, she compromised on a pony cart as a substitute, for she could drive almost as well as she could sail. She took comparatively little interest in the garden, and was not always at home at five-o'clock tea to read aloud the latest books; but her amiability and natural gayety were like sunshine in the house. She talked freely of what she did, and she had ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... Court. She charmed Frederick, however, and may have loved him. If so, let us remember that the morals of those days were not those of ours, and not grudge the lonely King his enjoyment of her beauty and amiability. ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... perennially importuning Laurence to take a stroll down to Booyseus, "Just for a constitutional, you know." And the latter would laugh, and good-naturedly acquiesce. It was a cheap way of setting up a character for amiability, he would say to himself satirically; for as yet Holmes hardly suspected he was almost as powerfully drawn thither as Holmes was himself—more powerfully, perhaps—only, with the advantage of years and experience and cooler brain, he ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... reassured herself with the thought that once they were back at Saint Desert she would easily regain her lost hold; and when Raymond suggested their leaving Paris she acquiesced without a protest. But at Saint Desert she seemed no nearer to him than in Paris. He continued to treat her with unvarying amiability, but he seemed wholly absorbed in the management of the estate, in his books, his sketching and his music. He had begun to interest himself in politics and had been urged to stand for his department. This necessitated frequent displacements: trips to Beaune or Dijon and occasional absences in ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... a fit of unwonted amiability, had deigned to carve me out a turnip lantern, an art-and-craft he was peculiarly deft in; and Harold, as the interior of the turnip flew out in scented fragments under the hollowing knife, had eaten largely thereof: regarding ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... question which Borasdine asked. Further along were two women putting fish upon poles for drying, and a third was engaged in skinning a large salmon. The women did not look up from their work, and were not inclined to amiability. They had Mongol features, complexion, eyes, and hair, the latter thick and black. Some of the men wear it plaited into queues, and others let it grow pretty much at will. Each woman I saw had it braided in two queues, which hung over her shoulders. ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... her,—since, after all, truth is invisible, but "first families" are very evident. First families are often very agreeable, undeniably respectable, fearfully virtuous, and it takes great faith to resist an evil principle which incarnates itself in the suavities of their breeding and amiability; and therefore it was that Mrs. Scudder felt her heart heavy within her, and could with a very good grace have joined in the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... Mrs. Gurrey's linty supper-cloth irradiated by the light of intimacy, Vida and Raymie talked about Carol's rose-colored turban, Carol's sweetness, Carol's new low shoes, Carol's erroneous theory that there was no need of strict discipline in school, Carol's amiability in the Bon Ton, Carol's flow of wild ideas, which, honestly, just simply made you nervous trying to keep ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... to the closing paragraph of Mr. Raymond's speech, Mr. Stevens said: "I could not but admire (an admiration mingled with wonder) the amiability of temper, the tenderness of heart, the generosity of feeling which must have prompted some of the closing sentences of the excellent and able speech delivered by the gentleman on last Monday. ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... I ought not to be a perfect horsewoman, and so I should never correspond to your pattern of a lady." Dorothea looked straight before her, and spoke with cold brusquerie, very much with the air of a handsome boy, in amusing contrast with the solicitous amiability ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... very naturally. I told my friends of your accident; how it had frustrated all our summer plans, and what our plans were. I played quite a spirited solo on the fibula. Then I described you; or, rather, I didn't. I spoke of your amiability, of your patience under this severe affliction; of your touching gratitude when Dillon brings you little presents of fruit; of your tenderness to your sister Fanny, whom you would not allow to stay in town to nurse you, and ...
— Marjorie Daw • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... panting for dear life; blue-bloused men in French caps, but bigger and blonder than Frenchmen, and less given to epigrammatic repartee, with mild, blue, beery eyes, a fleur de tete, and a look of health and stolid amiability; sturdy green-coated little soldiers with cock-feathered brigand hats of shiny black, the brim turned up over the right eye and ear that they might the more conveniently take a good aim at the foe before he skedaddled at the mere sight of them; fat, comfortable burgesses ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... at the sight of him. His imposing exterior had such an effect on me that I could only humbly entreat him to excuse me from indicting a second flagellation on myself. He smiled, benignantly, and granted my request with a saintly amiability. "Give me the cat-o'-nine-tails," he said, in conclusion, "and I will keep it for you till you ask me for it again. You are sure to ask for it again, dear child—to ask for it ...
— A Fair Penitent • Wilkie Collins
... arises by reason of goodness and a certain amiability, when one man gives another the notion of being a fine fellow, or brave man, etc., as we said was the case sometimes with those ...
— Ethics • Aristotle
... toilsome troubled morning we came, rather cross from the strain of sustained amiability, to Sir Graham Rivers' house. It seemed all softness and quiet—I recall dead white panelling and oval mirrors horizontally set and a marble fireplace between white marble-blind Homer and marble-blind Virgil, very ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... than before. If there were reasons why he should not go away with the others, as they had all taken it for granted that he would do, was that a reason why he, Gaston, whose father had lost a leg at Gravelotte, should do this masquerading German a service? All the German's amiability and originality did not change that. Perhaps, indeed, that explained the originality and amiability. The German, at any rate, did not seem to trouble himself about it. When Gaston next looked over his shoulder, Magin was lying flat on his back in the bottom of the ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... nugget a few days before, and, in his exultation, had ceased work and become a regular member of the bar. A week's industrious drinking developed in him that peculiar amiability and humanity which is characteristic of cheap whisky, and as Pet was small, ugly and alone, Broady commenced working off on him ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... sun rose on the following morning and this oddly assorted traveling party met to discuss the day's plans, each was so rested and refreshed that an abnormal amiability pervaded the ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond
... His amiability was immediately restored, but his gaiety was somewhat forced. "You are looking charming this morning, Miss Ogden. I wished last night that there was a guitar or even a banjo in the camp, that I might serenade ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... his correct features, which are intelligent and regular, bespeak the Arab patrician. They indicate, however, nothing except his high descent and blood; no traits of character are visible unless there is just a trace of amiability, and perfect contentment with himself and ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... pardon us, Monsieur Bobinet," he said with the most winning amiability, "if we are all in unusually high spirits to-night. You are not aware, perhaps, that our friend Monsieur Jules Charpentier was married this morning, and that we are here in celebration of that happy event. Allow me to ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... least once in their lives, I did not allow the dust to get into my eyes. I was invited to dinners, and fairly showered with invitations to balls and drums and garden parties. I was twitted about the Beauty, most often with only a thin coating of amiability covering the spite of the remark. In short, if my head had not been so heavily laden with other matters, it might well have become light under the strain. Had I been ambitious to enter the arena I should have had but ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... length, but this being in Spanish, is as heathen Greek to our ears. However, Don Sanchez explains that our visitor is excusing his appearance as being forced to change his wet clothes for what the innkeeper can lend him, and so we, grinning to express our amiability, all sit down to table and set to—Moll with her most finicking, delicate airs and graces, and Dawson and I silent as frogs, with understanding nothing of the Dons' conversation. This, we learn from Don Sanchez after supper, has turned chiefly on the ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... offering a great deal both on her part and her husband's to take charge of these two, but it would never do. She is almost a child herself,—a bride and beauty under twenty,—excessively admired, very likely to have her head turned. No, it would be too absurd. All her kindness, amiability, desire to make Marian her friend and companion, would only serve to ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... his junior, had been great friends in the far-off days before the tragedy, but the former was too nearly, though half unconsciously, connected with that to be a possible intimate for Aymer now. The possibility of his turning up in this casual manner, ignoring with ruthless amiability all that had passed, had really never occurred to either father or son, and they were both unprepared for a narrowly escaped crisis. But Aymer was evidently not going to own frankly how great had been the strain and how badly ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... whose talents had made him indispensable in every company, declared that for that day he was the marquise's cavalier, a title which his sister-in-law, with her usual amiability, confirmed. Each of the huntsmen, following this example, made choice of a lady to whom to dedicate his attentions throughout the day; then, this chivalrous arrangement being completed, all present directed their course towards ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE GANGES—1657 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... for three years previous, no more need be said than that he ran Karstens close in strength, pluck, and endurance. Of the best that the mixed blood can produce, twenty-one years old and six feet tall, he took gleefully to high mountaineering, while his kindliness and invincible amiability endeared him to every member of ...
— The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) - A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest - Peak in North America • Hudson Stuck
... man after?' said Mr. Sheepshanks to himself, when he heard of his successor's affability, and sociability, and amiability, and a variety of other agreeable 'ilities,' from the friends whom the old steward still retained ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... of Pepita Ximenez, which I mentioned to you, took place three days ago. As she leads so retired a life, I had not met her before; she seemed to me, in truth, as beautiful as she is said to be; and I noticed that her amiability with my father was such as to give him reason to hope, at least judging superficially, that she will yield to his wishes in the end, and accept ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera
... the newcomer we had at first some slight misgiving, for, amiable as we have just seen him with his Maltese companions, and indeed as he is generally by nature, his is the amiability that comes of conscious power, and is his, so to say, by right of conquest; for of all neighbouring dogs he is the acknowledged king. The reverse of quarrelsome, the peace of his declining years has been won by ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... pen could make him." Diodorus, or rather Ctesias, who may have drawn upon personal reminiscences of his patron, Artaxerxes Mnemon (see Plutarch's Artaxerxes, passim), does not enlarge upon his amiability, and credits him only with the courage of despair. Byron's Sardanapalus, with his sudden transition from voluptuous abandonment to heroic chivalry, his remorseful recognition of the sanctities of wedlock, his general good nature, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... lacking; that it was necessary to begin a new adjustment upon a basis different from the former one. They talked upon indifferent subjects, of what had occurred during the three weeks of Arthur's absence, playing the part of amiability without pleasure, endeavoring to simulate the old relations which no longer ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... not necessary that evening to treat Leslie as Joan had advised. She was amiability itself. After ordering dinner, composed of the most expensive items on the menu, she rested her elbows on the table and announced: "I am going to hire a coach for you three girls. I have the address of an all-around ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... a pause, for George did not speak; and the Cheap Jack, bent upon amiability, repeated his ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... the chair, completely overcome by sorrow and indignation. "You'll be old yerself some day," she sobbed, not noticing that he was stealthily edging toward the door, one eye on her, one on to-morrow's pot-roast. "I tell yew, Tommy," regaining her accustomed confiding amiability, as she lifted the corner of her apron to wipe her eyes, "Miss Ellie will feel some kind o' bad, tew. Yer know me an' her an' Angy all went ter school tergether, although Miss Ellie is so much younger 'n the rest o' us that we call ...
— Old Lady Number 31 • Louise Forsslund
... decayed trees in the forest—those to whom old age on earth is a burden—let them bow to the axe, and be transplanted to a nobler clime. But one in the vigour of life—one so beautifully combining natural amiability with Christian love—one who was pre-eminently the friend of Jesus, and that word profoundly suggestive of all that was lovely in a disciple's character. Death may visit other homes in that sequestered village, and spread desolation in other hearts, ...
— Memories of Bethany • John Ross Macduff
... now that this unpleasant matter is settled, owing to your wonderful amiability, do tell me ...
— The Heart of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... ready access to ministers and noblemen that the occasion afforded him, and his Journal is filled with expressions of his satisfaction. We hear of Lord Palmerston's good-humoured elegance, Lord Lansdowne's amiability, Lord Jeffrey's brilliant conversation, and, most delightful of all, Lord Melbourne's frank, unaffected cordiality. Melbourne, it appears, enjoyed his sittings, for he asked many questions about Hazlitt, Leigh Hunt, Keats, and Shelley, and highly ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... the suitor by her amiability, and was attracted in turn by his ardent nature. She was in a position to advance his interests through her intimacy with Barras, who promised that Napoleon should hold a great position in the army if she ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... the stout proprietress sat intrenched behind the cash-box in a Parisian manner. She looked with practical amiability at her guests, who dined noisily and with great fire, discussing momentous problems furiously, making wide, maniacal gestures through the cigarette smoke. Meanwhile the little handful of waiters ran to and fro wildly. Imperious ...
— The Third Violet • Stephen Crane
... and religious and moral worth. The circumstances of her early life and education are unknown to the writer of this sketch, but must have been such as to develop that purity of mind and manners, that sweetness and amiability of temper, that ready sympathy and disinterestedness of purpose and conduct, which, together with rare conversational and musical powers, she possessed in ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... Fuerstenau, from whom alone he would accept such services, helped him to undress; the effort was a painful one to himself. With his own hand, however, Weber wound up his watch, with his usual punctilious care; then, with all that charm of amiability for which he was conspicuous through life, he murmured his thanks to his friend, and said, 'Now let me sleep.' These were the last words that mortal ear heard the great artist utter. It is clear, however, that Weber must have left his ...
— Among the Great Masters of Music - Scenes in the Lives of Famous Musicians • Walter Rowlands
... nodding his huge square-cut head. This amiability in the matter of leave taking was unusual. Trina put the dishes down and came up to him, her little chin, once ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... reverberations, in the form of interrogations, as to how he, of all men living, could by any chance have got into a wrangle, in a thoroughfare, on London Bridge, of all places in the world!—he, so popular, renowned for his affability, his amiability; having no dislike to common dirty dogs, entirely the reverse, liking them and doing his best for them; and accustomed to receive their applause. And in what way had he offered a hint to bring on him the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... and gray hair and a beard that any patriarch might envy surmounting a figure of fine proportions endowed with all the robustness of healthy maturity,—to see intelligence and years and fine appearance allied to great amiability and a youthful enthusiasm for noble deeds, an enthusiasm which was ready to give blood and treasure to the cause it espoused from love. Such a reality is most exhilarating and delightful, a fact that makes us take a much more hopeful view of humanity. We value our photograph of Colonel Peard ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... mock amiability, meant to irritate. "You can send him in here, Juliar. You're open to." But when in compliance with the woman's curt:—"You hear—you can go in," the boy entered the little back-parlour, he turned on him suddenly and fiercely, saying:—"You're the * * * young nark ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... certain that this Elect lady was not always a pattern of amiability—not what could be called easy to get on with. Before being reproved and chastened we see her in history, as vindictive, unrelenting to pity, eager for retaliation. She would be Clotilde before her repentance—the Queen, before she became ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... sentimental in her company. They overdid flattery, which she was used to and tolerated, but which cheapened the admirer in her estimation, and now and then betrayed her into an expression which made him aware of the fact, and was a discouragement to aggressive amiability. The real difficulty was that not one of her adorers had ever greatly interested her. It could not be that nature had made her insensible. It must have been because the man who was made for her had never ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... a Hawaiian lady of high character and extreme amiability, and both King and Queen have been exemplary ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... snapped and cracked under my touch in a succession of tiny sparks. As soon as I regained my room the golden cat, as usual, appeared before me. I called her to me; she rubbed herself against me with arched back and extended tail, purring the while with the greatest amiability. I took the glass pencil in my hand, moistened the point in the glycerin, and held it out to the animal, which licked it with her long red tongue. I did this three or four times, but the next time ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... as I went into her room, I met an Italian painter with her. She spoke Italian with him, and although he was evidently more artisan than artist, she addressed him with such amiability and modesty, with such respect even, one could not avoid recognizing that nobility of soul which is the true nobility of birth. When the painter had taken his leave, she said to me: "I wish to show you a picture which will please you. The original is in the gallery at Paris. I read a description ...
— Memories • Max Muller
... inclined to think that it is this very tenderness and friendliness in Henry James, this natural amiability of disposition which all his detachment and curiosity cannot kill, that makes him so much more attractive a figure than the sombre Flaubert whose passion for literary objectivism is ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... for post-haste to fill the gap created by the absence of the mistress of the house. "Good!" I remember crying, "she'll be put by ME;" and my apprehension was promptly justified. Mrs. Saltram taken in to dinner, and taken in as a consequence of an appeal to her amiability, was Mrs. Saltram with a vengeance. I asked myself what Miss Anvoy meant by doing such things, but the only answer I arrived at was that Gravener was verily fortunate. She hadn't happened to tell him of her visit to Upper ...
— The Coxon Fund • Henry James
... you kiss an Arkansas girl, she hops as high as a cork out of a champagne bottle, and cries, "Whew, how good!" Catch an Illinois girl and kiss her, and she'll say, "Quit it now, you know I'll tell mamma!" A kiss from the girls of old Williamson is a tribute paid to their beauty, taste, and amiability. It is not accepted, however, until the gallant youth who offers it is accepted as the lord of their hearts' affections, and firmly united with one, his "chosen love," beneath the same bright star that rules their destiny for ever. The common confectionery make-believe kisses, wrapped in ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... Mrs. Smith," said Mrs. Goldsborough, smiling cordially, for she was a fond mother, and also was full of courtesy and amiability; "it will be an unexpected compliment to Julia. She will be flattered that your partiality for her is as warm as ever. We have no engagements for the first of next week. The parties with which my friends will try to spoil Julia do ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... extraordinarily dear, for which reason many a bigwig thought it de bon ton to suffer from chest complaints, so as to have an excuse for using the sugar. The banker himself was a very respectable-looking old gentleman of about seventy, with a face gracious to amiability, and at first sight certainly most taking. Not only the dress, but the whole manner of the man, vividly suggested Talleyrand, one of whose greatest admirers he actually was. His hair was of a marvellously beautiful white, but his face quite red and clean-shaved, and therefore all the fresher ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... to be through trial. The Negro has not been, and will not be, excepted in this regard. The tests of life have been well borne by him and he has clearly demonstrated certain essential elementary characteristics. From slavery is learned his amiability, vitality and patient endurance, and from freedom, the spirit of hope, forgiveness, and his ability for the ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various |
